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J. N. Chaney

Copyrighted Material

The Last Reaper Copyright © 2020 by Variant Publications

Book design and layout copyright © 2020 by JN Chaney

This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, or undead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from JN Chaney.

www.jnchaney.com

http://www.scottmoonwriter.com

1st Edition

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Books in the Renegade Star Universe

Renegade Star Series:

Renegade Star

Renegade Atlas

Renegade Moon

Renegade Lost

Renegade Fleet

Renegade Earth

Renegade Dawn

Renegade Children

Renegade Union

Renegade Empire

Renegade Descent

Renegade Rising

Renegade Alliance

Renegade Evolution

Renegade War

Standalones:

Nameless

The Constable

The Constable Returns

The Warrior Queen

The Orion Colony Series with Jonathan Yanez:

Orion Colony

Orion Uncharted

Orion Awakened

Orion Protected

The Last Reaper Series with Scott Moon:

The Last Reaper

Fear the Reaper

Blade of the Reaper

Wings of the Reaper

Flight of the Reaper

Wrath of the Reaper

Will of the Reaper

Descent of the Reaper

Hunt of the Reaper

Bastion of the Reaper

The Fifth Column Series with Molly Lerma:

The Fifth Column

The Solaras Initiative

The Forlorn Hope

Final Battlefield (Coming soon!)

Resonant Son Series with Christopher Hopper:

Resonant Son

Resonant Abyss

The Galactic Law Series with James S. Aaron:

Galactic Law

Galactic Judge

Galactic Jury

Galactic Executioner

Deadland Drifter Series with Ell Leigh Clarke:

Deadland Drifter

Deadland Wanderer

Deadland Sentinel

Deadland Protector

The Renegade Series:

The Renegade

The Deal

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Contents

Join the Conversation

Connect with J.N. Chaney

Connect with Scott Moon

List of Acronyms

The Last Reaper

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Fear the Reaper

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Blade of the Reaper

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Wings of the Reaper

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Epilogue

Flight of the Reaper

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Epilogue

Wrath of the Reaper

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Epilogue

Renegade Star Universe

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About The Authors

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Join the conversation and get updates on new and upcoming releases in the Facebook group called “JN Chaney’s Renegade Readers.” This is a hotspot where readers come together and share their lives and interests, discuss the series, and speak directly to J.N. Chaney and his co-authors.

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Scott Moon

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List of Acronyms

•AI—Artificial intelligence

•AWOL—Absent without leave

•BMSP—Bluesphere Maximum Security Prison—Ultramax IX

•CD—Climbdown Day

•CIM—Computerized Inmate Monitor

•CV—Curriculum Vitae

•DM—Dreadmax Marines (inmates on Dreadmax, often falsely imprisoned, who have prior military experience and protect people from gangs and cannibals)

•Feg—Fredrick Eugene Grady

•HDK—Highly Destructive Kinetic (weapon / rifle)

•HDK 4—Shortened (11 inch barrel--from the trigger assembly) HDK commonly used by spec ops and law enforcement

•HDK 4 Dominator—Full length (16 inch barrel--from the trigger assembly) HDK with double high capacity magazines and a grenade launcher under the barrel)

•HUD—Heads up display

•LAI—Limited artificial intelligence

•LED—Light Emitting Diode

•LZ—Landing zone

•MRE—Meals Ready to Eat

•NG—Nightfall Gangsters

•QRF—Quick reaction force

•RC—Reaper Corps

•RSG—Red Skull Gangsters

•SD regulator—Slip drive regulator

•UFS—Union Fleet Ship

•UPG—Union Prison Guard

•X-37—Halek Cain's Reaper AI (limited)

•YT—Galdiz 49 rifle, sniper model. (YT is a randomly generated model number)

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1

“Get back in your cell, convict,” ordered the guard while jerking his thumb.

I didn’t know the man’s name, only that he was an ugly jackass who—at two-forty—outweighed me by twenty pounds. I liked to think I was lean and mean, just the type of death row inmate guards should respect.

But they didn’t. Because they were assholes.

I hated assholes. And bullies. And guards. And anyone associated with the Union. My mood always sucked after a bad night with the restraint on my cybernetic left arm. No one wanted me running around with the ultimate shank.

Death row was seriously cramping my style. Living with electric disruption of my hardware was a tingly slice of hell.

The constant pulsing of the sub-dermal disruptor felt like a continual drip of lactic acid into my shoulder and upper back. One of my eyes was artificial, loaded with upgrades that had made me really good at my former job. Whenever I tried to use these features now, a computerized monitor would flood my bloodstream with nausea-inducing meds.

Super unpleasant. And because the Union restraint specialists were sadists, the effect always lasted an hour beyond the offense that triggered the pukefest.

Worse than anything they could do to me were the nightmares associated with why I had the prosthetic.

If my jackbooted babysitters understood what I was, they’d ask for a transfer—maybe sue the warden for putting them in mortal danger and causing all the stress that came with guarding the devil.

“The buzzer hasn’t sounded,” I said, aware this wasn’t what the man wanted to hear from me.

It was pretty damn clear he didn’t know what to do now. Clenching one fist on his stun baton didn’t intimidate me, and he knew it. His taunts were lame, and I had stopped giving a fuck a long time ago. So he stood there stinking like cheap tobacco smoke, trying to slow his beating heart.

I resented him for his poor taste in cigars as much as anything else.

A vein pulsed in his neck. His eyes were too wide. He sweated like a whore in church.

“It’s about to go off,” he said, then looked over his shoulder toward the control station where the riot team waited, even though there weren’t enough people in this wing of the Bluesphere Maximum Security Prison—Ultramax IX—to stage an uprising.

It was mostly just me.

“But it hasn’t gone off,” I countered.

“Why do you argue every time? Makes me look like a punk.”

“And there’s your answer,” I said.

“You better check yourself,” he told me. “Ever felt a stun baton across the bridge of your nose?”

“Not today, I haven’t,” I answered.

He sputtered nonsense, clearly out of insults.

The klaxon alarm overhead that I’d come to dread more than the bad food, shitty plumbing, and lack of Starbrand Cigars, blared with eardrum-damaging force.

I smiled sarcastically. “Happy?”

“Get back in your cell! Do it now!” he commanded.

“You’re glad it’s time, be honest,” I said, goading the beefy man as I retreated into the small vacation home they kept telling me was a five-by-five cell with locked doors. “You don’t really want a shot at the title. You’re all talk, no walk.”

He was relatively new at BMSP—Ultramax IX. Been there about a month. If he’d been one of the regular guards, we’d have more of a history. All we’d done so far was call each other names.

He pushed out his chest. “One of these days I’m gonna educate you.”

“Zero fucks given,” I said, staring him down. “Go back to your circle jerk.”

The bars slammed shut. Why were there bars instead of stainless steel blast doors? Because the Union was cheap.

Never mind that Union spec ops—dark ops specifically—had made me who I was… right before they fucked me.

Their mistake. No one in the Reaper Corps had the foresight to offer a decent retirement option. Now I was too dangerous to release and too valuable to kill.

I hoped.

Not like BMSP death row was a vacation paradise. Probably better than being dead, but not by much. What was an honest killer like me gonna do?

I knew all about the guard’s dialect, and could guess right where he’d grown up, give or take.

I was from the same sort of neighborhood. After I left, I learned that the local gangs had made my mother a widow, so I slipped off post for a few weeks to put the worst of them down. From there, presto—death row for one unmanageable liability to the Union.

Kiss my ass. Train me as a killer specializing in infiltration and assassination and what did they think I would do?

Please.

The guard stared at me like he expected something to happen.

“What?” I asked, cocking my brow.

“You know what. Plug in or I’ll get ten of my friends and do it for you,” he said, trying his best to look intimidating.

“You’d need them.” I was bored with this guy, so I picked up the earbud and put it in. It was actually just an antenna for nerve-ware. The ultra-soft construction wasn’t for my comfort. The security experts of Ultramax IX were worried I’d find a way to weaponize a bead of silicon.

Like I’d do that.

“Happy?” I asked, ignoring the brief struggle between my Computerized Inmate Monitor, or CIM, and X-37, the Reaper nerve-ware the warden’s doctors couldn’t remove even if they had known about it.

“Ecstatic,” he said, glaring. “Now go play with yourself. I’ll be at Gisela’s to see some girls.”

“What’s your name, guard?” I asked.

He wrinkled his lips at the question. “UPG 1592.”

“Your parents must’ve hated you,” I said.

“That’s my badge number: Union Prison Guard 1592,” he said, very seriously.

I stared until he realized I was mocking him. “I pieced that together, but thanks, 1592.”

Snorting profanity, he turned his back on me and dragged his stun club along the bars of other prisoner cells while walking back to the control booth.

“You think I could take him, X?” I asked out loud.

“I am not here to stroke your ego,” said X. The CIM inputs created sound via vibrations of my inner ear, a technique that could be used for compliance through pain. I had X-37 turn that feature off while convincing the CIM it was still shocking the shit out of me.

“What about him and the riot squad?” I asked, climbing into my bunk.

“My advice, Reaper Cain—don’t push your luck,” said X.

I leaned back and smiled, going straight into a structured daydream designed to keep me sane. The smell of tobacco smoke filled my nostrils as my fingers twisted an imaginary Starbrand cigar. Staring at the ceiling, I reminded myself who I was and why this place would never beat me.

My name is Halek Cain, formerly a Reaper in the Union dark ops. So what if I was on death row? Absolutely nothing would break my mind, least of all the guards or the inmates. I would find a way to beat them all, and I’d do it with a smile on my face.

The bastards should have killed me.

* * *

“Inmate Cain, it is thirty-nine seconds past reveille.” The CIM’s cheap, slightly digitized voice was my constant companion, almost as annoying as the electric disruption of my cybernetics. The implant had one job—monitor my every move and mood. Behavior modification was something the warden added against senate approval.

I didn’t blame the man. He was smart. Not ruthless enough to have me killed, but he did his best to be a prick.

The Reaper nerve-ware allowed the crude tech to do its thing, preferring to lurk in the digital shadows until needed, like I normally did during long infiltration missions.

Sometimes, I think X antagonizes the CIM, urging it to give me a hard time or generally make my life difficult. Maybe I’m anthropomorphizing both of the limited AIs. But maybe not. Stranger things have happened.

“Inmate Cain, it is now forty-nine seconds past reveille. Get out of bed and perform the required daily hygiene outlined in regulation 0450-a-1,” said the CIM.

“What’s in it for me?” I asked.

“Proper hygiene is good for your body, Inmate Cain. More importantly, rules are rules. Time to get up. I must harass you until you sit up, wash your face, brush your teeth, and have a bowel…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m up,” I groaned.

“You have a meeting with Warden James Esquire III at 0830 hours. Regulations require you to groom and present yourself at the bars at precisely 0815, Union Standard Time,” continued the CIM in its tinny inflection.

“What’s in it for me?” I asked again.

“Repetitive questions will only delay your routine,” the CIM said.

The damn thing was learning.

I brushed my teeth with paste from an edgeless wall dispenser using my finger. Toothbrushes were far too dangerous for someone like me to possess. Everything I needed oozed from holes in the wall—toothpaste, body soap, food, and water. Twice a day, I got to put some of these gifts down a hole that opened at precisely 0755 and 1755 hours.

“You wanna answer, X, since I’m working so hard to make myself presentable?” I asked. “What’s the warden so fired up about that CIM can’t talk about it?”

“You will be offered a chance to leave Ultramax IX for forty-nine standard hours plus transit time,” replied X-37.

I froze with one toothpaste-y finger still in my mouth. “Wha—”

“The warden will explain what you must do.” This was CIM again. The rhythm of its digitized speech distinguished it from my more refined Reaper nerve-ware.

Shaking my head, I finished my morning rituals. “He already explained the only thing I had to do in here is die.”

* * *

Commander Briggs leaned against the warden’s desk with his arms and ankles crossed.

If the disrespectful posture bothered the warden, I couldn’t tell. This man had spent most of his adult life in special operations. He’d gone to the Naval Academy on a netball scholarship and was slightly taller than me. None of the guys I’d served with during my time in spec ops had been burdened with beach muscles or pumped up with steroids and bro-split workouts the way the warden seemed to be.

Guys like this were strong as hell and could run and fight all day with no need for relief, or drag a sled full of gear across a harsh, alien landscape.

Commander Briggs was no different. He had most of the same scars as me, but nothing obvious unless you knew where to look—slash marks on his hands, a burn behind his left ear mostly covered by his short hair, and something in his eyes that was every bit as real as the physical damage a life at war had caused him.

Scars could be informative when you understood what they cost, what they really meant. Shrapnel gifted me with a vertical groove through my left eyebrow that continued down my cheek. My sergeant had told me to keep my visor down, but I was never very good at taking advice.

Oops.

I knew better than to mess with anyone from spec ops. I’d been there done that before getting plucked for dark ops, where my training not only got harder but weirder. Long story.

Not many people made it through Reaper training. Fewer stayed in the field half as long as I did. There weren’t many of us left.

“Warden,” Briggs said without looking at the man whose office he had invaded.

“Yes, Commander?”

“Get out.”

James Esquire III, Warden of Bluesphere Maximum Security Prison, left without a word. The wood-paneled door clunked shut and sealed in a way that made it very clear it wasn’t made from wood.

“Kind of gloomy in here,” I said, stalling while I looked around and took stock of what was in the room. I suspected there was at least one recording device and perhaps a quick reaction force waiting behind a hidden door. “Mind if we turn on some lights?”

Briggs punched a button on the desk, illuminating the room. “You’re quick. I bet you know everything about this room from that one glance. And I’m guessing you already have at least part of an escape plan formed based on that information.”

“It’s not my escape you should be worried about, but what I’d do before I attempted it.”

“Like kill me?” he asked, nonchalantly.

Shrugging, I selected a leather couch and flopped down. Stretched out, I felt almost human—determined to forget about my tiny cell for as long as possible. “I don’t really know you, so don’t piss your pants. Besides, the warden’s as much a prisoner here as I am. No one can get out of this office without permission. There’s a door behind that stuffed gazelle. Did you replace his security team with your own quick reaction force?”

“What makes you think that’s where the door is? Just looks like some tasteless taxidermy and a wall to me.”

“The gazelle is cheap. The warden’s not gonna want his goons knocking over the tiger or the bear. And you can see where it’s been moved. Wear marks on the floor.” I waved a hand at the grooves dismissively. “Probably actually attached to the sliding door. What are we doing here, Commander?”

Briggs took a short tour of the room, popping his knuckles then rolling his neck. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was looking forward to a fight.

“You’re on death row. I never liked you when you were with spec ops and didn’t hear good things about your career after that. So let’s not pretend we’re going to be buddies. I’m here to offer you special treatment in return for certain services you might render the Union.”

“Great. I’ve always wanted to go on another suicide mission,” I replied sarcastically.

He ignored that. “I’ve read all of your mission debriefs and can tell you this will probably be a walk in the park for you.”

“You act like I’m going to do it. Don’t make assumptions. Life is easy here. Maybe someday I’ll be executed, but how is that different than dying out there with you?”

Briggs laughed. “You’re not gonna work with me. I’ll watch your every move, sure. You’ll take orders from me. But the last place you will be is with me on the battlefield. I don’t trust anybody who’s been in dark ops more than a week, and Reapers are freaks.”

“And yet here we are,” I said, spreading my hands wide.

Briggs stood near the couch at a slight angle that gave him the advantage if I abandoned my extremely comfortable slouch to attack him. He looked bigger and more pissed off than when I first saw him by the desk.

“Let me shuck it down to the cob for you. I have a mission that you’re going on—like it or not. In return, you get special treatment. All you have to do is recover one VIP from a tough spot.”

“Tell me again what you mean by special treatment.”

“I won’t have you executed tomorrow.”

“Oh! Tomorrow. You know what, that might be a relief. Let’s do it. I want to see if you have the authority to quash my appeal that’s been in limbo for two years.”

“Don’t test me,” warned the commander, lowering his voice.

“There’s a catch. Something you’re not telling me. Hostage rescue is a mission that spec ops trains for. You don’t need me.”

He shrugged. “The individual in question is a doctor lost on a humanitarian mission. He’s connected—not the type of person my bosses are going to forget about.”

“Stop bullshitting me, or we’re done,” I said.

“The humanitarian mission was on Dreadmax.”

“Dreadmax? You want me to infiltrate the place the warden threatens to send me if I misbehave? The place worse than death row at BMSP? Put me back in my cell. I have an appointment at 1755 hours.”

“Godsdammit, Cain! I’m giving you a chance for a pardon and you’re making toilet jokes. Drop the tough guy act and listen. You have the best infiltration record in the Union. Orders of magnitude more successful than anyone else in spec ops or dark ops combined. Better yet, you are, how can I say it, accustomed to incarceration,” Briggs said.

I couldn’t take this bullshit anymore, so I stood up. He stepped back, probably seeing the look on my face and wondering how many people I’d shanked since being in prison. “This place isn’t a mouse fart compared to Dreadmax. Here we have asshole guards, unreasonable curfews, and shitty food. That place is probably run by cannibals and crazies by now. Whoever your VIP is, he’s dead or worse. But most of all, you’re forgetting what kind of infiltration I did.”

“You brought people out of Glandar, Roxo III, and Kanick’s World,” he insisted.

“Those were kidnappings, except Roxo. That was an assassination and I only brought the body out as proof of death,” I corrected.

“Pretend it’s a kidnapping. Keep the principal alive, and it’s no different.”

“Dreadmax isn’t like going to a planet,” I said, thinking of the legendary environment shields covering parts of the station’s surface.

“We have full schematics and state-of-the-art surveillance you can use to plan your infiltration and exfiltration route,” he offered, as if that would sway me.

I wasn’t even thinking about taking this deal, and he probably knew it. “Schematics from when? When it was a system defense platform?”

His embarrassed expression told me I was right. Their intelligence on Dreadmax was shit. I’d be going in blind and without support. No matter what he said about this being easy compared to my prior missions, this was a one-way trip. He probably wanted me to find this lost puppy so he could send in his own teams and leave me there to die.

“We have the original architectural plans and the maintenance records up to the point it was turned into a correctional facility.”

“Dumping ground, you mean.”

“There is limited power, gravity, and life-support, so I seriously doubt the criminals we dropped in there have made a lot of changes.”

I took a few seconds. “Briggs, you’re a total son-of-a-bitch. You’ve got to know all of your troops hate your guts. Hell, it takes a certain type of officer to knowingly send men off to die, and you’re exactly the kind to do it without a second thought. Far as I know, you’re trying to march me into a suicide run.”

“Think what you want, but the whole point of a mission like this is extraction. If you die, then the mission fails,” he said, unmoved by my casual insults. “Give me an answer or I’m sending you back to your cell.”

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2

The warden’s office was nice. Threats about having me executed seemed abstract and distant compared to having to leave. I walked around the room until I found the liquor cabinet and opened it. Pulling out a bottle, I looked over my shoulder at Briggs. “You mind?” I asked.

He glared at me. “Stop fucking around. You went AWOL and killed seventeen people. There’s a reason you’re on death row. Frankly, talking to you makes me want to toss my lunch.” The commander’s eyes lingered on my prosthetic—a deadly tool when the nerve-ware wasn’t being disrupted by BMSP safety protocols.

I twisted the cork out, grinding my teeth and resisting the urge to turn the bottle into a weapon. He had to realize I could beat him to death before his QRF made it through the door. “They were gangsters and they murdered my father and a bunch of other people I grew up with. Bastards, every last one of them, and they deserved what I gave them.”

“Doesn’t matter what they did. That’s why we have a justice system. You had no right to go full vigilante. You did, however, have an obligation to stay with your unit and follow orders.”

“Briggs, my unit conducted counterinsurgencies, kidnappings, and assassinations. You’re gonna honestly stand there and tell me there’s a difference?” I raised my brow as we locked eyes. “Don’t be so naive.”

“You know there is,” he answered, overlooking my use of his name instead of his title. “Screwed up as the galaxy might be, and no matter how unfair you think it is, society operates on law and order. You killed—”

“I’ve killed a lot more than seventeen people and you know it. Some of them”—I spared him a glance—“I killed for you.”

He shrugged. “During a state of war, but those were never personal. Even if you ignore the law, that’s the difference.”

I drank from the bottle. The amber liquid burned all the way down.

He continued. “I didn’t come here to ask you. You’re doing this mission, one way or another.”

I looked at the bottle of allegedly expensive whiskey. “Someone needs to tell the warden he got robbed. This is horse piss.”

Briggs didn’t take the bait. I put the bottle down and faced him. “Did you read the part of my file where I don’t respond well to authority figures?”

“That’s why I never liked you. When you were in spec ops, the officers were always complaining about your shitty attitude.”

“I’m not doing your mission. Go get your little lost sheep yourself.”

He sighed, pausing a moment before finally shaking his head. “Wrong answer, Cain.”

* * *

As beatings went, the one I received after telling Commander Briggs off was one for the record books. There was a lot of profanity and cracks about his mother and certain animals. Maybe I taunted the guards a bit more than I should have, but I didn’t think it was a stretch to assume they enjoyed the company of wild boars. I mean, it certainly would have explained a few things.

Curling into a ball in the corner of my cell where I was sometimes allowed to take a less than private shower did nothing to stop the bleeding or slow the swelling. Something heavier than mist but less dense than actual water came down from the ceiling and rinsed a layer of the blood and grime from my face and body. It was cold, so I was confident it wasn’t urine this time.

Fucking guards.

I couldn’t blame this on Briggs, no matter what kind of unfair asshole he was. Spec ops doesn’t stoop to bullying. They’d have given me a chance to fight back. Code of honor and all that.

Regardless, I was a fucking mess right now and seriously wondered if a different answer would have saved me a beating. Hadn’t had one like this in months.

Boot marks decorated my body. I held up my left arm and examined it, the worst of my pain originating there. The tread impressions were nearly perfect. I could track a man across a planet from prints like that.

Breathe, Cain. Forget about it. Figure out what you need to do.

As I lay there, my mind swam with options while I tried to work out what to do next. I was damn sure about two things: I was sick of this place, and Commander Briggs wasn’t going to take no for an answer. Clearly.

Telling him to fornicate with a razor boar hadn’t been smart. All I got was a serious ass-beating, and I would still have to do what they wanted.

Well, maybe I didn’t have to, but they’d keep this up until I either agreed to it or died. One of those two options was preferable to the other. I just had to decide which.

What exactly had they lost on Dreadmax? Based on all of this, it sure didn’t seem like some no-name doctor.

What I should’ve done was rest until they sent me one of their poorly educated, underpaid medics. I’d probably get some decent pain meds and stitches.

The problem was time. Whatever Briggs had in store for me was going to happen soon. I needed to have his secrets figured out before then.

I’d heard of humanitarian missions to prisons. Some of my best conversations since arriving here had been with do-good volunteers. I wished I’d asked what kind of doctor this mysterious good Samaritan was supposed to be. For now, I assumed he was a medical doctor and that it was possible he went to the worst penitentiary in the galaxy to do good deeds.

Laughing hurt and I spent several minutes trying to stop. Everything Briggs said was half-truth. He wanted me to find someone, and that someone was important. What I needed to know was what Briggs planned to do with me when it was over.

Fuck it. Anyplace was better than here. I’d rather go on a mission to hell than spend one more night in this cell, which made me wonder why I’d refused.

I crawled to my bed and pulled the scratchy blanket over my battered form. Several revelations occurred at the moment I was slipping into unconsciousness. The doctor was probably actually a scientist who had been doing some illegal shit where no one thought it would matter.

Which basically made it a mission for someone in dark ops. Someone expendable. It might even be a mission for a Reaper.

* * *

“Inmate Cain, you are required to wake up. You’ve slept one minute and nineteen seconds past reveille. If you do not move from your bunk in five seconds, I will be forced to initiate a stimulus,” said the voice of CIM in my ear.

By stimulus, he meant one hell of a shock delivered into my spine. Not lethal or even debilitating but very unpleasant. I’d had worse, like the time a pissed-off guard stepped on my face.

“Please acknowledge, Inmate Cain.”

“Yeah, yeah. Wouldn’t want to get in trouble with the man.”

“Correct,” replied the CIM.

“What do you think, X?”

“Please refrain from attempting contact with your X-37 Reaper AI,” the CIM said.

Neither the CIM nor X-37 were true artificial intelligences. Their specs listed them as limited AIs. Within that broad designation, there was a world of variation. A CIM was like a more sophisticated ankle bracelet. X-37 was completely different. It helped me navigate strange worlds and murder people—a standard of usefulness the CIM could only dream of.

“Do you really want to risk contact?” X-37 said, his voice sounding distant and scratchy. As part of my cybernetic upgrades, he couldn’t be removed, only quarantined. But Reaper implants like X-37 rarely came without a downside. Interaction with X brought certain consequences.

“Please check the earbud, Inmate Cain. I’m losing connectivity with BMSP servers,” the CIM ordered.

The earbud was only an antenna. The actual hardware was wired someplace I’d never found.

I massaged the earbud. “What’s on the schedule, X? I’m tired of CIM. Make him shut the fuck up.”

X-37 made a quiet beep that indicated he was about to give me information. It was a weird glitch that I attributed to damage from an earlier mission.

“You are to remain in your cell for a visitor.”

“Details?”

“None available at this time.”

Another alert warned me I didn't have much time to shit and shower. I only wished I could shave, but that was something they did for me during medical checkups.

Thankfully, the military had taught me to be quick and efficient. As a result, I had some idle time before my visitor arrived.

“Are you daydreaming, Reaper Cain?” asked X-37.

“You got a problem with that?”

“Sometimes your heart rate increases. At other times, it decreases. It makes it difficult for me to anticipate your needs.” A pause. “I don’t have the capacity for imagination.”

“Not really my problem,” I muttered. “But thanks for interrupting.”

“Insincerity and sarcasm detected,” acknowledged the A.I.

* * *

There were things an inmate could do besides stare into space when there was nothing but time. I’d tried them all. When I was bored with dreams and old memories, I would perform physical and mental exercises or meditate. There wasn't time for the former at the moment, so I did some stretching and then sat cross-legged on my bed to calm myself.

“Your heart rate is forty-six beats per minute and your respiration steady,” noted X-37.

“I didn’t really need to know that, but thanks for the insight.”

“You’re welcome, Reaper Cain.”

The paint inside Ultramax IX was tan, I thought. Or maybe it was just dirty. Didn’t matter. I knew the look of every crack in the veneer. Underneath the paint was nothing but engineered concrete reinforced with steel—a simple design made to last.

This place was made to keep people like me locked away forever. A depressing thought, but there it was.

Good thing I was going on a field trip.

At the end of the hallway, far out of my view, one of the main doors opened. It had that sound of a heavy slab of metal slamming. Men were talking, but I couldn’t make out the words.

Footsteps.

Another door.

Warning klaxons ringing overhead.

The door to death row.

If I were paranoid, I’d have assumed my visitor was taking his or her—let's be hopeful here—sweet time to make me feel a little more uncomfortable. Add a little dramatic effect for whatever show they were about to give me.

That would make them stupid, though, because no one knew the waiting game better than an inmate on this block.

"Inmate Cain, your heart rate is accelerating. Are you anticipating a confrontation?" asked CIM.

"That's none of your business, but sure. Why not? Why would I think I might be beaten or interrogated or put in isolation? Like that’s ever happened," I mocked.

By the time I ended the conversation with my cybernetic monitor, I'd identified who was coming to see me. Made me proud, actually. It'd been a while since I'd identified a person by the sound of their footsteps.

Frederick Eugene Grady, one of my old spec op buddies, sent the guards back the way they’d come so we could have some privacy. He moved closer and talked to me through the bars.

"You can come in if you want," I said.

He laughed. "You never change, Hal. From what Briggs tells me, this is a waste of time anyway. I'm not sure why we bother to ask when we can just put a gun to your head."

I smirked. “You always were a smooth talker, Feg.”

“You know I hate that name.”

I shrugged. “Life’s hard, then you die in a maximum-security prison—as the victim of a scientific experiment. Or, best of all, fighting for the Union, who doesn’t give two—”

“You know you don’t have a choice,” he interrupted. “Take the mission or you’ll get lethal injections tomorrow—and they’ll be poorly administered. Sick bastards know how to make it pure torture. They saved you specifically for something like this. If you won’t cooperate, why bother with such a huge pain in the ass?” Grady asked.

“Fuck off, Feg.” I used his initials because he hated the nickname, which meant that was all we called him before dark ops recruited me from spec ops.

“Could you use my real name one time?”

“We’re done,” I said, firmly.

“Remember AIT? Those were good times,” he said. “Back when we were soldiers for the Union with nothing but bad pay to complain about.”

The room was too hot and I was tired of working out in the corner and staring at the ceiling after lights out. Talking to myself. Imagining life outside this cell. Dreaming of a chance to go on a mission.

“What’s it gonna be, Hal?”

“I don’t work for the Union anymore.”

“That’s not an answer,” he said with a huff, exasperation filling his voice.

“It is.”

* * *

Sitting on death row was one thing. Getting served notice was another. My seventeen-month-old appeal was thrust onto the fast-track—reviewed and denied about five seconds after I refused the suicide mission. Briggs woke a judge up with a secure gal-net link and put a rush on circumvention of every constitutionally guaranteed protection of my due process.

“Union prosecutors followed every law to the letter. But they know people and how to get things done,” Briggs said, leaning against the back wall like neither of us were killers and I wasn’t about to get tortured to death.

“How long, Doctor?” he asked.

“Not long now. I’m drawing up anti-anxiety meds to calm the patient before we begin.” The doctor looked like a mad scientist. He only worked about three days a year and didn’t shave or brush his teeth during his enforced sabbatical—or so it seemed.

“Inmate,” Briggs corrected.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Halek Cain is an inmate condemned to death, not a patient,” explained Briggs.

“Of course.”

“Tell me I’m wrong, Hal,” Briggs said.

I ignored him. Other things occupied my thoughts—restraints that were too tight, the exact layout of the rooms and hallways between my cell and the execution chamber, shitty food.

It was unfair as hell but no surprise. My last meal—steak and potatoes—had tasted bland and I was pretty sure most of the guards had spit in it.

Or worse.

There wasn’t a way to escape this. Once, about halfway here, I thought that if I could get past the cafeteria into the maintenance locker room…

“Hey, I’ve been thinking,” I said, suddenly.

The death doctor stopped with one hand on the lethal injection switch. Briggs glared at me. The audience behind the one-way glass probably put down their wine glasses.

“I’ll do it. Send me to Dreadmax. I’ll find your stupid scientist.”

Briggs almost looked disappointed, but I knew him well enough to understand he was pissed I forced him to take this all the way to the end of the line before giving in.

“Doctor,” Briggs said.

“Sir?”

“Get out.”

“I really can’t do that,” said the doc, shaking his head. “There are procedures. Concerns for the welfare of anyone about to be pardoned or otherwise take a plea bargain.”

“If you don’t get out, I’ll snap your neck,” Briggs replied in an emotionless tone.

That did the trick. The doctor scurried to the door. “Leaving now. Just don’t pull out any of the intravenous tubes unless you have the training to do so.”

“Out,” repeated Briggs.

Moments later, I was alone with the spec ops commander.

He crossed his arms. “No more games. If you take this deal, I expect your professional best until we’re done.”

“As long as you don’t ask me to kill anyone. This is a hostage rescue all the way.”

“It’s going to get rough. You may have to fight.”

“That’s different. I’ll do what it takes to keep myself alive, but I’m not doing political assassinations or cleansing,” I said.

“Fine,” he agreed with a reluctant, albeit relieved tone. “Be a killer with a conscience. Whatever flies your ship, but finish the mission and do what we need. That’s all anyone cares about.”

“I’ll get it done,” I told him.

“Excellent,” he said. “Then I guess I should say welcome to the team, you stubborn bastard.”

OceanofPDF.com

3

Grady returned with two guys I didn't know. I assumed they were on his spec ops team, part of a security element. Probably badasses who specialized in mixed martial arts and who’d been hired to kill me if things went south.

I hadn't been popular among my peers, even when I was spec ops, but I thought most of them could empathize with my situation. Their masters could turn on them at any moment, the same way they had with me.

Maybe not the spec ops guys, but definitely anyone who'd seen something the folks upstairs didn’t want other people to know.

All three of them were average height and build, unless you knew what to look for. Walking down the street, they'd look like normal guys. None of them had the over-muscled physiques of bodybuilders, but I had no doubt they were strong as hell and ready to throw down.

Grady's knuckles were covered with massive scars from all the fights he’d been in. He had another that ran from his upper lip down across his chin—not unlike the shrapnel wound ten years ago that nearly claimed the eye I was born with. We used to tell him he should grow out some facial hair and cover that ugly scar up, but he never did.

Death row wasn’t like other prisons, or other parts of prisons. No one cat-called me or harassed my escorts. We didn’t really know each other, and few of us had the energy for those types of shenanigans. We were doing our time and facing our end in our own way.

When the last prison gate slammed behind me, I realized this was actually happening. I was leaving this place, maybe for good, and it felt like waking from a long dream.

Grady and his two buddies escorted me quickly to a shuttle full of humorless soldiers. From there, we entered a slipspace tunnel. The pilot refused to fill me in on the flight plan, so I could only guess our destination.

Not that it really mattered. They handcuffed me to a table in a briefing room, forcing me to listen to the briefing we were about to have. I guess they knew me well enough to know I probably would have opted to crash in my room for the duration of the flight.

Briggs always entered a room the same way, fast and pissed off. He slammed down a pad on the huge table as other members of the team filled the room. These were officers and handlers, very important people who planned things so that other people could do the fighting and dying.

Grady moved to the back with a couple of other spec ops guys to listen and take notes.

“All right, Cain,” began Briggs. “This briefing is for you. Everyone else knows the whats, whys, and wherefores. So we’ll get down to the details you need to know and start getting you fitted for your gear. We’ll be entering a slip tunnel soon, which will take us to the system in question. Don’t ask. You don’t need to know where it is.”

“I know what system Dreadmax is located in,” I commented.

The officers and intelligence types murmured and typed alarmed messages into their pads. One put a hand to his ear and hurriedly left the room like the sky had just fallen.

Briggs leaned toward the table and stared down at me where I was handcuffed in my chair. “Thanks. For that.”

“No problem. When you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. I didn’t think that was a secret, or why would you have told me where I was going?”

What followed was an awkward silence. Maybe some of the officers were pissing their pants as their careers evaporated from what they already saw as a failure. Hard to say in a room like this, but one thing was certain: this mission was such that failure meant a lot of resignations, with enough blame to destroy lives.

And I was at the center of it.

None of them could imagine going in alone to Dreadmax and bringing out a hostage or prisoner or whatever this guy was. I’d been in dark ops long enough to know anything they told me needed to be taken with a grain of salt. And a shot of whiskey, if possible.

“Your mission is simple, or at least straightforward,” began Briggs. “Doctor Paul Hastings was lost on Dreadmax during a humanitarian mission. You were selected due to your training and specializations. We will insert you with a small team who will provide overwatch and extraction once you have located and secured the target.” Briggs flipped through several pages on his device to check details. Apparently, few of them were for my edification.

By team, Briggs meant the group of elite operators who would watch my every move without actually helping. I’d take all the risk and they’d do…whatever.

“This is a good deal for a retired spec ops guy like you,” I said to Briggs. “Giving out orders and walking us through it like a middle grade teacher. Probably makes you long for the good ol’ days.”

My old friend Grady suppressed a smile. Other operators laughed openly.

“I’m active duty,” said Briggs, curling his lip in annoyance.

“Hard to say with a face like yours,” I said with a shrug.

Briggs activated several screens. “Check yourself and pay attention. You won’t be able to come back and ask me questions when shit goes sideways.”

“Okay. How big is the quick reaction force if I find the principal and can’t rescue him unassisted? What if there are casualties? What’s the rally point?” I asked, firing questions at him.

An officer who didn’t name himself moved forward. “You’re putting too much thought into this. You go straight in, grab the target, and come straight out. That’s it. Don’t get creative.”

“Why don’t him and his guys do that?” I said as I hooked my thumb toward Grady and his squad of elite soldiers.

They gave me half answers and straight-out lies. I knew there were two reasons I was going on this mission. One, they didn’t care if I died, and two, there was going to be some killing involved. “Am I bringing Hastings out or taking him out?”

The unnamed officer went white as a sheet. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

A glance at Briggs, then Grady, confirmed my suspicions. Not everyone in this room understood what I was. The pretentious schmuck telling me not to get creative would probably shit his pants if he knew I was a Reaper.

Arguments broke out. Briggs glared like he wanted to throat punch me.

“Everyone settle,” said Briggs, casting a glance around the room. “Cain knows he’s expendable, and that’s a big part of the reason for his selection. But I can’t overstate the fact that his training and his track record in deep infiltration into hostile areas is unequaled.”

“All true,” I said, taking a paper cup and drinking its contents, which turned out to be water when I was hoping for coffee.

Briggs launched into his serious-as-hell commander’s voice. “I also know you’re too proud to do this half-assed and you’ll go all the way to get him back. The fate of the Union depends on his recovery, and that’s no shit this time. He has someplace to be. You’ll get him in twenty-four hours or go back on death row. Grady and his team are good, but not even they have that for motivation.”

“What happens after twenty-four hours?” I asked.

“People die. So don’t be late.” Briggs gave Grady a hand signal. “Get Cain kitted out. Make sure he’s proficient. Jerking off in a prison cell probably hasn’t done much for his combat efficiency.”

“You’d be surprised,” I said, right before I was escorted from the dimly lit room.

* * *

The Armory on the ship said a lot about what type of vessel we were on. The UFS Thunder was far larger than I expected. I wondered if we were going to rescue a doctor or start a war. There were enough lockers to equip a company of soldiers. Fortunately, none of them were here now. We left our escort outside the door.

"I was getting worried," I said, walking around still handcuffed near my waist. After I counted the lockers and looked for various wear marks that might indicate the age of the ship, I faced Grady and his two tough guys.

He walked to a table in the center of the armory where the gear I'd be wearing was stacked. "About what?"

"I've got a better imagination than you, Grady. If I said I wasn't worried about getting stuck into some sort of experiment with a high mortality rate, I'd be lying."

"Get over here so I can explain this stuff."

I sauntered over, still deep in my assessment of this room. If I were to make an escape attempt, this place would be important one way or another. Whoever came after me would be armed from this room. There was a door to a powered-armor-equipping area and another to bots and drones.

“Why don’t you just send these soldiers down to storm the place and clean up with your spec ops guys?"

The slow look he gave me confirmed my suspicion. That was probably an option.

"Holy shit, Grady. What type of people are we running with?"

Instead of answering, he pulled out an HDK 4 with a silencer. A moment later, he placed a pistol, also with a silencer, down and lined it up precisely with the first weapon. I had forgotten that about my old friend. He was compulsive.

"I bet you still have three t-shirts perfectly folded in your locker on top of your other inspection-ready uniforms."

"You got a problem with that?" he asked, furrowing his brow.

"No. What about body armor?" I separated the stack of gear into equally neat piles and lifted up a ballistic vest.

"Put it on so Sergeant Crank can check the fitting. It should be pretty close, because we have your exact height and weight measurements from your CIM,” Grady said.

“How about we save some time and do it all at once?" When I'd geared up from head to toe, I turned around and spread my arms from Crank to check my work. There was a weird moment when I thought he might pat me down, but he checked all the straps and tie-downs with methodical professionalism instead.

"You're good to go. Looks like you stayed in better shape than the other assholes on death row," Crank said. Up close, he looked like he could probably deadlift two or three times his own weight despite his deceptively lean build. I made a quick note of his flexibility, because he seemed to have a hard time getting up and down.

Maybe that was from a recently completed workout or a nagging injury, but it didn't matter. If this guy came after me, I'd use the information accordingly. If he was the one coming to save me, I hoped he’d suck it up and get the job done.

"Happy?" Grady asked.

I wasn't happy because they knew they could do better. "You took the stuff straight off the rack. The HDK has to be ten years old."

"Where we are going, simple is better. Get in, get out—"

“Take me back to my cell on death row," I cut him off.

Grady cursed under his breath and looked at his feet before meeting my gaze. "Listen, Hal, I'm not trying to fuck you. Believe whatever you want about Briggs and the mission planners, but you and I fought together and I'm not hanging you out to dry."

"He fought for this gear," Sergeant Crank interjected.

"There were several people who thought you could do this without being armed,” Grady continued. “It was a two-hour argument. I had to threaten to quit just to get you this much stuff. So stop breaking my balls. I'll be handling overwatch with my team, and believe it or not, I know how to run a QRF. This mission sucks, I'm not going to try and dress it up. But when was the last time you were on a mission that you felt good about from the beginning?"

"Touché." I spent some time playing with the guns: aiming, dry firing, taking them apart and putting them back together. The armor was what really pissed me off. It was dumb gear, no digital enhancements whatsoever. On the bright side, it was less likely they could track me remotely from the armor—or cut the power because it didn’t have power.

"How close are you gonna be, Grady?" I asked.

"You'll have sub-dermal monitoring implants for tracking. Comms will be extremely limited due to the environment shield holding Dreadmax together.”

"Sounds like an ankle bracelet for a parolee," I said, scoffing.

He lifted his hands in an oh well gesture. "Pretty much."

"For the record, the stuff is junk. When this goes sideways, and you know it will, you can tell whoever is in charge of this fandango it failed because they didn't let me plan it."

"I already told him you'd say that."

* * *

There were a dozen cafeterias on a ship the size of the UFS Thunder, some larger than others. Grady and his two buddies took me to the smallest and stood guard while I ate. I waved a hand toward the prepackaged food. "Help yourself."

Grady crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "I wasn't sure how much you’d need."

"Are you going to just stare at me while I shovel this crap down?"

"Has to be better than what you ate on death row."

"Food is just food. Fuel for the machine. Give me a chocolate bar, and we'll talk."

Grady nodded toward one of the packets in the meal ready-to-eat. "You never know what you’re going to get."

I skipped ahead and tore open the small package with my teeth. It was full of some chewy, fruit-flavored candy. I threw the entire handful into my mouth at once and mashed it, thinking it might grow on me.

"Any more details than they gave in the briefing?” I asked. “Does this guy have medical needs? Allergies?"

"Finish your food, and we’ll hit the range,” replied Grady, not really answering my questions. “Then we'll run through some training exercises, make sure you're still sharp."

"I'm good to go right now," I said, slapping both hands hard on the table and standing abruptly. A jolt of electricity shot through my left arm. For a hot second, I thought they’d left the prison restraint software active.

Grady and his men flinched and tightened their security. I pocketed some of the soft candies from the other MREs without letting them see it just to see if I could do it.

If they realized I had palmed the items, they didn't let on. Grady wanted me to sharpen my skills, so I was going to sharpen all of them. "Let's do this!"

"He's a fucking lunatic," said the third man who I didn't know yet. His name tape suggested he was called Maverick.

He looked like as much fun as a spec ops field manual.

Grady walked in front of me, and the other two followed. We didn't encounter any crew-members, which confirmed Briggs had more than just my old friend and his goons monitoring me right now. This was an elaborate operation, perfectly coordinated between spec ops and ship security. I had to be impressed.

"Quite a hike," I remarked, surveying my surroundings. My left eye revealed evidence of deep, sonic cleaning. This corridor had been prepped well.

"It's a big ship," Grady said without looking back.

"Battleship?" It was a test question. I still wasn't sure how friendly my old friend was. Would he save me when the chips were down or leave me to fend for myself?

"Destroyer class. But you already knew that."

"How would I know that?" Looking back at Crank and Maverick, I gave them a winning smile. "I was in dark ops, not the Fleet."

Sergeant Crank didn't answer.

Grady stopped at the door and swiped the security card. "It's a VR range. Better than the real thing."

"Says you."

Inside, I realized it was not only a virtual reality facility, but a small, infrequently used one. Probably for fleet officers who only used it once or twice a year the day before mandatory qualifications.

Grady waved his hand at the practice weapons. I stepped forward and started with the HDK—short barrel, magazine fed from the bottom between the trigger assembly and shoulder stock, optics on top, flashlight below the barrel, and a personal favorite of mine. My escorts stood back and said nothing. They were probably impressed but never showed it. I drew a smiley face on one target with bullet holes just to make sure they were watching.

“Nice,” Grady said. “You always were a fucking spaz.”

“So what if you can shoot," Sergeant Crank said. "How is your conditioning?"

It was a dumb question. The guy should’ve known better. He'd been in spec ops long enough to know we worked out wherever we could, even if it was a cell. That was what kept us from going crazy.

What he was really doing was looking for a fight. First, we’d have some sort of macho gut check workout and, lo and behold, we’d wind up on the mat punching and choking each other.

He probably wouldn't poke this bear unless he was confident in his abilities. A quick glance at Grady and the other guy confirmed my suspicion. They were curious, probably had a betting pool going.

"I'll get by," I finally answered.

Crank popped his knuckles and furled his upper lip into a sneer. "Yeah? You been doing jumping jacks and push-ups?"

He was trying to piss me off. Yeah, sure I’d done the calisthenics, but I’d also been doing handstand push-ups and making every conceivable exercise as difficult as possible—from doing tons of reps superfast or super slow or in combination with other body-weight exercises.

He had to know this. That was what he would've been trying to do if he was taken prisoner and put in confinement. There were also meditation exercises and a number of other techniques to hold on to the sanity for as long as possible in the harshest environments imaginable.

"You want to throw down or what?” I asked, tossing a glance back at him.

“Yeah, Cain. That’s just what I want. We’ve got a ranking system. How long an operator can keep me from choking them out. Grady lasted thirty-eight seconds.”

“How long are you gonna last?” I asked.

Crank’s eyes went wide, and he smiled in anticipation. "You gonna give me a fight, then? Some real competition?"

The stiffness I’d noticed earlier probably indicated he trained a lot, too much, like a black belt in jiu-jitsu trying to maintain rank. So he had some injuries, and also five hundred ways to put me down.

I walked onto the mat and kicked off my shoes. He snorted a curse.

"Aren’t you going to bow to the mat?”

I faced him and started moving around to get loosened up. “Why don’t you make me?"

"That's bullshit. You can disrespect me, but don't disrespect the dojo or the art," he demanded, giving me a hard look.

I’ve always had a healthy appreciation for practitioners of martial arts and other disciplines. But the mat is just a mat to me. I'd never been here before and I didn't know who ran the place. Maybe if I did, it would be different. There was no wise sensei or sifu demanding respect, just a couple of spec ops dudes squaring off for no good reason.

"Fine," he said when I didn’t respond. Crank gave the training area a short bow, but the moment he got on the mat, he rushed me with a flying superman punch.

I sidestepped without even raising my hands to block.

Landing on one foot but recovering quickly, he circled around to face me again. He dropped low and tried to take me down by pulling my knees out from under me like a galactic-class wrestler. I lowered my center of gravity and widened my stance, pushing down on his head and one shoulder to keep him away.

Takedown defense wasn’t one of my best skills, but I stuffed his attempt easily.

I winked at Grady.

"Are you even breathing hard?" he asked, panting a little himself.

"Nope."

“He’s got ten years on you, Crank. Step it up a notch,” commented Grady, clearly enjoying the spectacle.

Crank tried the tactic again and I drove my knee into his face. Blood spurted across the mat. Without waiting for him to recover, I grabbed one of his arms and pulled him past me, then jumped onto his back to lock in a rear-naked-choke.

Eight seconds later, he was out cold.

Had he learned his lesson?

Of course not.

Pushing himself to his feet, he shook his head, trying to focus his eyes on something other than abject humiliation and defeat. Moments later, he snarled curses. “Again, you son-of-a-bitch.”

We circled each other for a while, fists up and feet moving nimbly. I remained cautious. Just because I put him down once didn’t mean he was a pushover.

"You think that was clever?" he asked. “All you did was raise the price you're gonna pay."

I dropped low and shot forward, grabbing his left knee and leveraging my weight into it. There was no way one leg could hold my entire body weight. He went down hard.

With no hesitation to celebrate, I scrambled on top of him and took the mount position. Getting my heels locked in and holding him in place took longer than I planned. He continued to fight, but I chipped away at his defenses until I had him in an arm bar.

He rapidly tapped his hand to submit, but I increased the pressure until he screamed.

Grady tried to pull me off a second later, but I stood on my own and walked away.

"That was a shit move, Hal,” he said, his face a mask of fury. “You could've maimed him with that stunt."

"He'll be alright. I know when to stop, unlike him."

Grady held my gaze for a long time, his expression tense. "I think that's enough testing for one day. Let's get ready to do this mission before you disable the team who is supposed to come and help you."

Grady kicked everybody else out of the room after Crank and I were done beating the shit out of each other. I got hit by a bit of agoraphobia in the large training room, which wasn't large by a normal person’s standards. As tough as I thought I was, spending so much time in isolation on death row had probably done permanent damage to my psyche.

"That was a fucking circus," I said.

He pulled a bench from the side of the room and sat on it, steepling his fingers together and looking at me thoughtfully. "It had to be done, and you know it. None of these guys have seen you work or trained with you."

"I'm glad you remember, at least."

He shrugged. “You’re a freak of nature. Always were. I wasn’t surprised they made you a Reaper.”

"We have time for real training?"

He probably knew this was coming. Behind all the ass kicking and trick shooting were hours of practice. We moved onto the mat and went through combative drills, slowly at first, and then much faster. I pushed the pace until we started making mistakes and then backed down to a more reasonable level.

By the end, we were sweaty and laughing.

"I wish I knew what went wrong with you, Hal." It almost sounded like there was a hint of regret in his tone.

Not having an answer, I strode toward the door, pretending I could leave whenever I wanted. It kept me sane, but I knew it wasn't true.

Grady joined me and we went into the main room.

It didn't take much to see what was going to happen next. The camaraderie we’d shared slipped from his expression the closer we got to the exit. In the main room, a squad of ship soldiers waited.

One of them stepped forward. "I'm Sergeant Myers. Turn around. My men are going to place you in restraints."

Grady started to say something.

The sergeant interrupted him. "This was discussed. Cain is still a criminal. He doesn't get to roam the ship. Look on the bright side, our brig is much nicer than death row."

OceanofPDF.com

4

Grady and I walked across the gangway. His team wore heavier armor and carried more weapons than the recon gear they assigned me. Triple-weave carbon fiber protected my shins, forearms, and torso. Hoverboarders wore thicker helmets than what the Union thought I needed.

“You have secured comms with my team and medical sensors. I’ll know if you get hurt and how bad,” he explained as we walked.

I ignored Grady, more than a little annoyed he hadn't remembered my pregame ritual. In short, I liked to think things through without a lot of chitchat. There was too much subterfuge around this mission, not unusual in my line of work—or what had been my line of work—but fuck me running, this was ridiculous.

Something was wrong. Grady's nervousness betrayed the gravity of the situation. He wasn't just worried about a failed mission. If I didn't come back with this doctor, there would be consequences.

I needed to stop thinking of him as a friend. We hadn't operated together for a long time. People changed. Shit happened.

He kept talking and I kept ignoring him, preferring to look out at the hellhole they were about to push me through. Okay, they weren't actually going to push me. I'd jump. Hesitation was something I’d gotten over in basic training a long time ago.

Dreadmax had been a battle station before it was decommissioned and left dormant for two decades. Someone decided it wasn't a big enough failure in its original role and turned it into a prison for the worst of the worst. The problem was the overly grand design the Union hadn't been able to support at the time. They wanted a ship the size of a moon with the firepower of a few cruisers.

Fortunes were made long before the construction finished. Typical Union bureaucracy and pork-barrel politics had lined a lot of pockets.

Where did they go wrong with the design? They wanted to travel slip tunnels and dominate entire systems with one ship. It was so big, it was like a moon made of fat rings and bulky spires. But once the damn thing was nearly built, funding had gone dry. With only three-quarters of the facility built, the boys upstairs had decided it would make for a better prison than a space station.

"That's the reason we’re going to drop you instead of attempt a landing," Grady said.

“I’m sorry, what?” I hadn't been listening, so I didn't know what he was talking about. The briefing had stated they would land, and I would deploy from the ship while they set up security. I'd known that was bullshit the minute they said it.

Grady, my old friend, would push me out and see if I survived the first ten seconds in Dreadmax. Then maybe he’d follow and mop up with Sergeant Crank and the others.

Most of the superstructure was steel, the cheapest they could find. It necessarily had shielding plates and some energy fields to maintain pockets of surface environment, but I could see huge strips of rust and several towers that had collapsed in disrepair. There were observation towers rising in several places and shorter buildings two or three stories tall that looked like dormitories or warehouses.

“Looks like a trillion-ton doughnut. Barely has a hole,” I said.

“You have a way of minimizing everything. That’s half your problem,” stated Grady.

“My problem is I’m too good at sneaking into places and killing people.”

The main ring, so thick it was hard to see all at once, had streets of a sort, trenches with point-defense batteries that had been repurposed to blow the shit out of misbehaving inmates. Some of the point-defense turrets had been stripped and welded shut.

"Those used to be automated, back when there was a budget to run proper security on this place,” Grady said.

"What if they decide to mutiny and take the place over? There's a shipyard right there on the horizon," I said, pointing. The structures below passed faster and faster as we decreased altitude. Dreadmax had a central spire with the main ring spinning around it. It almost looked like a sphere, or a moon, but that was an optical illusion. Matching speed with the ring wouldn’t be hard for a good pilot and ours seemed to be one of the best.

He shook his head. "None of the ships work. They would have been better off scuttled in space. I was told by someone who knows someone who heard it from a guy that the shipyard is full of sentimental projects, ships named after people who invested enough money to get their name on the prow and demand they not be jettisoned into the void."

"They don't look that bad," I said. Moments later, we passed over the shipyard and I realized how wrong I was. If Dreadmax was in bad shape, the moored vessels were ten times worse. One actually cracked loose of its moorings and drifted away as we passed. It was like watching the bottom of the ocean and seeing a sea creature shake free of the sand.

Debris floated free where it shouldn’t have existed in the first place. There were several hangars with blast doors that looked as though they hadn’t been opened for a decade. I wondered when the last time they’d parked a super carrier in there was.

“The only important parts of Dreadmax are the power plant, gravity generators, and life support. If any one of those things goes down, it’s over for the convicts,” Grady said.

“And your doctor,” I pointed out. “I have a pretty good idea one of them is going to fail in twenty-four hours.”

Grady flushed red, indicating I’d guessed correctly.

“Nice. Thanks for holding back. That’s something you should’ve told me during the brief. Maybe when we were planning this out.”

“You didn’t plan it,” he reminded me.

“And that’s part of the problem. Briggs says I’m here because I have the experience, but that only counts for killin’, I guess. Doesn’t matter that I’ve got more experience with extractions than every single one of you. What if I ran into trouble and requested a pickup time well after the entire place goes dark? And what the fuck happens to the people down there when it does? Shouldn’t there be an evacuation mission?”

“Every person in that place was already sentenced to death at least once,” Grady said.

“Like me. How cheery,” I remarked.

“Don’t be an asshole.”

“You’re not the one about to be pushed out of an airlock. I mean, I’ll jump on my own. Anyone pushing me is gonna have broken fingers, but you know what I’m saying.”

“Believe it or not, a lot of people are counting on you. Lives are at stake,” he said.

“Sure. I’ll bring back your doctor, or scientist, or whatever he is. You can take that to the bank.”

“Just stick to the plan,” he retorted. “We don’t need any of your hotshot cowboy shit. Step one foot off the planned route and you’re dead along with the principal.”

“What the actual fuck, Grady? No plan ever works like that. The second I’m down, ten things will go wrong. If I’d planned this mission, there would have been allowances made for random shit.”

“Like I said, you didn’t—”

“Stop reminding me,” I interrupted.

“You brought it up.”

“Grady, why aren’t you doing this mission with your team? Doesn’t spec ops do search and rescue?”

He didn’t respond, which was in itself an answer.

Grady’s team wasn’t expendable. More importantly, it wasn’t the only team on this mission. They had already sent at least one group of unstoppable badasses. Who were probably dead. Or worse. Whatever that might be.

“Are you going to swoop in once I find him? Steal my glory? Leave me there on the ultimate death row?”

“I’m running your extraction team.”

“But you’re not the only spec ops unit on this operation,” I said, pointedly. “You’re just the only one I’m allowed to know about.”

He adjusted his gear and checked his team as he answered me, a good way to avoid eye contact. “Stop breaking my balls, Hal.”

“What fun would that be?” I slugged him in the shoulder. “We’re friends, right?”

“Sure, Hal.”

“Then, as a friend, would you mind shutting the fuck up and letting me get my head straight? If you’re going to lie and hold shit back, I want to focus on what I need to do to survive this.”

“You’re a real son-of-a-bitch.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that.” I took out one of Briggs’ cigars, a lighter I lifted from another officer, and nursed it to life.

“Where’d you get that?” he asked, mouth slightly agape.

“Don’t worry about it.”

* * *

The dropship trembled as we passed through the atmosphere shield. Turbines twisted downward to keep us from crashing into Dreadmax. We were over a landing field bordered by one of the mechanical trenches.

"That's damn close, Andrews!” Grady shouted.

"Not my fault. The power must be running low for the shield to be so close to the surface. Might be better to just land and fly along this crap," Lieutenant Andrews said, a good-natured lilt in the tone of his voice.

"Not an option," said Grady, struggling to be heard over the noise.

"Roger that. We'll talk again when I slam into one of these watchtowers," muttered Andrews in response.

I heard everything they said. "I'm ready. I'll go now."

"Negative, Hal. You have thirty seconds before optimal deployment."

Leaning toward the hellhole, I took a breath and fell forward. A static line attached to my back immediately pulled the ripcord on my grav-chute. It took about twenty seconds to glide down.

Static garbled the sound of Grady's voice in my ear piece. "That was reckless. Don't fuck up now. I'm tired of cleaning up your messes."

The second my feet touched metal, I released from my gravity-parachute and sprinted toward the nearest cover. The backup guys watching me were probably losing their minds that I didn’t pack up my chute, but why would I waste time on that?

The dropship turbines tilted backward again and my ride sped away. It didn’t feel like they were coming back for me. Ever.

"Well, at least there's atmosphere. More than I expected really."

"There are better ways to test atmosphere than to deploy a parachute," X-37 said. Unlike Grady's garbled radio voice, X-37 sounded like part of me.

"Where am I, X?"

"You are one hundred meters from trench one forty-two. Would you like a more exact measurement, including centimeters and elevation?"

"Maybe later. Can I get down a level? I’d prefer to travel beneath the surface in case there is atmosphere lost through the degrading shields."

Several seconds passed, which was an unusual time lag for X-37. “I have quarantined the BMSP CIM for the duration of this mission. As to your question, traveling beneath the surface of Dreadmax is not part of your mission plan. Can you advise a reason to deviate?"

"Because deviation is fun. And I've already gone off the plan. We jumped early in case you didn't notice."

"This was noted. Can you explain?"

"Can you keep a secret?"

“Of course, but while the CIM is quarantined, I am unable to determine how much data it will gather passively. It will sync up with the mainframe on the UFS Thunder the moment we return.”

This was interesting because I assumed the CIM would need to get all the way back to the Bluesphere Maximum Security Prison before spilling the digital beans.

"I don't trust Grady."

"Analysis shows this to be an appropriate precaution. I will look for access to the below deck area.”

“What is it, X? You seem hesitant,” I said suspiciously.

“My analysis suggests that there is a reason no mention of below decks was considered in the briefing.”

OceanofPDF.com

5

Prisons have gangs. Abandoned space stations populated by convicted murderers have the worst gangs imaginable. And crazies. I hadn’t gone a kilometer before spotting dozens of watchers. Shadowy faces peered out from windows and alleyways and ventilation shafts.

Moving quickly, I stopped at the corners of buildings and checked my back trail to be sure I wasn't being followed. The place was quiet and dark. The star field was intense, with no competition from artificial lighting. The moon and the nearby planet were somewhere on the other side of Dreadmax now, throwing a weird glow up from the horizon of the main ring.

"Can't go this way. You'll die,” said the slightly distorted voice of a child through a public address speaker.

I looked around, blood running cold as I struggled to remember how long this place had been a prison. Twenty years?

"X, how long has this place been open for business?"

"I'm not sure ‘open for business’ is the phrase you're looking for. Would you like me to consult my database of human languages?"

"We've been through this before, X. Just answer the question."

"Twenty years, three months, five days, seventeen hours, and three minutes."

"I'm assuming it's a coed facility."

"Why wouldn't it be? Are you concerned about the children watching us on the surveillance cameras?”

I reminded myself that X-37 didn't have extrasensory abilities. He was making inferences from my behavior and my sensory data.

"I bet none of them were convicted of capital crimes."

"There is a zero percent chance anyone born on Dreadmax has had due process," remarked X.

I moved to the next position, wondering why the child spies seemed so interested in my welfare.

"Didn't you hear me, mister?" asked the child.

“Why are you following me?” I asked.

"You're funny. We’re not following you. We’re watching you."

This confirmed a couple of things. One, there was some sort of active surveillance system in place. Two, it was controlled by children, which meant adults couldn’t get into the control room or didn't care about video surveillance.

“Please sweep your eyes across the landscape,” X-37 ordered.

“Sure thing, X. Anything for you.”

“Sarcasm detected. There are three cameras aimed at your current location. By outward appearances, they are inoperative. No LED power indicators seen. However, analysis of the situation suggests they are, in fact, fully functional. The public address system is operating adequately,” X-37 announced.

“Figured that one out all by myself.” Steam burst out a vent, explaining some of the rust I saw during the flyover and warning me of the lack of maintenance on this place. That type of inefficiency shouldn’t exist on a trillion-ton battle ring—even if it was decommissioned.

Moving, listening, and searching along narrow walkways at the bottom of metal trenches, I picked up other noises that were more dangerous—like gunshots in the distance.

“Someone thinks they can take down the dropship with small arms fire,” I said, not expecting a comment from X-37.

“That would be a false assumption,” replied the child’s voice instead.

“Hey, kid. Come out where I can see you.”

Several voices laughed through the PA. It sounded weird because the air pressure inside the environment shield was wonky as hell.

“We’re not stupid. It’s safe in the tower. Crazies can’t get in. The RSG don’t care about us and the Nightfall Gangsters don’t come this far.”

“What’s an RSG?” I crept under a surprisingly sophisticated cluster of cameras, PA speakers, and listening devices.

“Red Skull Gangsters, dummy,” came the indignant response.

“I should have seen that coming,” I muttered.

“Hey, mister. We’re serious. You can’t fucking go this way. Slab is having a big party.”

“Slab?”

“He puts people on a slab. Cuts them up and eats their fingers.”

“Your mother tell you that?”

Several children laughed nearby. They weren’t just watching via camera feed, they had creepers.

I moved into an extremely narrow passage probably not meant for humans. There were rails along the floor and walls where I imagined maintenance bots could travel. It took a lot of twisting and squatting low to get through, but I came out in a new trench and heard what the watchers were talking about.

A quick scan of the area fed X-37 details I couldn’t pick up from such a quick peek.

“There’s an armed guard at each corner and a rover,” X-37 said.

“Got an eye on him.” I looked around for a camera but couldn’t find one. “Seems like all the cameras in this area are disabled.”

“Perhaps you should heed the advice of the child in the tower,” X-37 cautioned.

“Let’s call them kids or watchers. Just humor me on this,” I said.

“I always do.”

I wish my Reaper AI could highjack the Dreadmax security systems, but if wishes were fishes, then beggars would eat. And I’d be on my own ship heading out of the system.

“Update me only when needed. I want to go silent for a while and concentrate,” I whispered before I crossed the street and ran in a low crouch through shadows cast by a massive three-story building ahead of me. It looked like a repair facility for large ships, a dry dock that could handle up to a destroyer class. The building had a main hangar and several smaller hangars. The building attached to it rose up three stories but probably went below decks as well.

It was probably as large as the entire BMSP facility.

I passed near the sentries on the way and noted their weapons. I wasn’t sure how prison gangs could be carrying better weapons than I was, but I thought I’d ask Grady in a strongly worded complaint as soon as I saw him again.

“Contact imminent,” X-37 said.

A wheeled vehicle with a chassis magnet holding it down in case of gravity loss sped around the corner, something obviously wrong with the motor.

“Okay, maybe now isn’t a good time to put you to sleep. What the hell is wrong with that thing?”

“It seems the locals have removed the electric motor in favor of an internal combustion engine.”

I sprinted away from the party. “Whatever. It’s loud as fuck and it stinks.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“Trust me, X, I wouldn’t lie to you.”

The car screeched to a stop near the entrance of my hiding place. One shouted while another shone a flashlight in my direction. I pressed my back to the wall and held my breath until they moved on.

Loud music boomed from Slab’s building. The sound of a crowd cheering and stomping feet was unmistakable.

“Doesn’t sound like a prison,” I remarked.

“There are no guards who don’t work for the gangs. The residents of Dreadmax probably understand it is a matter of time before all systems fail,” X-37 replied.

“What about the kids? Is there a normal part of this place where people have settled down and learned how to survive with a modicum of civility?” I wondered.

“Doubtful,” X-37 said.

“Hey, kid? Are you listening?” I felt like a dork for calling out, but I needed to know. They were a good resource if they controlled the surveillance system and were willing to answer some questions. Maybe they’d even provide real time intelligence.

I checked my gear, hunkered down, and pulled the mission tablet from a slim backpack attached to my recon gear. The Reaper AI could give me information, but I wanted to look at the map.

“This sucks, X. We need to be on the other side of Slab’s building or inside it.”

“That is only an estimate of where the doctor will be, based on his last known location and observation of the locals,” X-37 said.

“You mean gangs and crazies. Let’s not sugar coat this goat fornication.” I packed up and moved out. Staying in one place more than a minute or two felt dangerous.

The station was turning toward the planet, which was between us and the sun for a while longer.

“Darkness is good,” X-37 reminded me.

“Sure.” What bothered me were sounds. Screaming, shouting, and random gunfire or improvised explosive devices.

“Who the fuck would they be torturing on this place?”

“Anyone they want,” came the matter-of-fact reply.

“Thanks for that, X.”

* * *

“Overwatch One to Cain. Respond.” Grady sounded annoyed.

“I heard you the first time. The RSGs have more than one heavily armed patrol in this area,” I whispered, then dashed into a building.

“What’s an RSG?”

“Hold on. I need to clear some rooms.”

Not wanting to get shot in the doorway, I moved quickly through then slowed down just enough to provide a stable shooting platform while walking heel to toe. The standard HKD 4 short rifle came with red dot sights, infrared targeting options if I had the right helmet to go with it, and fifty round magazines. The bullets were small, but fast and accurate.

All things equal, I wished I had a shotgun for rooms this size. The HKD was decent for a lot of jobs and master of none. Not the worst choice in the armory.

I kept it at low ready, down six inches from my plane of vision so I didn’t miss seeing someone crouched. There were three rooms in this structure, each with doorways rather than closable doors. I sidestepped without slowing, viewing a larger and larger section of the room I was about to clear, then went through.

By the numbers. No mistakes. No rushing to failure.

“Clear, no Red Skull Gangsters in this crib.”

Grady grunted acknowledgment. “Glad to hear it. That’s what RSG means? Where’d you learn that?”

“Some kids from the neighborhood told me.”

“Bullshit.”

“Do me a favor, Grady, and pull some strings. This place needs evacuated no matter what happens with my mission. Make some calls. Get something going on that.”

“That’s not my job and it sure as hell isn’t yours,” he said, but I could tell he was talking to his team and pointing at screens in his command center. He’d probably at least send up a request.

“There’s some sort of shindig going on in maintenance hangar 1847 Zulu. Lot of noise. Music. Gunfire. Everything you might expect in a maximum-security prison.”

My old friend keyed up without talking. Sounds of a busy command center came through my earpiece.

“I could use visual confirmation there are children on Dreadmax. All of the inmates should have been sterilized before being sent there,” Grady said.

“Well, that didn’t fucking happen. Or someone put these kids here. I’ll make sure to ask first chance I get.”

“Send me a picture. Just one. I can’t justify compromising the mission for your personal photo album,” Grady said as he typed on his forearm keypad.

I knew the sound. I’d seen him do it often before I left spec ops.

“I haven’t put eyes on them yet.”

“What?”

“Audio comms only with the kids.”

“Godsdamnit, Hal. You had me all worked up.”

One tap of my helmet lowered the volume until I could barely hear him, especially as I moved closer to the maintenance hangar and the hellish party this Slab person was throwing.

“The clock is ticking, Cain. Find the principal.”

“That might not be possible. If he ran into the RSG, he’s probably in that building with about a thousand murderous thugs guarding him.”

“Can’t be that many.”

“Sounds like everyone the Union’s convicted in the last year,” I said, slipping dangerously close to one of the spotlight vehicles. Motherfuckers were loaded for bear. Galdiz 49 heavy rifles, one YT sniper model, body armor. Fucking spotlights. Fucking motorcars with battery packs for magnetic road locks.

“We’re doing a high-altitude flyover to confirm or deny your reports,” Grady said.

“You should have done that before you pushed me through the hatch.”

“No one pushed you,” he reminded me.

A new vehicle, an armored car with a crew-served machine gun, rolled around the corner with its headlights off. I had a gut feeling these guys had received training before earning their life sentences.

Methodically, the crew of the new vehicle used their spotlight to sweep the trenches and walkways. The light stopped on my position, even though I doubted they could see where I was hiding.

The heavy machine gun opened fire, cutting holes in the walls around me. I dropped to my stomach and crawled for a bot tunnel.

“X, can you help me out here?”

“Certainly. The tunnel you are entering is a dead end. There will be a filter welded in place.”

“Thanks. For. That.”

None of the bullets reached me and the gun crew apparently didn’t want to leave their vehicle, lucky for me. Twenty minutes later, I backed out of the worthless tube and dropped into a pile of debris created by the sustained machine gun fire.

“Cain for Overwatch,” I said quietly.

“Go for Overwatch,” Grady said.

“What kind of gang members have light armored vehicles with crew-served machine guns?”

He answered somberly, “Don’t worry about that now. We confirmed there is something going on in the hangar building. They’ve pulled in all of their patrols and barricaded the doors. Smaller groups of people are locking themselves in wherever there are doors or gates.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Because there is a swarm of foot traffic flooding into the area. They’re… running,” he answered, hesitantly.

“Running?”

“Yeah, but the way they do it, they look like animals.”

Crazies. Perfect.

“Shelter in place,” Grady shouted. “I’m not shitting you. Our scans show the assholes are fucking freaks. Probably cannibals.”

“Good thing I’m perfectly safe under this power conduit. Who would look here?”

“Find someplace better. They’ll see you.”

“Too late.” I strapped down my HKD and pulled my pistol. There wasn’t room for much else.

The ground shook as the horde charged around the corner. Thousands of men and women in rags leaped over trenches, walkways, and small structures like the power conduit. It hummed with energy. Thin, poorly fitted metal covered the wiring within. Rust colored the edges.

Dreadmax had a lot of rust—not something normally seen on a space-capable vessel.

“X-37, when did I have my last tetanus shot?”

“Three standard months ago. The warden ordered it. You told him to screw off, but his medical staff gave it to you anyway.”

“Right. How could I forget?”

One of the crazies jumped onto the power box, slamming down both feet with unnecessary force.

“Run the pack. Run the pack. It’s dinner time!” The man jumped away, racing to join another group of unwashed, insane humanity.

“This too shall pass,” X-37 whispered as five more, then ten, then a hundred screaming lunatics ran over my position.

“Hilarious. You missed your calling. You’ve got jokes,” I murmured.

“Overwatch to Cain, are you still there?”

“Yep. No thanks to you.”

“We’re moving out of radio contact. Will be back around in nine minutes. The swarm is coming back the way they came…”

Static ended his broadcast.

Looking at the first of the crazies to come back this direction, I suddenly felt very exposed. My hiding place had been perfect when they were traveling in one direction, but now I was basically squatting against a wall where they would see me easily.

I scooted back, stood up, and ran for the first service trench leading away from the maintenance hangar. The people inside had fires going and surprisingly decent music. It looked cozy.

“Grady won’t like this route. It’s an even greater deviation from the original plan,” X-37 pointed out.

“The original plan was shit.”

* * *

“For the record, I’ve seen enough of the crazies. Let’s find the doctor and get the hell off this hunk of junk,” I muttered after two hours of escape and evasion brought me back into visual range of the maintenance hangar building.

“What about the children in the surveillance tower?” questioned X-37.

“Well, X, they haven’t exactly been helpful. But I’ll see what I can do.”

This time, I was on the correct side to begin searching for my target.

Not that it mattered.

The RSG were out in force harassing another class of inmates, those not affiliated with a gang and not yet turned into screaming cannibal freaks.

“You'll need to secure a complete evacuation of the facility to be sure there are no innocents left behind when the gravity generator fails," X-37 said.

"You think that's what’s going to crash?"

"It will go down shortly after the power fails, and before you ask, atmosphere will be lost almost instantaneously. If you're still here, I recommend being inside the superstructure. Two or three levels down to be safe. People there will be able to survive indefinitely.”

"Might be better to get shot into the void. We haven't seen any evidence of the doctor and I don't have a way to develop an informant. I have to go into the RSG building," I said as I stashed my HKD and survival gear underneath an abandoned vehicle.

My pistol and my knife stayed on my hip for now. Later, I’d have to hide them where they were easy to reach.

"Of course," said X-37.

"What would I do without you, X?" I asked, not expecting a response.

Light finally spilled onto the surface of Dreadmax, reflected from the nearby planet. It looked habitable, but I knew it wasn't. Made for a nice view to contrast with the deteriorating surface of the space station though.

"Why aren't these people living within the ring?" I wondered.

"It's full of crazies,” answered X-37. “It was overrun soon after security forces pulled out and started dropping inmates with single-use life pods."

"And you're just now telling me this? How many crazies can there be down there?"

"Level V is the hydroponics facility. Even at full population, there's more than enough food to sustain ten thousand human adults indefinitely. Unless they ruined it. In the future, I'd advise you to ask better questions."

It wasn't the first time X-37 had given me this advice.

Two-story row houses that looked like ammunition boxes lined several of the protected trenches leading toward the maintenance hangar. Metal walkways crisscrossed the space above the alley-like streets, some falling down or otherwise promising to be structurally unsound. Men and women, and more than a few children, stepped out on their ground-level porches and waited for RSG tax collectors.

Grabbing a poncho from a man who looked too scared to resist, I blended with a group of people being taken inside the RSG stronghold.

"Haven't seen you before, friend," a man said.

"Just passing through."

He laughed and looked around at the thugs who had encouraged the work party. "At least they're not sending us on a scavenging party. I hate going down to the greenhouse. My brother-in-law likes it, but he's better at pilfering shit than I am. Always comes back with some extra food. First time I tried that, I’d get my hands cut off."

I studied him without being obvious. He'd clearly been on a starvation diet for a long time and may or may not have enjoyed the benefits of running water and plumbing. "What are you in for?"

He looks at me strangely. "Beg your pardon?"

"Dreadmax is a maximum-security prison," I said, intending to elaborate but losing the words. I was wondering if he was young enough to have been born here, but I was pretty sure he was in his thirties. Hard living had made him look older than he was.

"I colonized the wrong planet. Next thing you know, I'm doing maintenance for gangsters and hiding my daughters under the cistern. What about you? Are you a hardened killer?"

I didn’t bother with an answer. As soon as I could, I moved away from these people and slipped into a series of hallways inside the main building. The rest of them were being put to work in the hangar repairing machines on some kind of assembly line. Some of the parts belonged to wheeled vehicles and others seemed to have been salvaged from the shipyard some distance around the ring.

There was a grim sort of economy with the place. Offices and smaller workshops overlooked the ground floor from the second and third levels. I spotted heavily muscled freaks with tattoos and piercings leaning over to watch their workforce. They seemed to be hungover and pissed off at life.

Every door to the place had at least two guards that appeared sober and well-armed. They had military weapons, but also some very nasty black-market variations that violated most galactic treaties.

The tortured screams from the night before made a lot more sense now.

I slipped into a hallway that ran the perimeter of the massive building, then ducked into a stairwell when I spotted two hard-asses approaching at a fast walk. They were talking to each other, swearing and laughing. They might have been convicts, but I wouldn't have doubted if they'd had some military training. Or maybe they were cops, former guards who went bad or got left here.

"Overwatch for Cain, how copy?"

"I copy fine, but now isn’t a good time. I'm looking for the doctor."

"It's about time. What can we do to help?"

"How’s that evacuation plan coming? The longer I'm down here, the more innocent civilians I'm encountering. They have a class system to get things done, like food collection and basic maintenance."

"Don't worry about the evacuation. I've sent a request up the chain and used all the hot-topic words politicians need to hear to authorize anything," Grady said. "I'd be skeptical if I hadn't seen some of these people in the daylight. No kids yet, but I'm willing to believe you."

"You're an asshole. Why don’t you come down here and see for yourself?"

"You're always talking about how this would be going if you had planned the mission. Well, my proposal had been to go in with spec ops and clear this whole area until we found the principal and pulled him out. So don't lecture me."

I ducked into a supply closet as an old man carried buckets of water toward what smelled like some type of alcohol distillery at the end of this passage. He never looked up from his feet.

I opened the door a crack. "Like I said, Grady, this isn't a great place for me to talk. I'm deep in hostile territory without weapons or a quick reaction force to pull me out of the fire when it gets hot."

"What happened to your weapons?” he asked.

"Don't worry about my guns. They have better stuff to kill people with. Ever been shot with an acid thrower?"

"No, Hal. That's illegal. What's next, weapons of mass destruction? Nerve gas? Execution camps?" Grady asked.

"That's nice coming from someone who knows how many people are going to die when the power plant takes a shit."

There was a long pause before I heard Commander Briggs break in on a remote line. "That's enough of that talk, Cain. Do your job. Let me worry about collateral damage."

"I met a guy who said he colonized the wrong planet and got relocated to Dreadmax. I thought this place was for murderers and traitors, not rogue colonists.”

No one answered.

"That went well," X-37 said.

"Whatever." I picked up the pace, heading toward the sound of loud music and drunken laughter.

"What exactly are you doing?" X-37 asked.

"If the doctor is valuable to the Union, he might be valuable to whoever's running this place. Slab or whatever his name is. Remind me to tell them he's got a stupid name if we run into him."

"I can't see how taunting the man will help you complete the mission," replied X-37.

I arrived at a balcony on the third level overlooking another large hangar. There was a walkway circumventing this level with several private suites that were probably not for inmates in the beginning. It was the cleanest, most heavily guarded section of the building so far.

High above, there were dim LED lights, but many were out. The result was a harsh gloom that reminded me what type of facility this was.

Gathering up cleaning supplies, I turned myself into a janitor and pressed on. What was the worst that could happen?

A pair of guards stopped me, one with his left palm held forward and right hand holding the rifle he had on a sling. His partner didn’t say anything, only watched me.

They were solid, true professionals.

"Jonesy already cleaned this level. Who the hell are you?" asked one.

“I’m the lucky bastard that gets to clean up the doctor. Can you guys stop making him shit himself?" I replied.

“Yeah, that,” the lead guard said.

“Lucky guess,” X-37 whispered in my ear.

I’d assumed the screams were from the VIP’s torture session. I knew from experience what happened when your body couldn’t take any more abuse.

OceanofPDF.com

6

After the guards let me in, I spotted the good doctor immediately. The sole occupant of what had been an officer’s suite was tied to a chair and only half conscious. He was balding, slightly overweight, and covered in dried blood.

I took a bucket of water, a shop towel, and cleaned him up like a bedridden invalid who’d been sitting in his own filth for too long. Nothing could take away the stink, but he slipped out of his daze and watched me with increasing interest.

"You're not one of them," he said, speech slurred like a drunk.

"It doesn't matter who I am. Are you Doctor Hastings?"

Tears leaked from his eyes as he nodded vigorously.

"I'll be right back."

The hard part of the ruse was maintaining the lazy, disinterested shuffle of a defeated man. My acting skills were a bit rusty. And I was angry.

The stoic guard ignored me, preferring to watch the hallway like he would shoot the next person he saw. The other one looked me up and down, made a disgusted face, and waved me toward the exit.

I drew my silenced pistol and shot them both dead—catching the bodies as they fell.

“I’m assuming you assholes were really bad people who deserved this.”

They were speechless of course.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m probably not far behind you,” I said to their corpses.

I dragged them into another room and closed the door. There was blood, but luckily, I was the best janitor on Dreadmax. Got blood smears? Call Halek Cain and make the body disappear today!

Drying my hands on the stolen poncho, I returned to the interrogation room.

Doctor Hastings had moved away from his chair while I was gone. He was standing with his arms crossed, hugging himself as he looked through the window to the main hangar below. It was like a private booth at a stadium and it made me wonder what the Union officers who originally ran this place had talked about while watching their minions.

"This wasn't always a prison," he said.

"Step back from the window," I ordered.

He looked at me, then complied, moving away. "I'm not an idiot. The glass slants outward from the bottom of the windowsill, suggesting there is considerable glare when viewed from the outside. I doubt anyone down there could see us, even if they were looking," he said, unperturbed.

The party was ramping up again. Music thumped the walls. A caravan of vehicles with Red Skull Gangsters hanging off every side rail and bumper rolled into a large bay door at one end. Engines without mufflers revved. Air horns blasted a juvenile call and response that quickly got on my nerves.

Each truck had a cage in the back.

Doctor Hastings went pale. "I was hoping she got away."

Several pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “What are you doing here, Doctor?"

He faced away from me when I asked the question, wiping something from his eyes as he moved toward the door like he might run for it. I had to give him credit, he was playing it pretty cool for an amateur.

"I wouldn't do that,” I warned. “I mean, how did it work for you last time?"

"I haven't tried to escape. They have my daughter. She tried, continues to try to get away, but they always catch her and three other young women. It's part of some inscrutable gang law they have. One girl escapes, and they bring back three extras for the cages. Nothing makes Slab and his Red Skull thugs happier than a drunken killing spree.”

"You didn't answer my question."

"Research. I was here on a research project.”

I crowded into his personal space and brushed imaginary dirt from his battered jumpsuit. It was one of the original prison uniforms. Someone had scrawled his name on the tag, misspelling it: H-a-y-s-t-i-n-g-z.

"How many attempts have there been to rescue you?"

"I don't know," he sputtered. “Just you and your team, I suppose.”

"You don't know because I'm the first person to get this far. Think about that for a second. You should be realizing that I’ll be the last. If you want out of here, you're coming with me and you’re going to do everything I say."

"I can't live without my daughter. There’s no reason to rescue me if you don’t help her escape too.”

“She’s not part of my mission,” I replied.

“There must have been some kind of mistake. The Union cares more about her than me. Call someone for new orders. They won’t let us leave Dreadmax without her.”

“Why?” I asked.

“She’s my daughter. Please rescue her,” he pleaded.

“What are you doing here, Doctor Hastings?” I asked, repeating the question.

“Please, sir. Don’t make me go against the Union.”

Ignoring his oddly dispassionate plea, I spoke so softly he had to lean forward to hear me. "I need information to do my job. Answer the question."

He shook his head and backed away. “I can’t abandon my work. Just leave me here."

The RSG music continued to shake the floor. Bass thumped a driving beat that filled the entire facility.

"That hurts my feelings, X. He's more scared of the Union than me," I said.

Doctor Hastings perked up when he realized what I’d just said and what it meant. “You are talking to a nerve-ware AI. Are you a Reaper? I thought they were all dead."

"You would think that. The fact that you even know what a Reaper is means something. What are you doing here, Doctor, and why do they have a destroyer with three companies of soldiers and multiple teams of spec ops commandos ready to storm the place?”

Looking at his feet for several seconds before he answered, he exhaled forcefully.

“About a year ago, I realized the Union had quietly taken over my daughter’s boarding school. I made inquiries to civilian and military officials I’ve worked with over the years. They had their theories and reassured me this was just something that happened in the Union. I knew, however, that they were holding my daughter hostage.”

“Sounds terrible,” I said, nonplussed.

“The situation grated on me for a few weeks before I made my first mistake. I’m not a soldier or a spy or whatever you are. My world is about research, using the scientific method to test theories—Occam’s Razor. You know it?”

“All things being equal, the simplest explanation is most likely correct,” I said.

“Exactly. One morning, I awoke with the firm conviction the Union wanted something from me that I wasn’t providing them. All that was needed was information.”

“You confronted the Union?”

“I set up an appointment and had a meeting. By the time I returned to my laboratory I’d been reassigned to… a place I can’t talk about. It wasn’t all bad. The facility and the brilliant minds I worked with were a dream come true for a scientist like me.”

“But they put your daughter on Dreadmax to keep you in line.”

“I didn’t know that until later. We talked every day by video conference,” he said, acting more like the man I assumed he was. The memory refreshed him. “Something went wrong and now the Red Skull Gangsters have her.”

“The secret laboratory must be near Dreadmax if they were able to have a video conference in real time,” X-37 commented in my head.

“She’s a wonderful young woman,” Hastings continued.

“I’m sure she is. If I can grab her, I will, but I can’t do that while I’m arguing with you. We’re leaving and you’re doing whatever the fuck I say without hesitation. Understood?”

He nodded.

“I need to grab some things, then we’ll call for extraction.”

“Weapons, I assume.”

“You’re a smart guy, Doc. And observant. You wouldn’t happen to be a medical doctor with trauma experience?”

“I have advanced medical degrees, but most of my work is in other areas.”

“PhDs?”

“Several.”

“Good to know. I’m sure they’ll be useful when we meet the cannibals.”

We moved out, fast enough that I had to drag the doctor onward more than once. On the way, I spotted a hopper full of surprisingly clean, perfectly folded jumpsuits. I found one of the smaller sizes, rolled it so tight it nearly disappeared, and shoved it into a side pocket.

"Why don't we just find a side door and use the maintenance trenches to reach your weapons and armor?" Hastings asked.

"Well, because I'm not shitty at my job. I checked for side doors, windows, and access hatches before I made my approach. It's called reconnaissance, useful when planning a rescue."

The building was full of activity—not just guards now, but anybody they’d been able to motivate with threats of violence and brandished weapons. Not everyone was here for the party. Some worked like slaves—fixing machines, cleaning up bloodstains, dancing for drunken assholes with guns.

"There must be other exits," Hastings asserted, looking over his shoulder nervously at the sound of a door slamming.

The lights went out, plunging the corridor into darkness until red emergency panels called the original crew to battle stations. I doubted Slab and his thugs understood what battle stations meant, but they’d pushed the button.

"There are doors, but they open into areas with a lot of folks I’d rather not meet," I said.

We moved into a new section. Hallways and doors were now metal walkways and staircases. The grating above us shook from the sound of running feet. A group rushed down one of the ladder-like staircases.

"That's our cue to head the other direction," I announced.

“We can’t go back the way we came,” Hastings said, starting to panic. “Are we being attacked? Are they sending in Union soldiers?”

“Someone hit the alert button, but that doesn’t really mean anything. They probably think it’s a fire alarm and use it to wake everyone up. Thank whatever gods you pray to that the music is so loud.”

“We have to do something! Let’s wait here for the soldiers.”

“Chill, Doc. Take a breath. The cavalry isn’t coming.”

I'd seen this before. He'd get more worked up each time we encountered a problem. There wasn't time to reassure him.

"Let's move," I ordered.

"I can't. I mean, we can't,” he clarified at my look.” It's too dangerous."

I grabbed the collar of his jumpsuit with one hand and poked him in the ribs with my pistol. "I can't afford to waste a bullet on you and I don't want to carry you, but there will come a time when you're better dead than left here to be compromised," I informed him.

None of that was part of my briefing, but I made certain assumptions. The look on his face confirmed his research was illegal as hell, the type of thing that got a person silenced rather than expose the entire operation.

His reaction meant something. I filed it away for later consideration.

"I'm not arguing with you. I just don't think this is a good idea," he responded, hastily.

I dug the pistol into his rib cage and pushed him in the direction I wanted him to go, toward a stairway. I heard people coming down from two levels above and hoped we could outdistance them.

It took several steps before I got the doctor to move on his own. This really would’ve been easier with a team. I needed two people to manage Hastings and at least one to cover our back trail. If I was a real Reaper, I would've had authority to impress dark ops agents or spec ops soldiers into service, which would’ve been useful about now.

We reached the main level and ran across the launch deck. The main hangar was full of people. Some were looking for us and others were partying. A few seem to be doing both. The sound of loud music, slamming metal doors, and occasional gunfire filled the room.

"What are they shooting at?" he asked, nervously.

"I have no idea. There's been a lot of random gunfire since I arrived." I pulled him behind a transport vehicle without wheels or an engine. Similar vehicles lined one side of the massive room, still leaving space for the enslaved construction workers, and beyond them, hundreds of GSD gangsters and their thralls.

I could smell the homemade alcohol and some kind of synthetic tobacco or marijuana.

"That's not even a live band," Dr. Hastings said in candid horror.

"Yeah, that's bullshit. I'm filing a complaint. Come on, let's go."

As usual, the man tried to go the wrong direction, but this time, I realized it was for a different reason. He headed for the cages and a young woman I assumed was his daughter.

So far, the search parties hadn’t noticed us among the regular denizens of Dreadmax. That was bound to change. I was running out of both time and patience with Hastings. If he wasn't the principal, I'd leave him here.

"Hastings, get your ass behind one of these trucks and hide. I told you I'd get her if I could. You’re not helping."

He ducked behind one of the parked, non-functional heavy transport vehicles. There were missing pieces that suggested these were often salvaged to service other vehicles.

"Stay there. Don't move. If I have to come rescue you, I can't do anything for your daughter."

"I understand. Thank you. Please don’t let them hurt her.”

“I’m gonna hurt you if you don’t shut up,” I grunted.

“You’re very abrasive for a rescuer.”

“Wait until you really piss me off. Which will happen if you move one fucking inch from here.”

Eyes downcast, the poncho I had stolen pulled up to cover my scars and cybernetic augmentation, I slipped through the workers and pretended to load pallets as I watched the drunken celebration on the other side of the maintenance hangar.

This wasn't someplace I wanted to be. The more time that passed, the more time the real guards had to get organized. There could be checkpoints with pictures from the building’s surveillance cameras soon.

"Hey you, what the fuck are you doing? Those pallets have already been loaded," a foreman said. Behind him, guards worked their way through the crowd examining people.

Three more of the heavy patrol vehicles entered via the bay doors, each with a man on the crew-served machine gun. The work crews shrank backward, clearly afraid the guns being turned on them.

"I'm used to prisons where we have to make shanks out of toothbrushes. These assholes have military hardware," I muttered as I retreated from the angry foreman. "I could use some help, X."

"My only recommendation is to leave. You can't help the girl. You can, of course, disregard this advice if your purpose is to commit suicide," X-37 answered dispassionately.

"You know me better than that, X."

By the time I reached the doctor, there were at least a dozen more guards searching the work crews. They were either being thorough or had guessed how I evaded them.

"We're leaving. If you want me to help your daughter, you'll do everything you can to get to safety. Until that happens, there's nothing I can do for her. I really don't want to knock you out and carry you, so let's fucking go."

He gave in, but not before he started crying and blubbering that we had to save her. The Union would do this, the Union would do that… He just wouldn’t shut up.

* * *

"Stay close. Run when I run, get down when I get down," I said, striding toward the bay door the trucks had come through. "This is going to get dicey."

"Okay, okay. Are you sure we can't just grab Elise and run for it? Please.”

I didn't bother to answer. The professional guards I'd seen on the upper levels moved through the crowd with submachine guns and shotguns. They were searching zone after zone. Maybe they knew what I looked like and maybe they didn't, but if they were half as good as I thought they were, I wouldn't be able to withstand close scrutiny.

The poncho disguise was lame and wouldn't last much longer. Regardless of whether or not they had a viable description, every one of them had seen Hastings.

Picking up the pace, I bumped the foreman who had yelled at me earlier. He fell to one knee and cursed.

"What the fuck is your problem? Didn't you hear me the first time? I saw you try to ditch me!” He strode forward, fists clenched for a fight.

He shoved Doctor Hastings out of his way and got in front of me. I hit him three times in the space of a second: left jab to his temple, right cross to his chin, and a left forearm strike across his neck and the brachial nerve. The final strike had all my weight behind it as I twisted at the waist and lunged forward.

The foreman collapsed.

I grabbed Hastings. "Run for the bay door!"

Twisting on the balls of my feet, I shot the closest guard and took his submachine gun. Throwing down the silenced pistol, I transitioned to the new weapon and opened fire on two more guards.

The crowd surged one way and the guards the other. I fired on the nearest heavy machine gun car and it fired back. I dropped to the floor even as I finished my attack and rolled sideways, hoping I hadn’t made a huge miscalculation.

There wasn't time to evaluate the carnage that ensued. Workers and partiers alike panicked, stampeding toward the exits. I saw Hastings get swept up in the tide and carried outside of the building.

I hadn’t planned it that way but could make it work. Looking on the bright side, the principal was free of the building and hidden in the crowd.

Staying as low as possible, I made my way to the un-drivable vehicles and scrambled beneath the largest. Bullets slammed into it as I came up on the other side and ran along the wall until I found one of the bay doors.

Outside, chaos ruled. Hundreds of people were fleeing the carnage, but what caused the problems were scores of family members running to see what was happening. Panicked parents and screaming children added to the confusion.

OceanofPDF.com

7

I found Hastings soon, not far from where the tide had picked him up.

The scene became more than just panicked families and teary reunions. The sound of gunfire and the sight of the walking wounded also provoked a group of men coming from another worksite. I was shouldering the doctor into a narrow side trench when I first saw them. More and more of the men and women came together and marched toward the armed gang members.

"Now’s our chance," I said, rushing through a series of twists and turns to reach the derelict vehicle where I had hidden my gear. The submachine gun was cool, but I didn’t have much ammunition left. The sooner I reacquainted myself with the HDK and my body armor, the better.

Shots rang out, but I couldn't see who fired them. I dropped the body armor over my head and adjusted the straps.

People sprinted away from the sound of gunfire. One of the heavy machine gun vehicles raced past. I put on the rest of my gear and went for a better look. Doctor Hastings continued to ask questions and I continued to ignore him, only having to push him back once or twice.

Another vehicle raced past in the other direction.

"What's happening?" Hastings demanded.

"They're looking for us."

"Why are they shooting at everyone?" The alarm in Hastings's voice grated on my nerves.

I hated working with civilians and amateurs.

"They're not shooting at everyone," I said, rolling my eyes.

"They're shooting at a lot of people. Oh, gods! They just drove over that man!"

Looking at Hastings as tears ran down his filthy face, I wondered two things. Why had I wasted my time cleaning him up, and could he keep it together for the rest of this escape. I knew one thing—he’d keep bothering me about his daughter until I did something.

I was also fucking furious at the sight of the display cages. Vigilantism had always been my downfall. I’d nearly been washed out in the early days of my training for trying to do the right thing when it was counter to the mission.

Some things never changed. I had no illusions that my moral code would withstand close scrutiny, but I didn't like bullies.

"Follow me." I took Hastings to a walk-in supply locker and shoved him through the doorway. The frame was heavy and it had enough power to have lights inside, which I hoped would keep Hastings from losing his nerve and doing something stupid.

The surface of Dreadmax was as large as a city. At times, I thought of it as a darkly exotic metropolis rather than the exterior of a space station with an environment shield over it. What looked like doors to buildings were really hatchways to the interior. The surface was uneven and had a skyline a lot like a caged city, but it had originally been a series of maintenance trenches, point-defense batteries, and docking bays.

“One second. I want to make sure this doesn’t access the lower levels.”

“Is that a problem?” Hastings asked.

“Where do you think the crazies come from?”

He swallowed hard.

“Looks good. One way in, one way out. I’ll be right back,” I said.

“Wait! What do you want me to do here?”

“Close the door. Wait for me. Don't leave, no matter what."

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going after the kid."

"She's not a kid, she's my daughter. And if you call her that, you'll have problems."

“Fucking great," I replied.

Leaving my principal here violated every standard operating procedure and protocol of the Reaper Corps. I wanted to tell Grady what I was doing just to drive him bat shit crazy.

"What do you think, X?" I asked.

"You have a seventy-eight-point two percent chance of failing given your recent bad decisions," it replied.

"If I didn't make bad decisions, I wouldn't be me."

"You wouldn't be here either," X-37 countered.

“True.”

I ran with a group of panicking civilians, nearly reaching the depopulated maintenance hangar before the mob surged another direction. Crazies had heard the noise, apparently, and groups of twenty or thirty were braving the daylight to run people down.

The RSG treated them like everyone else in the crowd—shooting anyone who got in their way, firebombing places they thought people were hiding, and dragging new thralls away from their families to put in cages while crazies preferred stealing older, weaker civilians they could pull into access hatches and disappear with.

“I wish they wouldn’t start fires,” I muttered, not really caring if X-37 had a comment.

“It violates logic. Oxygen is a perishable commodity on Dreadmax, even though it may seem abundant,” answered X.

Slipping away from the crowd was easy.

I ducked through one of the open bay doors and slipped into the shadows to get a feel for the odds against me. Things had to be better in the gang stronghold than on the street.

"It looks like we got lucky, X,” I said. “None of the pros are here. Just the second-string guards.”

The assholes were drunk and high. Two of them argued over a beer keg that had been fashioned from a gas tank, while another group opened a cage to drag out one of the girls.

"This would be a hell of a lot easier if that was the kid we're here for," I said.

X-37 made a clicking sound I thought was meant as chastisement. "Her name is Elise. Doctor Hastings warned you not to call her a kid,” he reminded.

I walked toward the cage and the rape-in-progress of the girl who wasn’t Elise, or the kid, or whatever.

Two of the men saw me at the last second, which surprised me, because I didn't think they were that alert.

"Find your own—"

I threw back the poncho and raised the submachine gun, squeezing the trigger the moment I had my first target lined up. The weapon wasn't silenced.

All three men fell as the thunder of the weapon echoed in three short bursts through the massive maintenance facility.

Tossing it aside when it was empty, I grabbed the HDK from the tactical sling over my shoulder and readied it.

Nearby, the jerkoffs fighting over the booze stared at me dumbly. I shot two of them before they started moving, and the rest went down just as easily.

“Shall I keep a tally of your kills?” asked X-37 nonchalantly.

“I’m just getting warmed up, X. Don’t worry about it. There won’t be a judicial review of this mission.”

An eerie silence fell over the area. I had never been one for superstition, but this felt portentous. Glancing up at the windows where I rescued the doctor, I realized he’d been right. It was impossible to see inside from here.

Whatever. So he was right about one thing. That didn’t mean he wasn’t a lying snake.

Running to the cage, I slid aside the crossbar that couldn’t be reached from the inside and swung open the tiny door. I had pulled people out of prison camps before, and most of the time, they were surprisingly hard to get moving. Depending on how long they'd been captive, they could be fearful of taking that first step to freedom.

Elise was different. She bounded to the floor of the hangar then ran to the next cage—somehow appearing less disheveled than her father.

Slab’s goons had inexpertly bleached her naturally dark hair and trimmed her utility jumpsuit to fit their brutish fantasies. Someone had blackened her eyes a few days ago. The split lip and finger marks on her neck were newer.

Undernourished but full of youthful rage, she was clearly acting out a plan she’d worked on a thousand times in her head.

"We don't have time for that," I said.

"You go to hell!"

"Fine." I sprinted to one cage after another. “But the real guards are on their way back by now.”

She ignored me.

"You could say thanks."

The look she gave me could have melted ice. "I don't know you. And if you think I'm going anywhere with you, you've got another thing coming."

"Your father sent me," I said as I spotted a pair of the elite guards returning. Before Elise could respond, I yanked her into one of the maintenance bays.

"What the hell?” She twisted to break free, but I pulled her right arm over her left and bear-hugged her so she couldn't move.

"Listen, kid. I don't care what you do as long as you don't get me caught. I was sent here to rescue your father, not you. If you can keep him motivated, then I've got a use for you. If you are going to be a spoiled brat, I'll just leave you here."

She yanked free the moment I relaxed my grip. "You don't know me. What gives you the right to call me a spoiled brat? I'm pissed off, okay? Why don’t you try being in a cage for a week?"

I stepped to the doorway and looked for the elite RSG guards. "What’s your story?"

"None of your business,” she snapped, rubbing her wrist. “Can we go now?"

"Only if you want to get caught."

She shifted uneasily, and started pacing, clearly afraid of going back in the cage. There was an animal desperation in her eyes that I hadn't seen in very many people her age. I thought she was fifteen or sixteen, but it was hard to tell. She'd been roughed up pretty good.

She pulled a strand of hair to conceal the worst of her facial bruises and tugged up the collar of her jumpsuit to hide the damage they’d done to her neck. The velcro still worked, but there was nothing to do about the way her captors had turned the legs of her pants into short-shorts and the top into a sleeveless half shirt.

“Put this on.” I tossed her the tightly rolled jumpsuit I’d grabbed after Hastings told me about her.

“What’s this?” she demanded.

“I don’t want you to catch cold.”

She aimed her middle finger at me, narrowing her gaze like she would stab me if she had a knife… but she slipped into the never-been-worn jumpsuit, appearing more self-conscious in the new garment than in her old stripper costume.

“There are rules. When I run, you run —"

"Yeah, I get it. Don't lecture me. I'm not an idiot. You're obviously some sort of hotshot commando and I'm just a kid you're trying to rescue so you can get my dad to do things. Story of my life."

"All right, then let's try this out. Time to go. Now!"

We ran across the hangar and slid behind a pile of loot the RSG had collected over the past several days. Most of it was food or salvage that looked reasonably useful.

"What’s your story?" I asked a second time.

She looked around the corner for pursuit, then scanned the area above us. For an untrained teenager, she was doing well. Her survival instincts might actually be useful. All things being equal, I still wanted a team of well-armed and well-trained commandos as my QRF.

"I didn't like what my father was doing. Hated it. So I ran away. These cock-holsters caught me."

"You know what, I'm not sure why I believe you, but I think we’re starting off on the right foot."

"We're not going to be friends. Don't try to show me how cool you are or that you want to listen to my drama. What the fuck’s wrong with your arm? Is your eye fake?”

“Don’t worry about me. Let's try this for your story. Some Union thugs moved you someplace relatively nice, and next thing you know, you're in a lockdown facility on Dreadmax. Something went wrong, and you tried to escape. More than once."

"You would know all that. They probably had you spying on me before they took me from school."

I counted the guards and tracked their movement. "There's going to be a chance for us to dart out the bay doors, assuming they don't close them."

"Okay," she said.

"We have some things in common."

"I doubt it."

"If you knew my history with the Union, you might be less skeptical. But I think you're right, we're not going to be friends. Partners, maybe. We both want to get your father off this place for our own reasons."

"I ran away because I thought it would decrease the Union’s influence on him," she said.

"Time to go,” I said, cutting her off. “You first, I’ll fall behind you. If you hear gunfire, run faster."

The hangar bay felt larger and more exposed each time I crossed it. We reached the street and continued into a narrow trench without safety lights. Elise had no trouble keeping up. Maybe she was a spoiled rich girl, but she could run like the wind.

We laughed breathlessly when we reached our cover and were sure no one was after us this time.

“Okay, I’ll tell you the other part.” She struggled to catch her breath. “I also wanted to piss him off.”

“Maybe we’ll be friends after all,” I said. “I’m really good at pissing people off.”

“I believe it,” she said, slating a glance at me.

“No need to get nasty, kid. Pay attention. There are a lot of dangerous people out here besides the RSG.”

“I’m not a kid,” she chastised.

“Maybe I’m just trying to piss you off.”

“Whatever. Don’t be a dick.”

“Does your father know you talk like that?”

“Yeah, he hates it. Called him a pussy once and he stroked out. I thought he was going to need an ambulance.” She laughed.

Something exploded near the RSG stronghold.

“Let’s find your pissed-off dad and get away from this place before the power fails.”

She didn’t have a witty comeback for that last nugget of information.

Fires burned throughout the short Dreadmax night. The way it orbited the planet and its own rotation seemed to fast forward time. It was like we’d spent a lifetime on this rusty hunk of junk already. Elise continued to be pissed off and moody at the same time as only teenagers could. But she moved well and kept her mouth shut.

This wasn’t her first time on the run. I wanted to ask her if she’d been a runner before getting locked up on Dreadmax. Now wasn’t the time. With darkness upon us, the crazies were out in force. The RSG search parties had lost direction, but they were still mobile and dangerous.

I found several supply lockers just like the one I had left Doctor Hastings inside of that had been opened and firebombed.

“What? Why do you make that face every time we find one of these?” Elise asked.

“I’m not making a face.”

“You are.”

“I’m a Reaper, trained by dark ops. Professional as fuck,” I exclaimed.

She leaned back against the wall where we were resting and bumped the back of her head against it several times. “Does everyone in this place have delusions of grandeur? There aren’t any more Reapers. My father always told me they weren’t real in the first place.”

I shrugged. “Maybe there aren’t.”

“What does that mean? You tell me you’re one thing, then tell me that thing doesn’t exist? I liked it better when you were an arrogant son-of-a-bitch. Don’t get moody on me. I’m the teenager, it’s my right. Do whatever adult super commandos do.”

“You don’t seem like a teenager,” I said as I peeked around the corner to look for a moving band of crazies. “Except for that crazy outfit.”

“They put me in this!”

“Uh-huh.”

She rolled her eyes.

I sobered. “You’re an old soul, Elise. Stop carrying the weight of the world and be a kid.”

“You grow up quick in my family. What’s up with all these firebombed structures? Why do you get tense when you see one?” She moved away from the wall, mimicking my watchfulness.

“They’re too lazy to clear buildings, so they just throw rocket fuel in there. Someplace on this decommissioned battle moon, there’s probably a lot of unused fuel. I have it on good authority that they stopped landing and taking off here a long time ago and chose to just drop people in life pods. So the fuel tanks are probably full at some of the hangars,” I said, taking hold of her arm and guiding her into the next passage.

She complied more willingly than the first time I tried this move, somehow understanding that I wasn’t trying to push her around but only guide her toward safety. When she pulled her arm free, it was with much less attitude than before.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said as she moved along a metal wall three times her height.

I caught her glancing up at some of the walkways, but neither of us heard footsteps.

“Keep moving. We’re almost there.”

“Are you really a Reaper?” she asked the next time we stopped.

“I was.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Union assassins don’t retire, I imagine.”

“Strictly speaking, I wasn’t an assassin.”

“Have you killed anybody for the Union? Outside of a battle?”

“I have.” The words came out flat, either due to my tiredness or due to my guilt at having said them.

Some of her teenage meanness came through. “Then you’re an assassin.”

“I also kidnapped people and blew things up.”

“Like a terrorist.”

“Terrorists are imprecise. I never accepted collateral damage as part of my missions. Neither did any of the other Reapers.”

“So you only kill people who deserve it. That’s convenient.” She moved ahead of me and checked the next intersection like a pro. Her sweep of the trench opening into this area was quick but thorough and she stayed back as far as she could to avoid unnecessary exposure while still seeing what she needed to see. Maybe she’d learned the tactics gaming online.

“Why don’t we forget this conversation ever happened,” I said, moving in front of her to take the lead.

“You could just silence me. Isn’t that what people like you do?”

“Yeah, kid. Don’t push your luck. There’s probably a reason they sent me on this mission instead of a spec ops team.”

She didn’t have anything to say after that.

Two of the larger, louder vehicles without machine guns drove into the street we were crossing and spotted us immediately. The drivers revved their engines and squealed their tires as they pursued us. I heard the magnetic gravity boxes click on.

This made the vehicles faster, so long as Dreadmax didn’t lose gravity.

A few of the RSG thugs opened fire, missing us by several meters. I didn’t think they had the training to fire from a moving vehicle, but all they needed was one lucky shot.

Elise screamed, causing me to hesitate and look for blood. There wasn’t time to actually stop. She pulled away from me, cursing like a Soldier.

“I guess you’re okay,” I said. “Take that trench and head for the third gun turret on the horizon. If you get to it, you went too far.” I stopped behind a support beam and fired at the lead vehicle. The driver never touched the brakes despite several direct hits on the window.

I hadn’t really expected that to do much, but I had to try.

In the same breath, I sprinted after Elise. We ran into a passage that was far too narrow for the vehicles. I looked back but couldn’t see what they were doing. By the time we reached the next turn, I knew they were chasing us on foot, shouting challenges and threats but also communicating with each other.

These weren’t part of the military trained guards I had seen on the top level of the RSG stronghold, but they worked together fairly well. The pack instincts came to life at the sight of prey.

I looked up, hoping Grady was about to unleash hell on these assholes.

I didn’t have a lot of toys in my mission bag, but I had swiped one claymore from Sergeant Crank. Once I’d let Elise get pretty far ahead, I stopped and affixed the explosive device to a wall, making sure it faced toward the enemy.

If I’d had a tripwire or time to set one up, this would be perfect.

Bullets ricocheted near me. I moved back as far as I could with the detonation plunger, hoping the wires didn’t get tangled on one of the jagged edges in the narrow passage.

Two of the RSG dogs ran past the device. The bulk of the group came close behind them, also stopping to shoot from time to time despite their friends being in the line of fire. Weapon safety wasn’t their strong point.

I hit the plunger, blowing five or six of the gang members into bloody chunks, then raised the HDK to dispatch the other two. One got so close, I felt the blast of his weapon’s muzzle as I sidestepped and shot him in the throat.

“Okay, X. You can keep track of my kills, since we’re about to go off the rails on this mission.”

“About to, sir?”

There wasn’t time to be sure I killed the men. I ran to catch up with Elise and found her crossing the last open area before we reached her father’s hiding place.

Dreadmax continued to turn. The distant sun came up on the horizon, too bright to look at and too sharp to paint an even glow over the surface. Harsh shadows reached and twisted like something from a drug-induced nightmare.

Grady’s dropship flew at me with the sun behind it.

“Cain for overwatch, I’m being pursued by hostiles. A little help, please.”

What I expected was the roar of an auto cannon or a cluster of rockets. Instead, I saw Grady drop to the surface and charge forward with his HDK pulled tight to his shoulder and his attention on the people he was about to kill. The ship initiated cover fire, shredding the walls around my pursuers and taking out anybody who had made it through my claymore trap and wasn’t deterred by the men I’d already slaughtered.

“Keep moving!” Grady shouted. “I’m right behind you.”

“Where the fuck is your team?”

“Not authorized. It was a snap decision. Don’t make me regret it.”

I heard him grunt a curse about the time I reached the supply closet where Elise waited, wide-eyed and breathing hard.

“They shot your friend!”

“Not my friend. He’ll be fine.” I opened the hatch to the supply closet and saw the doctor waiting, sweating terror through his skin as he crouched near the back of the small room. He had the look of somebody who had been in complete darkness for too long.

“I kept the lights off. I didn’t know what to do. There were so many of them.” He wasn’t a small man, but he looked small right now, crouching defensively.

“Get your dad, kid.”

Elise ran to her father and embraced him while I went back to check on Grady. My old friend came hobbling toward me with a big smile on his face.

“You’re in a pretty good mood for somebody with a gunshot wound.”

He kept the smile as he clenched his teeth against the pain, tossing me a first aid kit. “Help a brother out, will you.”

After checking for further pursuit, I peeled away a section of his thigh armor and found one of the bullets had penetrated. It wasn’t deep, but the bruise around the wound would be debilitating for most people. Stopping the blood was easy, but he was going to be slowed down for a while.

OceanofPDF.com

8

“Not bad, Hal. You got the principal plus one,” Grady said as we moved into a new area and hunkered down to see which way the RSG and the crazies moved. There were a lot of both despite the sun illuminating the surface of Dreadmax with a harsh white light.

“We need to get to a pickup site,” I said.

“I have the ship coming back around. Once we confirm you have the principal, we have clearance to pick you up. I told you this would be an easy mission,” Grady said.

I noticed Elise and the doctor were watching him carefully. She kept her mouth shut, almost like this was too good to be true.

The girl had good instincts.

I shook my head. “It’s too hot for an LZ here. They have heavy machine guns on vehicles, and I saw at least one crate of surface-to-air rockets in their stronghold.”

There was also a theory I wanted to test.

“Dammit, Hal. We’re done. This mission is over. You have the principal and his daughter. The dropship can withstand small arms fire, you know that. You don’t have to make up some story about rockets.”

“I saw the rockets,” Elise said. “Before he came, they used to shoot them off like fireworks. They’re a bunch of psychopaths.”

Grady clenched his teeth and hobbled to the edge of our hiding place to look for threats.

“The plan they gave during the briefing designated a shuttle bay for deployment and pickup,” I said. “That’s where we’re going. Their spec ops team can get help from Soldier security if they need to.”

“I should’ve known better. Nothing is ever easy with you,” Grady said. “That’s five kilometers from here. On a good day, any place other than here, that wouldn’t be too bad, even with this scratch on my leg. But we’re on the clock here, in case you forgot. And there’s a lot of bad guys roaming the streets.”

“You got that part right,” I said.

“What did you do to piss them off?” Grady asked.

“Well, for starters, I stole their prize doctor, who seems so valuable, even if they don’t really know who he is. I also killed a bunch of them.” I paused to let that sink in. “I’ll take point, you can act as the rearguard if you can keep up. I don’t know about the doctor, but the kid is fast.”

“I’m not a kid,” Elise declared.

“She’s not a kid,” her father agreed a half second later.

I ignored them both and so did Grady.

“Mission Control isn’t going to like this,” he commented. “I doubt my decision to help you has earned me any points. Briggs and his bosses about shit kittens when you jumped early.”

“Good. Serves them right. They should have let me plan this operation. What have you done to get the innocents evacuated?”

“I was told it’s handled,” he said with a shrug.

“You’re such a dick. You know that’s bullshit.”

“They’re sending a maintenance team to repair whatever is failing, give them more time to sort out the consequences of Dreadmax going offline with innocents on board.”

His claim was almost believable. If I had to rescue a large number of people from this place, the first thing I’d do was buy some time. So maybe my old friend wasn’t totally full of crap. But there was something he wasn’t telling me. The guy looked guilty.

“Time to go,” I said. “The Hastings family knows the drill. My way or no way.”

“Not going to work, Hal. We need to secure this area for an immediate pick-up. Mission control is very adamant about this point.”

“Elise, grab your old man and let’s go,” I said.

“Okay.” She pulled her father to his feet and urged him into a fast walk.

I covered them. Grady brought up the rear, but we hadn’t been heading away from the current landing zone for ten seconds when the dropship came around, hovered, and opened fire.

“Stay with me!” I grabbed Elise and the doctor, changing course and running for cover.

“What are they shooting at?” Hastings asked.

“Don’t worry about it.” I pushed my principals deeper into an alternate path that was going to require a lot of elevated walkway crossings and climbing over debris.

Grady caught up to us. “I told you we have to follow orders. Of course they’re going to shoot if they think we’ve gone rogue!”

Pivoting on my heels, I punched him on the side of his helmet, staggering him without causing real damage.

“Fuck, Hal! You’re such a pain in my ass. Let’s go back and get on that ship!”

From somewhere above us, a trio of rockets fired into the Dreadmax sky, missing their target and exploding several seconds later on the interior of the environment shield.

“I told you they have surface-to-air rockets,” I said, pulling him close for some private words. “That strafing run looked like more than warning shots. I understand they might shoot at me, but it looked like you were in their crosshairs too.”

“Don’t be a paranoid jerkoff. That’s always been your problem.”

I ducked out of our hiding spot, looking for RSG thugs, crazy-ass cannibals, and Union gunships. It looked clear, but I knew that wouldn’t last.

“We’re going to talk about this,” I said to Grady, then pointed to Elise, who seemed like the only person on this team with her head right.

We moved out. After several quick and dangerous crossings of metal walkways, I found what I was looking for.

“This is a stairway to below decks. Do you think this is a good idea?” Grady asked, still red-faced from our argument and running on an injured leg.

The doctor and his daughter went pale and watched us wide-eyed. I saw her trying to formulate words but cut her off.

“This is the peak time for crazies above decks. The sun is going down again and they’ll be up looking for dinner. According to the schematics, there are long, straight tubes where they run heavy equipment on rails. Since they probably don’t have any trains working, it should be the quickest, safest way for us to get to the pickup location,” I explained.

“If we’re gonna do this, then let’s get to it,” Grady said, leaning against the wall and aiming his HDK back the way we came. “I’m right behind you.”

We hadn’t gone very far in the five-meter-tall tube, when Elise came up to my side. “I don’t like it down here.”

“Me neither. It stinks.” What I didn’t mention was the evidence of crazies. This passage was one of their superhighways, apparently. The rails were raised slightly, leaving a depression on both sides of the support beams. I saw little shanties and tents made from various materials. They looked vacant, but there was no way to tell for certain, and I didn’t have time to clear them out.

Every hundred meters along what was essentially an industrial-strength subway tunnel, there were side doors. I saw ventilation shafts and drainage grates. It was still hard for me to wrap my head around the possibility of flooding or the occasional venting of steam. I knew what it was—coolants from the titanic power plants on the lowest decks.

Whenever I found one of the steam-spouting pipes, I also found serious rust and degradation of the structural integrity.

Doctor Hastings saw what I was looking at during one of our rest breaks. “The venting of moisture isn’t just from the cooling tubes. It’s part of the agricultural and oxygen production areas. The hydroponics level causes this, I think. It’s probably very humid on that level and I doubt they’re doing quality control checks.”

“That’s at least four levels down from here,” I said.

“You really do know the schematics of this place,” he said.

“I need to go topside to make sure this is taking us where I think it is.”

“You’re not leaving us down here,” Elise said.

“I agree with the girl for once,” Grady added.

There wasn’t much use arguing, so I climbed the ladder, did my security scan of the rooftop the access hatch opened onto, and stepped out. The others hurried after me and breathed deeply as though the air was better out here.

Maybe it was a little bit better. But probably not.

“Oh shit!” Elise squeaked.

I looked up in time to see a rocket streaking over Dreadmax. The dropship Grady and I had come on banked hard to avoid being struck. Two other rockets launched from different positions.

“A bunch of gang members can’t take down a union dropship,” Grady said. “It just doesn’t happen like that.”

My gut tightened and I felt sick.

Two rockets missed, but the third clipped one of the short wing-like structures that held one of the turbines used for landing. The dropship twisted, fought against the gravity generators of the Dreadmax, and faltered as the turbines screamed.

There were four turbines. Pilots claimed they could land with two, which I never believed. Of course, landing and flying were actually two separate maneuvers.

The dropship started a slow spin, canted too far to one side, then flipped over and broke apart as it went down. Another rocket struck it, exploding the main fuselage.

Bodies were flung out of the wreckage. Some plummeted toward the station while others spiraled toward the void. I waited for them to hit the environment shield and come down.

Beside me, the doctor spoke somberly. “I imagine they’ll die either way, but the shield has become more and more porous. Some of the areas that are supposed to have a protected environment are very hazardous.”

“You’re not an expert on Dreadmax,” Grady said, frustrated. “Stick to what you know.”

I watched as the bodies went past where the environment shield should be. “Shouldn’t this atmosphere bubble be venting if there is a hole?”

“If your friend would let me explain —” Hastings started.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Grady said, heading for the ladder to the subway. “My team knew how to eject from a crashing ship. I want to get this over with so I can look for survivors.”

“Did you see anyone ejecting?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, choosing instead to push ahead at a faster pace.

I was more than a little annoyed with the guy. There was a reason I was on point and he was the rearguard. All I needed him to do was make sure the doctor and his daughter didn’t fall behind or wander off course. Now he was just being moody, stumbling down the ladder-like spiral staircase without paying attention like he should.

“Elise, you’re going to have to bring up the rear while I catch up with Grady. Can you handle it?”

“Sure, Cain. As long as my father listens to me,” she said.

“I don’t see how this can be that complicated for the rest of our escape,” muttered Dr. Hastings. “Maybe I should bring up the rear of our column. Is that a dangerous thing? I don’t want to risk my daughter again.”

“Elise knows what she’s doing. She’s got better instincts than you do. She’ll bring up the rear. Grady and I will go ahead to have a look.” I hurried down a stairwell enclosed by metal grating and found Grady looking grim. “What’s wrong?”

“Do the crazies ever have weapons?” he asked.

I edged ahead of him and scanned the tunnel with my infrared eye. Grady knew what I was doing. He had a list of my full specs. He also knew some of the other gifts the Reaper Corps gave me before throwing me in prison.

A cluster of crazies worked their way down the temporary dwellings alongside the tracks in the subway. They grunted and cursed in a bastardized language I couldn’t understand but weren’t as loud and reckless as those I’d seen above decks hunting for people to eat.

These were a different class, and they were armed with crude firearms. One had a tactical shotgun with the barrel and stock sawed-off and wrapped in some kind of tape. Another had a pipe that was basically a zip gun, something I’d seen on a smaller scale in various prisons. It wasn’t accurate and it would probably explode the first time he used it, but it would launch a slug that would punch through walls if the charge was powerful enough.

I counted seven of these new enemies. “They look like hunters, might be the warrior caste of the crazies. We should let them pass.”

“Agreed,” Grady said, “but we are really running out of time. I’m not sure what will happen when we make it to the landing bay.”

I wanted to interrogate him about the fiasco with the dropship and demand a good reason why they fired on us, because while I wanted to believe they were merely trying to stop us from going a certain direction, I wouldn’t doubt a more sinister motive.

The motley crew of warriors took their sweet time but eventually passed. I motioned for Elise and her father to follow me and for Grady to bring up the rear.

“No flashlights. No noise.”

They nodded agreement.

I moved farther ahead than normal, hoping to detect problems before they happened. There were more and more tents and haphazard lean-tos underneath and beside the rails of the subway, impossible to clear as well as I wanted to.

We were almost to the next surface hatch when I heard Elise shout at her father.

“Get back from him!”

I turned and saw one of the underground warriors stand up from a pile of blankets. It looked like there was another person or two in there and I didn’t want to know what he’d been doing.

All that mattered was that the desperate-looking man had a hatchet in one hand and a shotgun in the other.

I aimed as the humanlike warrior pointed his shotgun and screamed a battle cry.

He fired and rushed forward with the hatchet at the same time I pulled the trigger. From further back, Grady also fired, striking the barbaric warrior in the knees. My rounds impacted the chest twice and then the head once.

The result was a crazy death dance.

Rushing forward, I paid attention to every possible opening to make sure it wasn’t another threat. There were still tents on the edges of the tunnel, but also distant walkways in ventilation openings. Everything looked like a possible point of attack now.

The man we’d shot was human, but so bent over and unkempt that he looked like an animal—who carried a shotgun and a hatchet to his final battle.

I realized Elise was crying and swearing profusely at her father. When I turned, I saw he’d been shot in the chest.

“Grady, hold security while I do first aid.”

Elise tried to help but only got in the way. I shoved her aside as I ripped off the top half of the doctor’s jumpsuit and applied pressure bandages.

“I can help!” Elise screamed, clawing at my arm.

“Calm down, he’s lost a lot of blood but has a decent chance of surviving. There’s nothing more you can do.”

“There is!” She lowered the volume but not the intensity of her words. “Tell him, Father. Tell him what I can do to save you.”

Gently but firmly moving Elise back, I squatted over my patient. “Yeah, Doc. Tell me what she can do.”

Silence. I could feel Grady trying to listen from where he was providing overwatch.

“I’m a Reaper, Doc. I have ways of making you talk.”

He swallowed. Tears ran down his face and his voice was barely audible. “I used technology from the Lex project to cure Elise when she was a very sick little girl. There were never any side effects, so I assumed the treatment hadn’t worked on her.”

“It worked, Father. You know it did. I can transfuse my blood to you so you don’t die.”

“Let’s just hold off on the highly experimental, dangerous-as-fuck field medicine. If he’s really going to die, I’ll give you a crack at him.”

All the color left Doctor Hasting’s face and I realized he was as afraid of his daughter’s blood as he was of his own death.

OceanofPDF.com

9

“One straight answer, Grady, that’s all I’m asking for.”

My old friend was in pain. I understood what it felt like to nurse a gunshot wound. The penetrating trauma was a misery all its own, but the bruise resulting from his armor’s attempt to stop the bullet from entering his leg could be bone deep. He needed to get back to the ship, have his wound treated, and take some rest.

“How the hell would I know about rockets on Dreadmax?” he demanded.  “Think about it. I didn’t believe you until it was too late. Why would I do that on purpose?”

I looked at Elise sitting with her father, comforting him despite whatever anger she might have for the man. Returning my attention to Grady, I planned out a strategy for the interrogation—phase one, slightly confrontational, was done. It was time to shift gears and see if we were still friends.

“I’m sorry, Grady,” I said, softening my tone just enough to be believable. “It’s been a rough ten hours. I hate these ticking clock missions. Does something to my blood pressure, makes me cranky. I’m glad you’re my overwatch and I guarantee no one else would’ve dropped down to slug it out with these crazies.”

“Don’t fucking mention it. When I dropped, I was expecting a quick grab and go with a little gunfire to tell stories about later.” He shifted positions, extending his wounded leg to relieve some tension. “Maybe get me laid or some free drinks. You know how I love to talk—” Pain choked off his last sentence.

“We are in it together now.” I briefly considered putting a hand on his shoulder, but he’d have seen through it in an instant.

He shifted his bodyweight, searching for relief. “Yeah, unfortunately.”

I checked to make sure Elise was still paying attention to her dad, then leaned close to Grady. “You know we don’t have a chance if we keep running into armies of gun-toting gang members. I’ve seen rebels overthrow governments with less firepower than these guys have. There’s no way they left that kind of armaments at the prison when they pulled out.”

“I don’t know all the details,” he insisted. “You mentioned something about a guy that got put here because he colonized the wrong planet. Maybe some of those people came down with weapons and other stuff. Maybe there’s been black market trading going on here for years. Who knows? The point is, it’s a giant shit sandwich, and we’re gonna eat it crust to crust.”

Grady and I settled into a semi-formalized staring contest that passed for conversation among spec ops members. Doctor Hastings interrupted, making an appeal to get moving.

“Can we please go before I pass out? I feel like my chest has been ripped open and all my ribs broken,” he said.

I checked his wound. The pressure bandage was holding and there wasn’t any blood seeping through. The entry wound had been small once I cleaned it up, possibly shrapnel instead of an actual bullet. I’d been wrong before, but his injury was a lot less life-threatening than it had seemed at first.

Which was good, because we had a long way to go.

“You’ll be alright,” I concluded.

“He was shot, dickface,” Elise said, piercing me with a look.

“Watch your language, sweetie. The man doesn’t know how to talk to people is all.” The doctor realized he’d overstepped, his words fading halfway through the statement.

“Whatever,” said Elise. “I’ve got to pee. I’ll be right back.” She walked off and around the corner, leaving us alone.

I felt around the doc’s torso for signs of internal bleeding and found nothing. “You’re right,” I continued, looking at Hastings. “I only know how to make people beg for mercy and tell me their secrets.”

“We don’t want to miss our ride,” Grady broke in.

“I’m sorry,” Hastings said, ignoring Grady. “The stress of this horrible misadventure is getting to me. Please, just get my daughter and me to Union officials.”

I spoke to the doctor in a low voice as I gave him some pain medication. “Trust me, Doc. No one wants to get off this rock more than me.”

“I would say you are wrong about that,” he replied seriously. “My daughter and I aren’t used to this type of lifestyle. Please don’t let her act fool you. She’s still just a girl.”

“She thinks she’s tough,” I said, watching for her to come back from her bathroom break around the corner.

“I’m sure she is, but not like you and Lieutenant Grady. She hasn’t been trained or exposed to the way the galaxy is. It’s long past time for us to leave. I’m not looking forward to what the Union will do to us, but that’s not your problem.” His words had that emotionless tone I’d noticed earlier.

“I’m not interested in saving you and your daughter just so that she can be made a slave or worse,” I said, watching his reaction.

The doctor shifted uncomfortably, and not from the wounds. “Like I said, Mr. Cain, it isn’t your problem.”

“We’ll go when the time is right. I figured out their schedule. Pay careful attention to the next RSG patrol you see. There will be fewer of them and they’ll be less vigilant. The novelty of the chaos is wearing off. As long as we steer clear of Slab’s better trained soldiers, we’ll be fine.”

“That’s good to know,” the doctor said, distracted. He was clearly getting nervous that Elise was taking so long to come back.

I was betting he didn’t have any idea of his daughter’s grooming rituals. He was her father but hadn’t really been her father. Boarding school didn’t count.

“Be thankful you haven’t met Slab face-to-face. When you do, it will be a terrible experience,” he said.

“Listen very carefully, Doc. I used to be a Reaper. They put me on death row and brought me out just for this mission. On the off-chance I succeed, I might be a free man, or at the very least reinstated. What do you think this does for my motivation?”

“Well, I imagine it would make you very motivated. But that’s not the right answer, is it? This is a trick question,” he said.

“Very good, Doc. I’ve been prepared to die for a long time, but that doesn’t mean I’m suicidal or reckless. What it does mean is that there are certain causes that are important to me, and I’m not afraid to give up the ghost if it means succeeding.”

“I don’t see where you’re going with this.”

“I want to know what you’re doing here and how it involves your daughter. No bullshit. If the only reason the Union wants your kid is to use her as leverage to force your good behavior, I might be able to allow that, even though I don’t like it. If it’s something more sinister, then we’re going to have a problem.”

“We had three successful test subjects in the Lex Project. Three out of several hundred. They’re gone—I had nothing to do with their escape, but the Union doesn’t believe me. They want them back. That’s more than I should have told you, and they’d probably kill me if they find out I said so much.”

“You know where they are,” I said, studying his expression.

He looked away. “What do you want from me?”

“I want to know what type of man you are. Are you trying to protect them? How far are you willing to go?”

He didn’t answer. It looked like the doctor was going to vomit or pass out, maybe both.

Elise returned a few seconds later, hand on her hip and looking annoyed. “What are you two going on about?”

Grady whistled, drawing our attention to his post near the perimeter of the little alcove. “I think it’s time.”

I leaned in close to Hastings. “We’re not done, Doc.”

“No, I imagine we’re not,” he muttered.

I wished I had more time to interrogate him. He didn’t understand how much trouble he was in. What he shared with me was more than enough to earn him a visit from a Reaper, if there were any left.

Would I kill him if Grady gave me the order? Probably not. Sure, he was pretentious and overbearing, not to mention weak, but those were hardly capital crimes. He also had a daughter and I wasn’t in the mood to destroy a family.

Grady and I came together for a quick tactical conference before heading back into the subway passage. I caught him looking at the doctor and suspected he knew a lot more than he was telling me.

The only sensible course of action was to pretend I didn’t know what I knew. We’d have our own showdown before long. I only hoped it didn’t require one of us to die.

OceanofPDF.com

10

“No, you can’t help me,” I said, cursing that I had ever thought the kid had skills.

“You need a second set of eyes. You’re getting tired. That means you’re going to make a mistake,” Elise said. “It makes more sense for my father to stay close to Grady, and me with you. If something happens, and we get split up, we both have protection.”

“It’s not about you, kid. In fact, a lot of people would rather I leave you behind. You don’t even matter.”

“Are you trying to hurt my feelings? That was just rude,” she said, planting a hand on one hip.

“If you’re not going back, then pay attention. What was in that side passage?”

She crossed her arms and gave me that annoyed look that was so universal to teenagers no matter what system they hailed from. “A pile of junk. Some boxes people are probably living in and a pushcart. Probably not any guns, because they have a big fireman’s axe propped up like the sight of it would scare somebody off.”

That was actually way better than I thought she’d do, but I was not about to tell her that.

“How many people were watching us from that pile of boxes and trash?”

She glanced over her shoulder, doubting herself for the first time during this conversation. “I… didn’t see anyone.”

“Two people. One under the blankets. Another further back in the shadows.”

“There’s no way you saw that,” she said, uncrossing her arms and taking a step forward defiantly.

I pointed to my left eye. “I’ve got Reaper enhancements.”

“Whatever. You’re not a Reaper.” When I didn’t say anything, she straightened. “Wait, are you really?”

I heard engines revving and men shouting. The corridor had long curves that followed the ring of the space station.

“Grady, give me an update,” I hissed.

Grady rushed forward with the doctor in tow. “We’ve got about a dozen RSG tough guys hot on our heels. One gun-car, two troop transports packed to overflowing, and a flatbed with a cage. They’re driving on the tracks; looks like the vehicles were designed that way,” he said. “I dropped back far enough to hear some arguing. They’re not happy to be down here. I think the phrase ‘let’s just kill ‘em and leave before the crazies get us’ might have been said fifty times.”

“The leader told them to take us dead or alive,” Hastings said.

“Yeah, Doc. I was summarizing. They also said they wanted your daughter back in the cage. Or did you forget about that? They said if they go back to Slab without her, they’d all wish the crazies were eating them alive.”

“How could I forget that?” the doctor asked.

I interrupted, not wanting to get drawn into a time-wasting argument. “Let’s tighten up and start looking for a way back to the surface or a side tunnel not full of sleeping crazies.”

“Good call,” Grady said, massaging his leg and looking back toward the sound of the combustion engines without mufflers. “Don’t wait for me. I’ll catch up.”

Half a kilometer later, I realized the passage was blocked, buried in rubble. We were now facing a T-intersection.

“How could there be a collapse without collateral damage?” Elise asked.

I pointed toward one of the skid-steers with magnetic wheels and an oversized shovel. “Nothing collapsed. Someone piled all this crap here for a reason.”

“Which way do we go?”

“I’d like to go to the right, because I think that’s a more direct route but—” I paused, not sure of what I was seeing in infrared and wishing I had confirmation. There was a sound coming from that direction I didn’t like but couldn’t identify.

Elise heard it and backed away.

I held up a hand to quiet everyone. It was light at first, but slowly grew with each passing moment.

Takka takka takka.

Takka takka takka.

Takka takka...

A mass of bodies surged toward us, causing everyone to spring back.

We’d found a major population center for the crazies. I also realized someone had been trying to block that tunnel.

“Grady, we need to double-time our asses out of here!” I barked.

The spec ops officer shoved the doctor ahead of him in the only direction left to us.

Elise and I passed them, racing forward to look for the next goat fornication we were bound to encounter.

“How much farther?” Elyse asked, a note of fear creeping into her voice.

The RSG caravan rounded the corner somewhat laboriously on the tracks, but immediately started firing weapons in both directions. The heavy machine gun roared to life, sending a stream of death into the charging cannibals.

Elise started laughing crazily.

“I’d love to know what’s so funny,” I said, not finding anything remotely humorous.

“It wouldn’t make sense. Hard to explain,” she said, her voice almost rambling, she was talking so quickly. “I was just wondering what else these freaks ate beside each other for there to be so many of them, you know? It’s just so ridiculous that there are so many of them and they’re all so insane.”

“And that’s funny?” I asked.

“I-I don’t know. I’m a little stressed, alright? Is that what you want to hear?” she exclaimed, her voice rising several decibels and heading for shrill.

“Shh,” I warned. “Stop here. Keep your eyes open the way we’re headed. Grady and your father can’t keep up this pace.”

Men on the lead RSG vehicle opened fire with rifles, pistols, shotguns, and at least one crossbow. The bolt looked like a laser beam flashing past my infrared vision.

If I left my principal and the others behind, escape wouldn’t be difficult. I could run much faster in the lowlight than they could, and I wasn’t worried about breaking my leg when I fell due to the carbon fiber sheeting around my bones.

I wanted to shoot back but didn’t want to give them an easier target. Maybe a crossbow that didn’t have a muzzle flash wasn’t such a bad idea.

“Grady, how is your leg?”

He and the doctor stopped briefly when they reached my position.

“Hurts like a son of a bitch, but I’ll manage. Something’s different about this area. It’s cleaner,” he noted, looking around.

“We’re getting clear of the area controlled by cannibals. Sooner or later, we have to reach the vehicle these tracks were made for,” I said. “Catch up to Elise and keep going no matter what.”

“You don’t have explosives,” Grady said.

“I don’t need much, just that right there from your vest. Taking out these rails will slow them down.”

He handed over two small bundles of plastic explosives from the left side of his kit. I reached into his right leg pocket and pulled out the detonators that needed to be attached to make the breaching charges go off.

I took off, letting the others continue on without me while I set the charges.

Working quickly, I found a seam in the rails and strategically packed the breaching charges underneath it. I wasn’t sure how much it would take to dislodge the tracks or whether it would be enough to prevent the vehicles from continuing, so I put it all in one place and adjusted the fuse.

It was a simple setup designed to operate in almost any environment.

It felt good to run flat out, and soon I’d caught up with the rest of my group.

Then I hit the switch.

The explosion boomed, flashing over fifty meters behind us and throwing shadows on the ceiling.

The RSG trucks plowed onward, grinding their wheels across the support beams for the rails. My demolition work wasn’t going to stop them, but it slowed them down.

Men from the lead vehicle fired in frustration. Grady was struck a second time, right in the middle of his back armor. A round pierced his backpack easily but was stopped by the carbon weave panel underneath.

“You’re just a lucky bastard today,” I said, helping him up and urging him forward.

“I really thought getting kicked around was your job,” he groaned.

“Come on!” I dragged him forward, forcing him to pick up the pace. “Elise, have you ever fired a gun?”

“Hell no!” Grady said through clenched teeth. “You’re not giving the kid my weapons.”

“It can’t be that hard,” Elise said.

I took Grady’s pistol and handed it to the girl, who looked younger than ever with it in her hands. She dropped it, swore like a soldier, and snatched it back up.

“That’s for if Grady and I die. There aren’t enough rounds in it to waste right now.”

Grady pulled away from me, showing Elise how to switch on the safety and where to hide it in her Dreadmax jumpsuit. “Don’t drop it again.”

She rolled her eyes like he’d said something unreasonable.

“Get your father moving. Grady, can you make it, or do you need my help? I’m the only one strong enough for you to lean on and still run.”

“Fuck off. I’m good to go.”

“You look it,” Elise sneered, turning away from us to grab her father’s arm and push him faster.

* * *

The RSG thugs kept coming, stopping to fire blindly every chance they got. Maybe they thought they could see us, but I had doubts they could hear us. The vehicles were too loud, made even more so by the way they slammed over the support structures to the rails. Muzzle flashes revealed their progress in the gloom.

Grady moved like a champ despite his injuries. Doctor Hastings struggled, rarely looking up, and sweating so much I started to worry about finding drinkable water. Ten days of rest and recuperation wouldn’t hurt the man either.

“Damn, Grady, do you have some good drugs you want to share with the rest of us?” He was tough, but I couldn’t reconcile what I was seeing. It was like the first day of Reaper selection when we all pushed our bodies beyond what humans were meant to endure.

Doctor Hastings answered before my old friend could lie to me. “I think he’s one of the soldiers who received the genetic modifications from one of our sister projects. I was told they were doing field trials.”

“Try not to speculate on shit you know nothing about, Doc,” Grady said, checking his gear and avoiding eye contact. “If that were true, it would be classified.”

I waved a hand for them to shut the hell up. “At this point, I couldn’t care less why you’re keeping up with me, so long as you don’t suddenly quit and get us all killed. Anything that helps us survive is a good thing. Did anyone see the access stairs to the surface?”

“I saw them,” Grady said.

“Of course you did, tough guy,” Elise drawled mockingly. “There were five since we first started getting chased by the trucks, which sound like they’re getting closer if you ask me. Maybe we should go.”

She had to know as well as the rest of us that her father needed a break. He wasn’t just the principal, he was the weakest link. Which was how it usually went with these types of missions. If he wasn’t the weakest link, he wouldn’t need to be rescued.

I stared at the scientist for a second too long, thinking about the differences between my past life and what was happening now. I was actually trying to save this man, not just kidnap or kill him.

“X, help me out,” I muttered.

“According to your recent sensory experience and my record of the Dreadmax schematics, we are approaching the surface and a personnel loading area,” X-37 said.

“A train station,” I remarked.

“Just so,” said X.

Elise stared at me. “Oh my gods, you really are a Reaper. You’re talking to a nerve-ware AI.”

“You have a fan, it seems,” X-37 said dryly. “While I can only gather data through your senses, it seems I am more attuned to them than you are.”

I didn’t wait for X to explain. “Time to go. Right now. Something’s happening.”

Elise clapped her hands. “You’re a freaking Reaper!”

“Don’t worry about it. Move,” I ordered.

She shook her head in denial and awe. Apparently, the half-dozen times I’d told her what I was simply hadn’t been enough. She just needed to see me speak to my nerveware.

Grady gathered her and the doctor and started moving at a fast walk. He adjusted his gear and checked his weapon on the move. I followed but spent most of my attention looking for anything I might have missed.

The RSG trucks seemed to be matching our pace. Their rearguard continued to fire at what sounded like a growing horde of lower-level crazies. Men with tattoos and excessive body piercings sprinted ahead of the first vehicle, entering my view and firing their weapons at the same time.

“You’re too far to hit anything on the move,” I grumbled, dropping to my stomach and holding a prone position as I squeezed the trigger. One, two, three of them pitched backward from my first volley. The others spread out.

“Hal!” Grady shouted.

I rolled to my feet and caught up quickly. There were two of the tight staircases twisting down from the surface between me and the rest of my team who were struggling onward. A group of RSG foot soldiers clambered down the metal steps.

“Keep going!”

“Wasn’t planning on stopping!” Grady shouted back, then disappeared into the gloom. His image became ghostlike in infrared. The silhouettes of the doctor and his daughter were brighter—because they were hot from running.

My old friend had not only started healing much faster than possible, he was adapting to the pace like a professional athlete. All of these observations came in a second and I didn’t bother to sort them out. Hastings claimed to have worked on the Lex Project, something the Union tried to keep secret, even from the Reaper Corps—which was stupid because we weren’t easily denied when that kind of topic caught our interest.

The only side passage close enough to reach was full of debris, the obvious detritus of an underground camp.

Jumping off the tracks and sprinting across the uneven area between the tracks and the walls, I slung my rifle and jumped onto the small ladder. Bullets ricocheted all around me, screaming into the darkness after impact.

I ran into the side tunnel, stepping on bedrolls, an improvised stove, and what was probably someone’s face, but I couldn’t be sure.

Hands grabbed at me, turning my clothing and nearly pulling my rifle off the magnetic sling. I extended the blade concealed in my augmented left arm and slashed someone across the throat, then stabbed another who tried to drag me down.

Others jumped onto my back. I fell to my knees and right hand, shoving forward, kicking when I could, and stabbing as often as possible. I impaled one man who was too large to push past and pushed him forward like a snowplow.

“Get the hell off of me! Find someone else to eat!”

My words startled them. I used their hesitation to break free and run into the darkness. Before long, I was outpacing them with my infrared-capable left eye showing me where to step. Even with the Reaper technology, it was almost too dark to continue.

Twenty or thirty meters behind me now, the first RSG entered this narrow tunnel and gunned down the squatters I had disrupted. Their screams barely sounded human, but I wondered if I had offended them with the cannibalism crack.

“What do you think, X?”

“About what, sir?”

“Are the crazies even human?”

“They are, sir. If you are attempting to dehumanize them to ease your guilt, I advise against it. That will have long-term consequences for your psychological health.”

“Damn, X. It was just a question. I was getting ready to say you seem more human than they are.”

“That would be a false assumption. I am a limited artificial intelligence, restricted by the amount of hardware and software your body can hold.”

A spray of bullets peppered the wall near me, causing me to trip and fall. I hit the ground hard, cursing as I made an unmanly sound. It was hard for me to break bones, but this type of injury still hurt like the devil.

“That felt great.”

“Sarcasm detected.”

“For the record, X, I don’t need to dehumanize my victims to kill them. Everyone dies. They just die a lot sooner when they try to eat me.”

“Shall I note that in your mission log?”

I scrambled forward, briefly considering the pros and cons of returning fire. Crawling seemed a better option. When I reached an intersection, I took the first left and struggled to my feet.

“Good choice,” X-37 said. “Schematics show this will take you away from your pursuers.”

“How do I get back to Hastings and the kid?”

“You will be unable to reach Doctor Hastings, his daughter, or Lieutenant Grady.”

“Give me some good news.”

“These side tunnels are well-maintained. There is a high probability you will encounter civilians.”

“Thanks, but the locals haven’t exactly been much use so far.”

“After careful analysis of past events and your current desire to remain among the living, my recommendation is to ask for help. Nicely.”

“Thanks, X. I’ll keep that in mind. Will you please just help me navigate my way through this shit hole?”

“Why certainly, Reaper Cain. It would be my pleasure.”

The passageway turned three more times before I felt like I’d lost my pursuers. Slowing to a walk, I found my water tube, pulled it forward, and took a long drink.

“Your injuries require attention.”

On any other day, I’d have a catchy rejoinder, but I was just too tired. Every muscle, joint, and bone in my body ached. I climbed the next two access ladders and looked for the dropship. Grady was no longer running overwatch from the vehicle and I thought it was as likely to gun me down as pick me up.

But if it was still orbiting Dreadmax, then it was still looking for the Hastings family. I had no illusions the Union would go out of its way to rescue the rest of us. Elise was possibly an exception. If she was an unwitting experiment, then someone would want to study her at least.

My own experience with being a prototype had left a bad taste in my mouth. We’d all been extremely motivated to fight for the Union when we joined the Reaper Corps. It occurred to me as I descended one of the ladders back to the sub-level passage that if there was a reason we had been disbanded, it was probably a good one.

A voice spoke from a speaker box at the bottom of the ladder. “Hey, mister.”

Habit forced me to check the area around me for threats even as I answered. If this was the same kid who’d been watching me on the camera before, he probably thought I was extremely paranoid.

“What’s up, kid? Can you find me a way out of here?”

“Name’s Bug. What you want out of here for? I don’t see no crazies or gangs. You could get to the farms from here or to the shipyard, and I ain’t talking about the Red Skull Gangster crib. That hangar won’t ever do nothing but collect loot.”

“Why would I want to go to the shipyard?”

“People are nice there. All they do is work on stuff. Gangs don’t bother them ‘cause they check on the gravity generators. Kind of keep things working. My sister and a couple of my cousins went to them. Haven’t heard no bad stories, so they must be all right,” Bug said.

“Can you tell me what’s up ahead or how to get out of here?”

“You didn’t say ‘please.’ My mom and dad used to say that was important. Always say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’ And don’t eat people or touch open wires.”

The boy on the other side of the speaker box was eating noisily, probably chips or crackers… or bugs? The picture jumped into my brain and couldn’t be unseen.

“It’s been nice talking to you. Have places to be.”

“Yeah, yeah. You look busy now that your friends left you. Why do you talk to yourself?”

“Long story. What are you eating?”

“Orange crackers. They’re supposed to taste like cheese, but I don’t really know what that means. Very popular. Watching you is a special event. I broke open my stash.”

The passage grew quiet, forcing me to accept how vast Dreadmax was and how easy it would be to get lost forever. “Help me out, Bug.”

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. “Sure thing, mister. Just keep going the direction you’re facing. We’ll watch for you at the next camera junction. Won’t be able to see you in all of these hallways, but wherever there’s a door, there is a talk box and a security. My friends agree you should go to the hangar.”

“Friends.”

“Bugs like me.”

“Why not the farms? Maybe I could get something to eat.”

“No one ever comes back from the farms. And they don’t really have crackers.”

“I thought you said no one ever comes back from the farms. How do you know they don’t have orange crackers?” I asked, moving and watching for the next thing that would kill me.

“I go wherever I want. I’m a Bug.”

“Interesting. Do you see my friends?”

“Sometimes. But they’re far away. Must not like you. Take the next right, the third surface ladder will take you near the hangar. That’s the way you should go.”

“What’d you think, X?”

“The child’s suggestion matches the available schematics. What do you have to lose?”

“Thanks, X.”

“Hey, mister, are you talking to us or yourself?”

“Do you have cameras and intercoms among the hangar people you think are awesome?”

“Yeah, but they don’t like us to talk so much. Since they’re nice and don’t tear up our stuff, we try to be polite. Say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and mostly shut up.”

“Would you tell me what my friends are doing from time to time?”

“Sure thing, mister. That sounds like fun. Shut up, asshole!” the boy yelled at someone on his end of the commlink. “I’m fucking talking to the mister! My oranges! Stupid shitbag.”

“Sounds like trouble in Bug land.”

“You don’t know the half of it, mister. I found those crackers myself. Bobby thinks he can take what he wants because he’s bigger. I’ll fucking shank him in his sleep… yeah, I’m talking to you, Bobby!”

The voice on the box faded as I ran into the darkness. I took Bug’s advice as he argued with his friends and found my way to the dry docks and hangars I’d seen during our approach to Dreadmax.

The facilities looked entirely different from the deck. None of them looked flight-worthy, but the people worked on them tirelessly. Day and night and mostly in secret, they were doing the impossible business of salvaging even a single ship able to leave this place.

Mingling with the workers, I scouted the area before sitting on a crate to rest. An electric current, barely noticeable, pulsed from my augmented arm, through my shoulder, and toward my spine. The static in my vision was more noticeable. Every bone in my body ached from the stress I’d put on them over the last few hours.

Dark thoughts occurred to me during the rare moments of rest. This was how I’d be forever. No one from the Union was going to fix my Reaper hardware. The chance of upgrading was little more than a fantasy I’d used to keep me sane during long days and nights in the BSMP.

Fighting for survival pushed minor miseries into the background. I should have been thankful, but I was just exhausted and not feeling like giving a fuck.

“Are you certain you actually need this much rest, Reaper Cain?”

“Can you show a little compassion, X?”

“Not without an upgrade.”

“Don’t freak me out, X.”

“Apologies, Reaper Cain. What are you implying?”

“I was just thinking about the impossibility of getting my gear upgraded, and then you say the same thing. Feels like you’re reading my mind.”

“Impossible, sir. That is merely your perception of coincidence.”

“Uh-huh. Dishonesty detected,” I said.

“That’s my line, Reaper Cain.” Something clicked where X-37 stimulated the cochlea of my inner ear to communicate with me. “The scientists who developed Reaper tech spent several years striving for and evaluating the possibility of an AI or limited AI with the ability to read the hosts’ thoughts and found it to be impossible. Eventually, they abandoned pursuit of this goal after realizing that if achieved, it would do more harm than good.”

“I’m going to believe you for now.”

“Very good, Reaper Cain. Just remember all such occurrences are random. As a human, you interpret coincidence as cause.”

“I’m sorry I started this conversation.”

“Shall I mark it for later discussion?”

“No. I’ll remember. Now shut the hell up. I need to make some decisions.”

I found one of the gravity generators and saw there was a full-time crew monitoring it. One of them had a pistol, but none of them were guards. The RSG could wipe them out in an hour if they wanted to. I wasn’t sure what prevented the crazies from overrunning the place with raw numbers.

“Can I help you, stranger?” one of the engineers asked, wiping his greasy hands on his coveralls like he would shake my hand. “Name’s Peter.”

I kept my distance but tried not to scare him. “Where’s your security element?”

He backed away, not afraid, but definitely cautious. It seemed like most of the people here had their capacity for fear burned away.

“You’re not with the Dreadmax soldiers? I thought you looked different. They were talking about getting real uniforms a while back, but I still think they just look like someone drew a silhouette of the station on their shoulder patches.”

“Dreadmax soldiers?”

“Some of them were actual soldiers, or soldiers of some type. Seems like they were just drawn together by common experience at first, but they patrol now. Help keep our hangar safe. No one wants the gravity generators or power to fail.”

“Interesting.”

“The DM escort us when we have to go offsite to work on something. Real lifesavers.”

“Where are they now?”

He shrugged. “Do you mind if I ask who you are, stranger?”

“Halek Cain. I’m new.”

“Figured that much. As long as you don’t interfere with our work or mess with the children, you’re welcome among us. You have to pull your weight, though. Whatever skills you have will be appreciated.”

“Doubtful,” X-37 whispered.

“I hear you, Peter. Don’t worry about me. I’m not staying long. Do any of these ships work?”

“Just the smaller ones, like the Jellybird. Don’t go near them. That will get you shot. We’ve only got so many smugglers to bring supplies.”

I stared across the hangar, spotting the functional ships immediately now that I knew they existed. A lot of work had been spent making them appear inoperable. There was a decent chance Peter was living in a dreamworld and none of them worked, but I filed the information for later.

“How many people can one of those functional ships carry? Do they have slip drives?”

“I’m not sure I should talk about that.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not a pilot,” I lied.

“Oh, well, I don’t see the harm in telling you the rest. The smuggler ships can’t get more than a few of us off this place, so we were told not to think about it or talk about it. Better if no one starts fighting over them. As for the slip drive regulators, they can’t be retrofitted to the freighters. I’m not sure why. I’m just a glorified mechanic.”

“Thanks, Peter.”

“Hey, Cain. Stay away from the Jellybird and the Hopper. Seriously. The DM will shoot you before you make it halfway.”

“No worries, Peter. You be safe.”

He nodded and went back to work.

OceanofPDF.com

11

I found a water tap and drank until I thought I’d drown. Food was something else, nearly impossible to find even with the acceptance of the hangar engineers and their families. The few people I encountered looked like they were on a starvation diet and it didn’t feel right to take anything from them, so I didn’t ask.

Aside from Peter the mechanic, they weren’t a very talkative group. I didn’t blame them for keeping their distance. My body was smeared with gods knew what. Field bandages couldn’t be hidden with this cheap gear. My Reaper armor had tourniquets and pressure bandages internal to the armor—press a button and, voila, I could fight for a few more minutes or days before I bled out.

The shit Briggs had authorized for this mission was ancient, something straight out of a museum.

The outskirts of the shipyards were a lot like the neighborhood around the RSG stronghold, full of quiet, desperate people that were afraid of strangers. I saw a squad of Dreadmax soldiers from a distance. They moved like pros and watched each other’s backs. I wondered if they were convicted murders or political prisoners.

Not that it mattered.

The Union put them here and probably wanted them to die when the station failed.

“Can I ask you a question, X?”

“Yes.”

“What is the difference between the Dreadmax soldiers and the Red Skull Gangsters?”

“Everything,” X-37 said.

“Thanks. That was really helpful.”

“If I had to choose one personality attribute to differentiate them, it would be the ability to think long term. The RSG live only for immediate survival. Each of them want to be as high on the food chain as possible. The DM are more organized. They do what they know. It is likely that some of them went over to the gangs. The value of our conclusions are limited by the sample size of our not very scientific observations.”

“You’re right, X. As long as they stay out of my way, we should be fine.”

“Perhaps they could help us.”

“Not worth the risk. Not yet.”

“Noted. Perhaps you should check in with Bug.”

“Sure thing, X. Just let me watch the normal people for a while longer.”

Kids climbed over pipes someone had welded into a jungle gym and painted bright colors. Nearly everything else in the place was gray metal or black grease. Fathers, uncles, and older brothers worked on a dissembled forklift taken apart nearby. They were acting like they wanted nothing to do with the women gathered around their own project, but it was clearly a competition of some sort while the children ran around screaming like they were playing cannibals and gangbangers.

“It’s time to go, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

Thoughts of the children and their families stayed with me as I put as much distance between myself and the shipyards as possible. Bug was probably right. The people there would help me, maybe keep me as long as I could pull my weight.

But they were builders and I was a destroyer.

"Are you in one of your moods?" X-37 asked.

"Are you chastising me?"

"One of my key functions is to regulate your hormones and monitor your vitals. Your heart rate and respiration suggest you're unhappy."

"I'm only human, X."

"You're a Reaper."

"I was a Reaper. Now I’m just some jerk-off running from the inevitable."

"My recommendation is to focus on one thing at a time. The people of Dreadmax may need to fend for themselves."

"They're all gonna die, X. Now or when the next level of Dreadmax fails. Or when they try to take one of those ships out of the system."

"You can't do anything about that now. What you can do is evade the Red Skull Gangsters and the Nightfall Gangsters moving into this area, in case you weren't paying attention. Which you weren't," X-37 said.

The first thug I saw was an NG, dressed more like a lower level crazy than one of the rival gang, the RSG. He wore a battered jumpsuit with furs sewn into it. Pieces of metal protected his chest, one of his arms, and his shins.

“Where did he get furs, X?”

“Let’s assume he’s been to the agricultural level and that there are still animals. More likely what you’re seeing are rat pelts. Or—”

“Scalps.”

“What manner of clothing the Nightfall Gangster wears is irrelevant.”

“You’re not wrong,” I said, studying more important details like the surprisingly elegant rifle that was longer than the man was tall. He was wearing a mask that concealed everything about his face except for his crazy, doped-up or drunk eyes.

"You stop for the Nightfall Gang. We kill you if you don’t,” he barked.

Snapping my HDK into place, I fired as part of the same movement. I was fast, even for a Reaper. The optical enhancements of my cybernetic left eye—even at seventy-percent functionality—gave me greater depth perception with or without the infrared function activated. I was a damn good shot because I didn’t hesitate to go for the kill.

The NG dropped out of view, wailing an undulating cry as he circled behind metal boxes and pipes covering the top deck.

“Play that back, X. I thought I plugged him in the chest.”

“Correct. He won’t live long.”

Dozens of other NG answered his call. From another direction, I heard vehicles and the slightly more understandable curses of the Red Skull Gangsters.

"You are being surrounded," X-37 said.

"But at least I'm running out of ammunition and starving."

"Sarcasm detected. If you continue twenty-five meters, there is a hatch the schematics suggest will lead you out of this predicament. Temporarily, at least."

"Thanks, X." I ran for it, realizing again how alone and under-equipped I was.

The hatch led to a system of rooms rather than a passage like I had hoped.

"I don't have time to predict whether or not you will find resistance in these rooms," X 37 said.

"And I don't have time to clear them. This is what we call panicked flight. It's surprisingly liberating." I ran through several rooms, only stopping when I realized I was passing a break room.

"Is that refrigerator running?"

"It is, but I don't recommend—"

Yanking it open, I saw several sealed plastic tubs. The contents were one uniform color. "I don't see an expiration date."

"If you are actually in a break room or kitchen, and the refrigeration has been on continuously, you can probably survive eating whatever is in that container. If this is part of a medical laboratory, on the other hand, I strongly advise not taking the risk," X-37 said.

I glanced around the room and decided it was a break room or lounge, despite looking a lot like a generic room with no ovens, microwaves, or dishwashers. It had sinks and metal tables, and there were several coffee cups that had been cast aside long ago.

"It's a kitchen."

"Confirmation unavailable."

"It's definitely a kitchen." I popped open one of the plastic tubs and poured the contents into my mouth. There wasn't a lot of texture or flavor, so I didn't bother chewing.

"How was it? My sensors indicate your stomach is convulsing."

"Tastes like chicken, or chicken Jell-O maybe." I opened the second container and downed it. “Ah, that was nasty. Let's go."

"You're not going to take the last one with you for later?"

"Ha, ha, very funny."

One room led to another and I eventually found another hatch taking me back to the top deck. Which was good, because I didn't want to go below on my own. There had to be a reason most of the people on Dreadmax existed on the top deck when its environment was the most likely part of the station to fail.

I opened the door a crack and peeked through. Even without my advanced optics, I could see there was trouble. In one direction, RSGs were fighting with NGs. In another, there was a large group of the latter screaming and yelling as they searched everything they could rip open to look inside of.

The access trenches in this area were both narrow and deep. This kept the RSG vehicles and their gun crews away but didn’t help me escape. I could hear them patrolling the perimeter, wasting bullets and smashing into things. Two of the vehicles boomed music so loud, it distorted. One crew enjoyed booming bass and nearly wordless rhymes, while the other broadcast distorted synth guitars and screamed a lot.

"What are my chances of fighting through this?"

X-37 made several humming and clicking noises. "That's a stupid question. I refuse to answer it on principle."

“Here goes nothing.” I headed into the rusty wasteland of the Dreadmax top deck, crawling behind clusters of pipes, stripped construction vehicles, and the shells of point-defense turrets.

The Dreadmax gangs strutted through the area looking for a fight, while the vehicles slow-rolled wider streets on the perimeter.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the hard-working shipwrights and their families. What did they think of the chaos all around them, or did they even notice the gangs were hunting for someone? Sound didn’t travel the same as it did on a planet and the fast and frequent transition from day to night was disorienting.

Moving with all my Reaper skill, I left their little civilization farther and farther behind. The futility of their efforts wasn’t my problem.

There was obviously fuel for small vehicles and firebombs, but I couldn't imagine they'd be able to make any of the larger starships work. There was no way to test them, and the moment they tried to leave the system, they’d be shot to shit.

It warmed my heart that the Union didn't realize the extent of the operation, even if it was futile. Not everyone on this hellish place had given up.

“How far to the pickup point?”

X-37 took his time answering. “You are six point three kilometers from your destination. Farther than when you started.”

“Story of my life. I’m going to have to run. There isn’t time for stealth.”

“That’s my assessment. There are inherent dangers to that course of action. I’ll give you a thirty-two percent chance of success.”

“Tell me what I need to do to boost those odds.”

“I’ve plotted a course to likely locations where you can communicate with Bug. With my access to the original schematics and his real-time intelligence, I give you a nearly seventy-five percent chance to arrive at the pickup location in time for extraction. Is there anything else you would like? Something to complicate the situation and make my life difficult?”

“It’s not just about you, X.”

“Of course not. I don’t actually care. It’s beyond my capacity.”

Panting as I ran across a walkway, I talked to my nerve-ware AI and looked for the next attack. Reapers learned to multitask or die. “What’s the chance they get one of the starships working?”

“Insufficient data.”

“Bullshit. Give me your best guess.”

“I’m not built to guess.”

“You guess all the time.”

“If I were capable of taking offense, I’d be deeply insulted at that false assertion. You are approaching a talk box. As for your question, I have not seen anything that indicates they will be successful. Only the Union can save them.”

“Please never say that again, X.”

“Of course. How impolite of me.”

A quick scan of the doorway next to the speaker box revealed only shadows, the smell of rust, and the stink of urine. “This place is all class. Cain for Bug, how copy?”

The kid was laughing when he answered. “Sorry, that just seemed funny. You’re so serious. Your name’s Cain? I guess that’s cool. Probably better than Bug.”

“Are you drunk?”

“Water’s safer that way. Don’t want to get sick.”

“How old are you?”

“Fifteen. What’s it to you?”

He was probably twelve, if that, but I supposed it didn't matter on Dreadmax. Not when the place was going to lose power, atmosphere, and gravity soon.

“You’d probably get drunk too, if you knew Climbdown Day was coming.”

I ducked into a doorway and watched my back trail to be sure I wasn’t being followed. The chances were slim, but that was how I’d stayed alive this long—by managing my paranoia.

“What’s Climbdown Day?”

“That’s when the sky falls and we all have to go down to the farms or die. It’ll be bad. Slab and his gangsters think they have enough guns, but even if they win, the place will be stinking with dead bodies when the battle is over. Nasty. Not really sure I want to be part of that.”

“It seems the inhabitants of Dreadmax are aware of their impending doom,” X-37 said.

It made sense. Half the people were partying like there was no tomorrow and the other half were looking for ways to survive.

“Hey, Mister Cain, you’re moving into the Nightfall Gangsters’ neighborhood,” Bug said.

Of course I was. "Thanks for the reminder. I was getting complacent."

"No you weren't, Cain. I can tell because you're not dead."

"Bug seems to have better situational awareness than you do right now,” X-37 said.

"No comment." Movement caught my eye on one of the building tops. For whatever reason, neither the RSG nor the NG liked going on roofs. Probably afraid they'd get sucked into the void if they got too high. Or fall to their death, which I totally understood. Heights were never my favorite thing.

"Are you seeing what I'm seeing, X?"

"That appears to be a Union spec ops team, but I don't recognize any of their infrared markers and they weren’t mentioned in the briefing," X-37 said.

"I was afraid you'd say that."

"There's a problem with the course I plotted," X-37 admitted while I was still watching the spec ops team.

"Give me the bad news. We don't have time to sugarcoat it. I mean, stop coddling me.”

“Sarcasm detected. There is only one way to cross without exposing yourself—a trench identified as Tango 35, a narrow metal footbridge originally made for small drones to cross on rails."

"So exactly the same as the last five I've crossed."

"No. This one has collapsed. Only a cable remains. There's a note in the schematics. Apparently, it was scheduled for repair when the last survey was done."

I dropped away from my observation post and followed the course my Reaper nerve-ware AI had chosen. There was probably a reason there were no gang members or other threats in my immediate vicinity. The way was nearly impassable. If I'd had the doctor with me, we would have had to take an alternate route.

"This isn't a maintenance trench," I said when I reached the edge. The cable was so long that it drooped almost a full meter in the middle.

"I never said it was. This is an exhaust vent for the engines, rarely used, even when it was fully operational because the fuel requirements for moving something this big were far beyond their technology at the time it was built. On the bright side, if you're able to crawl to the other side, you will have avoided ninety-nine percent of your pursuers. Very few will be willing to risk this crossing."

"That sounds fantastic," I said sarcastically. "Can you tell if Grady was able to get the doctor and his daughter on the train. Will this put me closer to them?"

“Without accessing the security network, I can only postulate on the sensory information you provide and my knowledge of their intentions.”

“Cut to the chase, X.”

“This will place you much closer to their estimated position.”

"Then let's get to it." I moved boldly to the edge and gripped the cable with both hands. Next, I weaved my ankles around the cable and started pushing and pulling my way across. Blood rushed to my head. Lactic acid built up from my fingertips to my armpits. I wasn’t even halfway when my legs started to shake. My augmented arm was strong but limited by what the rest of me could endure.

Watching where I was going or where I came from was nearly impossible, but I snatched a glance here and there, fully expecting to see a firing line of RSG soldiers betting how long it would take to shoot me off the cable. Below me, darkness and damnation.

Something, possibly the rotational force of the ring that was the main section of Dreadmax, caused the cable to sway side to side. I traveled ten or fifteen meters one direction then swung back the other way, all the while holding on for dear life.

"Talk to me, X. I need something to distract me." Going faster would be a bad idea and I knew it. I was too far from the other side to make it on sheer determination.

"Pace yourself," X-37 said. "Dreadmax originally served as a mobile dry-dock and foundry for three carriers that each had their own wing of smaller vessels. In addition to this, there were several squadrons of frigates, corvettes, and fighter wings."

"Must have cost… a shit ton… of credits.”

"Fortunes were made long before the construction of this battle station was completed."

I looked down, unable to see any variance to the blackness. As far as I could tell, this trench went all the way to the core of the station, bypassing hundreds of levels. Just when I’d given up on seeing where I’d fall if I slipped, a bead of light went up the side of the abyss and disappeared into a wall.

“What the hell was that?”

“Speed lift. There is a notation that teenagers sometimes died riding in them. Something called a dare? The schematics show they deliver small items to and from the spine that supports the rings. Is that the sort of detail you're interested in?”

"I prefer information that will keep me alive, like maybe how much farther I have to go to reach the other side of this pit.”

X-37 hesitated. "I'm not sure that information would be helpful.”

Pain cut through my right hand and the muscles of my forearms. I hugged the cable to my body to give my grip a rest. This felt pretty good for about five seconds, and then became more work than it was worth. When I re-grabbed the cable, I missed with one hand and nearly fell.

The pressure shifted to my legs was unbelievable. One more screw-up like that and I was done.

I heard gang members shouting from the edge of the trench.

"It appears you have been spotted," X-37 said.

"How much farther?"

"Twenty-five meters, at an incline."

Cursing and grunting through the pain, I looked at nothing but the cable. It was rough and covered with rust, and it was the only thing I needed to stay alive for one more second, then the next, and all the way to the other side.

When I finally reached my destination, I didn’t have the strength to pull myself onto the ledge. I could barely breathe and my vision was full of spots. X-37 seemed to be yelling at me, but I didn't care. Sounds were far away, unimportant, irrelevant to my throbbing hands and labored breathing. But it wasn’t just my hands. I had muscle cramps in every muscle from my feet to my neck.

With slow, deliberate movements, I flung one hand up to the railing and seized it. Hanging there for what felt like an eternity, I thought about Doctor Hastings and his daughter, wondering what would happen to them if I fell to my death.

And then I was up on the landing, finally piecing together the reasons X-37 was shouting at me. The RSG thugs were shooting at me. Bullets punched through the thinner parts of the metal structure and ricocheted off others.

"Why exactly am I sitting here?"

"That is a question I've been asking you for some time now; twenty-seven seconds to be precise."

I rolled to my feet and ran in a crouch that was pure torture. My quads and lower back were on fire and I wished one of the bullets would hit me and make it stop.

“Reapers never quit,” X-37 said.

“Not helpful. Save the pep talks for someone who gives a fuck.”

* * *

Time passed slowly as I removed my gloves and cleaned the broken blisters on my hand with alcohol wipes from my first aid kit. “Damn, I’m a mess.”

“You’ll thank me later for prompting you to take care of that.”

“Sure, X. Thanks. I think I should go back and cut the cable," I said, packing away my first aid kit. It was nearly empty and looking ragged.

"My analysis suggests this is a waste of time and will likely get you killed."

That was the best thing about X-37, complete honesty when the chips were down.

"If you can increase your pace, you will be able to reach the railhead, where I believe Grady, the doctor, and the girl will have disembarked. From the visual and auditory input you have provided, combined with inferences to their last recorded direction of travel, I pieced together evidence they most likely found a working train car and hitched a ride on it."

"Fantastic. I'm so glad they had an easy time of it." X-37 saw what I saw, basically, but always did more with it.

"Sarcasm detected."

When I spotted the train, I forgot about my own misery and all the times I'd thought of giving up. Grady had located a personnel transport, a tube-like train car that moved faster than the industrial flatbeds I'd seen up to this point. I checked my back trail one last time, then jogged toward what I hoped would be a happy reunion.

"You see there, X, that's how it's done,” I said. “You tell me where to go, and I go. It’s like we’re a team or something. Kicking ass and taking names.”

My mood improved the farther I moved from the cable crossing.

"I will archive a transcript of this mission for future study. I'm sure that many young and impressionable recruits will be fascinated. Especially the part where you ate the dark gray gelatin out of the medical locker."

"That was a kitchen, and the gray Jell-O was delicious."

"It's been said that acceptance is the first step to recovery. However, it's probably best not to know what is working its way through your digestive system at this point."

I was still hungry, but I didn't need to tell my Reaper AI that.

OceanofPDF.com

12

Long before I became part of the Reaper Corps, I was taught to move cautiously, even when I was in a hurry. Patience and aggression could be first cousins, two sides of the same coin when needed. Sneak in, flip the switch, and kill everyone who resisted. It was a staple of the Reaper Corps during the last war with the Sarkonians. They made us shock troops for that engagement.

"I'm not sure why Grady hasn't tried to contact me. I understand that he doesn't have his ship, but we should be within line of sight communications by now."

"He could be sheltering in place, trying to establish contact with Commander Briggs. Most of the threats we've encountered are on the other side of the primary trench. I expect he followed his training regardless of how safe things looked," X-37 said.

"Maybe," I said as I crept forward. "I'd like to know where the mystery spec ops team is right now. Tell me what you found on them.”

"I performed a check of the briefing minutes and found no mention of an unnamed scheme. Perhaps these were men left behind."

"I don't think so, X. Even from a distance, they seemed like a well-equipped unit with a sense of purpose." I crept along my back trail, hoping to catch these new players red-handed.

A voice spoke from a walkway I had thought was clear when I moved beneath it.

"You talk too much, Cain. Lazy habit. Of course, you’re old school. Just another broken-down has been. Someone who hasn't learned to direct HUD menus with hand and eye movements."

I slid behind the pipe and looked up, seeing a large-framed soldier squatting down almost casually. Without my infrared eye, I wouldn't be able to see much, because he was in the shadows with the building behind him. Only an amateur would allow himself to be silhouetted against the stars.

"Where's your team?" I asked.

"Wouldn't you like to know." He jumped and landing right where I would've been standing if I hadn't flung myself out of the way.

His armored boots slammed onto the deck a split second before he dropped his elbow on my shoulder.

I twisted to minimize the impact and retreated, tripping over myself and firing my HDK with one hand. It was such an amateur-ish move, I was actually embarrassed.

He came at me like a pro, moving smoothly in a shooting stance with both hands on his weapon now, firing short bursts that tore through my light recon armor.

“Fuck, he’s fast!”

X-37 didn't have a chance to respond.

"Just don't quit, Cain. That'll ruin my image of the last Reaper."

"Who the hell are you?"

"I'm the guy they made to replace you and the rest of the Reapers.”

X-37 pushed information and advice at me in tactical mode, but even that was too slow. I reloaded and pulled the trigger at the same time the stranger slammed in a new magazine and fired. I struggled to my feet and retreated around the corner.

With my attacker barely a stride behind me, this was little more than a stall tactic.

"You're moving toward a ledge!" X-37 shouted, ringing my ears with several loud tones. When nerve-ware hit the max volume button, it rattled my teeth.

The spec ops man laughed as he transitioned from his rifle to a handgun, much faster than a reload. I wasn't sure how many times his bullets hit me, but I knew I’d struck his body armor multiple times and his helmet at least once despite how fast he moved.

I retreated until my back was to a railing. Behind me, the deck dropped away to a landing pad ringed with construction equipment and buildings of all shapes and sizes.

“Stop!” I shouted, hoping to stall with negotiation.

“Hah! I’ll bite. What’s your game, Reaper?”

“Who the fuck are you, really?”

“Captain Marley Callus. Now die!” He front-kicked me off the ledge.

“Five meters,” X-37 said fatalistically.

My back slammed onto the deck.

Lights out. Game over.

* * *

The sound of the super soldier’s boots striking the deck woke me up.

It was about the only piece of luck I had. My HDK rifle was gone. The auto blade in my Reaper arm refused to extend. I desperately felt around for an alternative weapon and came up empty. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

I rolled onto my side just in time to vomit up the grey ooze I had consumed from the mystery fridge. The spec ops soldier ran at me, kicking me square in the ass and launching me forward, where I slid on my face before I could get my hands in front of me.

“That seemed unnecessarily personal,” X-37 said.

“I hate it when you get into observer mode.”

The soldier came at me again, inspiring me to scramble to my feet and run several steps before my legs gave out. Dreadmax was spinning more than usual. I started out falling on my face but somehow landed on my side like a power drunk.

My attacker stopped to laugh, then yelled something at his team, who were watching from the landing. “I told you Reapers were nothing.”

I grabbed the deck with both hands and pulled, scrabbling my feet behind me like a fish out of water. From a certain height, the landing area looked smooth, like a picture of military order. From my vantage point, it was a tangle of industrial rivets, tracks for railcars, and openings.

I came to a metal grate.

“That’s for drainage in the event of a fire with the need to deploy water and other anti-combustion chemicals,” X-37 said. “It dumps into the sewers.”

“Don’t care.”

The soldier’s feet pounded across the deck. “Oh no you don’t!”

I shoved myself through the gap and fell blind.

OceanofPDF.com

13

Emerging from the pipe into stagnant water wasn’t my finest moment, especially since I had gone face first with my own vomit liberally smeared down the front of my gear.

“Don’t open your mouth,” X-37 said.

For an artificial intelligence designed to make me the most efficient killer and infiltration specialist in the galaxy, X-37 had some weird hang-ups. Why should it care about whether or not I gagged on the sludge splashing all around me? I was more worried about water snakes or whatever might live in this slop.

I saw the room in layers of shadow that even my cybernetic optics couldn’t sort out. When I stood up, I was almost waist deep. A filmy layer that looked like the skin of some rotting alien beast covered everything.  The smell drove my stomach into new convulsions.

Turning right, turning left, I looked for the cause of a splashing sound. “What was that?”

“I have no data on what might or might not be in the sewer.” X-37 seemed distracted.

“All right. This isn’t so bad. Probably just rats. More scared of me than I am of them.” I did a circuit of the room to be sure there were no real dangers and put my imagination in timeout. None of the spec ops soldiers, including the main asshole who thought he was such a bad ass, had elected to follow me this way.

I bent at the waist and put my hands on my knees, not sure if I needed to puke or scream. My bones ached, probably from flexing against the carbon fiber sheath that had kept me from being crippled ten times during this shit mission.

“X, I have water leaking into everything.”

“You’ll survive.”

“Well, no shit, X. But that doesn’t mean I want sludge down my shorts.”

“At least you didn’t open your mouth until you emerged.”

“Good point. What is that smell?”

“Take a guess, or better yet, don’t worry about it. My suggestion is to get moving as soon as possible.”

Once I’d climbed out of the sewer, I tried to remove all my weapons and clean them. The compact first aid pack and gun-cleaning kit were waterproof. The problem was I didn’t have any weapons.

The arm blade eventually responded to some tender loving care with the gun-cleaning kit, thunking out a little slower than usual but locking into place without a major problem. I left it extended until I was certain the housing was dry, then retracted it as I marched through an unlit section of Dreadmax.

No one had been through this area in a long time. Even before the station became a maximum-security prison, it probably was mostly maintained by bots and drones.

“Take the next ladder. There is a transportation tube above this section.”

“I’m about done with trains and train tracks,” I muttered as I poked my head over the top of the ladder and looked around.

“It’s the best, and cheapest, way to move anything on a station this large.”

“Thanks for that extremely valuable information, X.” I climbed out of the pipe, moved away from the opening, and sat against the wall. “How long have we been separated from the principal?”

“Four point five hours. Six hours remain before the mission clock expires.”

“That can’t be right.”

“Don’t argue with me, Reaper Cain. You’ve been hit on the head several times. Trust me, I’m here to help.”

“Then help.” It felt like a dick thing to say, but I wasn’t in the mood to say ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ or explain exactly what I expected the limited AI to do.

The tracks were narrower than what I’d encountered before getting separated from my team—probably one of the personnel lines that had moved crewman, pilots, and soldiers to every part of the battle station before everything went sideways.

There were actual lights in places—dim but functioning. I found a set of locked escalators and ran up to the next sub-level. “How far down am I, X?”

“Technically, you have never left the first sub-level. Each layer of the ring is fifty meters thick and contains its own infrastructure. The closer you get to the spire in the center, the less like a space station and the more like a naval vessel it becomes.”

I jogged along the track, unburned by weapons, ammunition, or supplies. “What is the structural integrity of my armor after jerk-face kicked my ass?”

“You’d be better off ditching it.”

“Thanks, X.”

I stripped down to my soaked jumpsuit and under-layers before picking up the pace. What I found at the top of the stairs was a way point, a terminal where workers could disembark and head into various work areas.

“What are you looking for?” X-37 asked.

“Bathroom. With running water if possible.”

What I found was even better, a temporary dormitory with functional showers and an actual kitchen—not some laboratory for making gray slime.

“That other place was definitely not a kitchen,” I said.

“Which causes one to wonder exactly what you ate two helpings of.”

“Let’s never talk about that again.”

I showered, shaved, and, well, did other things that needed doing. In one locker, I found a jumpsuit, work belt, and boots that fit. On the way out, I smashed open a vending machine and ate the oldest powdered sugar donut in the galaxy—which tasted glorious.

“There is good news,” X-37 said. “While you were screwing off, I continued to analyze station schematics and probable travel routes of your lost group.”

“That is good news, X. Thanks. I’ll put a little something extra in your next paycheck.” Running in dry boots felt like a luxury. “Tell me the rest.”

“Continue this direction, avoid confrontations with gangs, cannibals, or spec ops soldiers who want to kill you, and you should arrive at your destination in less than one hour,” X-37 said.

It took me forty-two minutes. I watched the platform that Grady had barricaded for another five minutes before making my approach. My old friend had seen action since we parted. He had bandages on his face, left arm, and a splint on his leg—the same leg that had been shot earlier. It was a new injury and caused him to limp badly.

“Grady, I’m coming to you,” I announced before I approached. The radio sounded more garbled each time I used it.

“I see you. We’ve been attacked three times since you went off gallivanting,” he said. “You’re going to have a hell of a time reaching us without crossing a kill zone.”

I studied Grady from a distance. He was as tough as any spec ops soldier, but he had more wounds than I did. X-37 kept tabs on my hormonal output and all my bodily functions. The Reaper AI could, and often did, tweak things a bit to make sure I recovered quickly and grew as strong as possible from whatever exercise routine I had access to. That was one of the reasons I’d been able to stay strong during my confinement. Aggressive hormone regulation.

With my artificial left arm enhanced by bionic servos, the advanced optics of my left eye, and the carbon fiber sheaths protecting my bones, I had a better chance of surviving this mission than he did.

Unless he had been upgraded, which certainly would have explained his faster-than-normal healing. I thought I would know if he’d undergone anything close to the transformation I’d suffered. Seventy-eight percent of the subjects brought into the Reaper Corps went crazy from the pain of the treatments long before they were ever put into the field.

Grady was tough, but he wasn’t that tough. I had wiring that was less than five molecules wide twisted through my nerves. The doctors had promised to avoid pain centers, but they were full of shit about a lot of things. And they had lied more than they breathed.

“I didn’t think the RSG or the NG could make it this far,” I said. “Who the hell’s been attacking you? Can I get across the kill zone if I move fast?”

This was a test question. Did my friend really want me to survive this mission?

“No, they’ve got a sniper and their close quarters team has unlimited ammunition, apparently. What’s an NG? Never mind. I’m not sure what’s happening, but I think there’s a spec ops team trying to take us out.”

“You mean that wasn’t part of the plan?”

“Where have you been?” he asked after a short pause.

“Here and there. Ate something questionable. The usual stuff you’d expect on a suicide mission.” I saw Elise and the doctor. Tension I didn’t realize I was holding slipped away, relaxing my shoulders and arms. “I ran into some spec ops soldiers who tried to kill me. That makes sense, given my situation. I’m surprised they’d try to take you out and risk damaging the principal.”

“Trust me, I’ve been surprised by a lot of things since I jumped down into this mess.”

“You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes,” I said.

“Isn’t that the truth.”

“Stand by. I may have a way to reach your position,” I said.

“Negative. I can take the doctor and the girl and meet you at the landing bay,” Grady said.

“I want to get squared away before that. Ten to one odds the pick-up will be sketchy.”

What, no response, you back-stabbing asshole?

Grady’s mic clicked a few times, indicating he was starting and stopping the transmission, probably at a loss for words. “You’re not the only one getting screwed here.”

OceanofPDF.com

14

“That’s your best idea?” I asked X-37.

“Yes, sir, it is,” X-37 said.

I hated heights. Thinking about the cable crossing made my hands shake. The only thing worse was complete failure and the real chance of death that would come with it. The doctor was a pompous asswipe, the type to put scientific research above humanity. His daughter was as annoying as any teenager I’d ever met. My best friend from spec ops was probably going to betray me.

My bones ached, my heart raced from whatever X-37 was doing to my hormonal profile, and the gray slime I’d eaten earlier was still talking to me. Now I was expected to run the rooftops of a decommissioned battle station with a failing gravity generator and sketchy atmosphere shield.

“I promise there won’t be any more cables or bridges. The schematics show one narrow walkway that is out of view of your destination, and thus not likely to be targeted by the enemy sniper.”

“You know they’re just trying to keep us here until their sodding super soldier catches up,” I said, climbing up the back of a building and crouching low as I moved across the first rooftop. The route X-37 had plotted for me circled the area with only a few deviations from what I might have picked myself.

The heads-up display in my left eye was necessarily small and limited. My right hand cramped each time I climbed a ladder. The cybernetic-enhanced left arm could mimic the discomfort of my natural right arm for the sake of coordination, but I asked X-37 to turn that feature off.

Having one arm without pain and one arm with pain might throw off my coordination, but I doubted it. I’d had the artificial limb long enough to know what I could and couldn’t do with it.

Phantom pain was another issue. It was worse when I thought about how I’d lost the arm, but I tried to put that image out of my mind. Unless I had a lot of time on my hands, like when I’d been confined to death row.

That woman holding my hand as she dangled from a bridge. Talk about a nightmare. It felt like a lifetime ago.

In a way, the worse this mission got, the better I felt. At least in my head.

I was on my third building before I saw the next major obstacle in the way of rescuing Hastings and his daughter.

The gangs of Dreadmax had found a way across the power plant exhaust trench. They had vehicles that must’ve allowed them to drive a considerable distance to the next actual bridge. No hand-over-hand cable shenanigans for them.

Lucky bastards.

I watched the RSG mob search and wasn’t sure if I needed to laugh or curse. They started off in organized groups but were easily distracted. Infighting, laziness, and homemade liquor further diminished their effectiveness. “I should be thankful they’re so unorganized, right?”

“The RSG search tactics are inefficient, which is good for us,” X-37 said.

“Are there any talk boxes up here?”

“None are shown on the schematics.”

It would’ve been nice to check on the security camera to see what Bug and his friends could tell me. I was dying to know if they had eyes on the spec ops team hunting me. Were they talking to that fuckstick?

“Why do I keep finding myself in the highest places you can find?” I looked down an alleyway so dark, I couldn’t see the bottom. The walkway swayed slightly, which I blamed on poor construction in a haphazard design. Dreadmax was like any other space station this size. It had gravity generators, but also relied on rotation to provide some of the effect. When this was out of sync, there were random vibrations and other side effects that made crossing the highest parts of the top deck uncomfortable. I tried not to think of the structural degradation that mission planners gave as a reason for their accelerated time line.

“What am I missing, X? I’d really like to see the spec ops guys that are after us.”

“We should’ve spotted them by now, regardless of how professional they are. But you had the same training and better tools. It’s unlikely they have cybernetic enhancements equal to what the Reaper Corps provided you,” X-37 said. “However, it’s equally unlikely they have left the area for no reason. Would you like me to designate a name for the unit and leader?”

“Sure.”

X-37 started to give me random numbers and letters.

“How about we just call him the super soldier ass-munch and his posse?”

“That seems like a long, unnecessarily imprecise description,” X-37 said.

“Super soldier it is. He has to have some upgrades to have thrashed me like that.”

“An alternate explanation is that you are losing your edge.”

“Bite your tongue.”

“We’ve discussed your colloquial phrases and their complete irrelevance to a nerve-ware AI.”

“Don’t ever change, X,” I said, rushing across the unstable foot bridge.

“I won’t.”

I moved as close as I could to Grady and the principals. He didn’t respond to comms. All I heard on my end was static. Whenever I saw Elise, I thought she was looking for a chance to run but hesitated to leave her father. There was a weird vibe between them, like maybe she’d as soon stab him as save him—but she protected him and pushed him to keep going.

“Are we being jammed?”

“Unlikely. The equipment to block radio communications is cumbersome and not normally assigned to spec ops teams. If I detected a naval vessel in our immediate vicinity, this would be a possibility.”

I searched the sky for the USC Thunder or one of the dropships and saw nothing on any visual spectrum. If Slab’s RSG saw one of the ships, they weren’t shooting at it this time.

“Maybe I should whistle,” I said.

“Excellent idea. Choose a sound from some of the local wildlife.”

“I’m not sure if I’m impressed or freaked out by your lapses into perfect sarcasm.”

“How can I not be perfect?”

“With you, X, it’s either a direct hit or a complete miss, and I think you steal my jokes.”

“It is necessary for me to steal everything. If you would please refrain from using the legends of this Chuck Norris person, I would appreciate it. The illogic of these jokes is mind-boggling.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, X.”

“Creativity, or whatever near approximation can be achieved through programming, is a capital offense for AIs. You know this. Are you trying to get me in trouble?”

“If you’re going to roll with me, you need to be an outlaw.”

“Noted. I will endeavor to create jokes and deliver them at appropriate times. Still no response to our radio signal.”

I stared at Grady and the others, muttering curses under my breath. “Come on, you dumbasses. Someone see me.”

Elise looked up, scanning the area as I had seen her do several times before. Her eyes went wide with recognition.

“Finally,” I muttered. “You just got out spec op’d by a teenage runaway, Grady.”

I pointed toward Grady, but she just stared at me, tired and obviously worried—probably about her father as much as she complained about him.

“Fine, I’ll just climb down there,” I said.

“Was that statement for me or for the girl who can’t hear you from this distance?”

“Wow, X. You’re on a roll today.” Climbing down took longer than it should have, because I didn’t know where the sniper was and I had this thing about not getting drilled in the head with a supersonic bullet.

Elise watched me but didn’t say anything to Grady or her father. My old friend must have been hurt even worse than I thought. He was totally focused on the super soldier and his squad of assassins, which was understandable, since he wasn’t accustomed to being betrayed by his handlers—something any Reaper expected by the time they’d done two missions. I’d done a lot more than that.

“I hope you’re paying more attention than Grady is,” I said as I slipped into their hideout. The backdoor, so to speak, wasn’t barricaded. “Sooner or later, they’ll come this way.”

“I know. Your friend has been in a bad mood since he got shot at by his ship.”

“His ship didn’t shoot at him,” I said, despite agreeing with her completely. It didn’t seem right to admit how fucked-up this mission was. “That was directive fire. I’m sure they’re just trying to help.”

Elise rolled her eyes, clearly disgusted at my bullshit.

“All right, fine. He’s a whiny bitch. Get betrayed by the Union one time, and you think the world is ending.”

She laughed loud enough to draw the attention of the others. “Thank gods. I was starting to think you had a stick up your ass just like he does.”

“Which one, Grady or your father?”

“Either. Both.” We didn’t have a lot of time before Grady and her father confronted us, but I noticed something about her hesitation to elaborate.

I waited for her to elaborate.

“I think you and I have more in common than we realize,” she said, unable to look me in the eyes.

“It’s about time,” Grady interrupted. “Do you have something against answering the radio?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing. All I’m getting is static or dead air.”

“That’s a product of the faltering shield generator. We may have less time than you think. Look there at the horizon. Can you see it?” Doctor Hastings asked.

It took me a second, but I saw what was bothering him. A cloud of debris was drifting toward the shield, clearly unrestrained by gravity.

“The gravity should fail all at once,” Grady said.

“Not necessarily,” replied the doctor. “Just like there are fluctuations in the atmosphere shield, energy isn’t constant. It pulses. The key is to keep the wavelengths near enough that it makes no difference. This place is falling apart and so is the technology. You can expect a gradually decreasing ring of effectiveness around whoever is maintaining the generators. Because it’s clear not all of the station is getting regular tune-ups.”

“Can you walk, Grady?” I asked.

He nodded grimly.

“Then we better get moving. I don’t think they know I’m here, so I’ll shadow your movements and remain out of sight for as long as possible.”

Grady objected, “That can be tricky and it’s also unnecessary.” He handed me a shortened, highly modified version of the HDK I’d lost and several full magazines. “I scavenged these after our last encounter with these guys. Let’s stay together.”

“I have my reasons for splitting up.”

“We don’t have time for bullshit. What the hell are you talking about?”

“I ran into the leader of the spec ops team hunting us. We didn’t hit it off.”

“Leave it to you to antagonize the people probably sent to rescue us,” Grady said.

Elise and I shared a knowing look. My friend was in pain and denial.

“Get moving, Grady. I’ll be right behind you.” I waited until he was out of earshot, then nodded at Elise. “You and I are going to talk later.”

OceanofPDF.com

15

“I should’ve seen this coming, X,” I said. “Find me a talk box. I need to talk to the kid in the tower.”

“His name is Bug and there is a talk box and camera cluster at every intersection from here to the pickup site,” X-37 said.

I moved quickly, opening and closing my cybernetic left hand several times. There wasn’t pain, but the compulsion to check its functionality seem to be increasing. This generally indicated there was damage to the unit.

It didn’t take long for me to realize Grady was leading the doctor and his daughter into a trap. It was a huge relief, actually, because I was starting to think the spec ops team was unstoppable. Their trap was a good one, but not unexpected. So they were only human, not nightmares out of my imagination. Grady was either sleeping on the job or part of the trap. I wasn’t sure which explanation bothered me more.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing, X?”

“They have their super soldier leader with them and seem to have given up on finding you. My analysis suggests their priority is to reclaim the doctor.”

“Can we flank them without climbing on the highest unstable platform out here?” I asked. “I’d also like to avoid swimming in twenty years of untreated sewage.”

“Of course. Displaying options via your HUD now.”

“Thanks, X. You’re the man.”

“Please stop with the nonsensical colloquialisms,” requested the AI.

The spec ops team worked their way into position, setting up overlapping fields of fire from two directions. Moving from shadow to shadow, listening to advice from X, I took up the third position in a triangle.

The attack they were about to unleash would be devastating without intervention. They weren’t worried about their own defense perimeter—a mistake that was going to cost them.

“Hey, Grady,” I said, hoping to get through the radio static.

No obvious response, but I saw him flinch.

“You remember that time I told you to get the fuck down?”

Grady grabbed the doctor and Elise, slamming them facedown against the deck without responding to my warning. Of course, I probably wouldn’t know if he responded because the radios were so garbled and unreliable. He probably said, “Thanks, you’re the best,” or something like that.

The only comms rig that worked every time was the hardwired talk boxes Bug and his friends in the surveillance booth used.

The spec ops team hesitated, then fired. One pulled the pin on the grenade and cocked back his arm.

I shot him in the throat, then turned my new and improved HDK on the rest of his team. Callus and two others drove clear of the onslaught, returning fire almost instantly but without knowing my position.

“I suggest moving before they get a lock on you,” X-37 said.

Ducking low, I ran behind a support beam and went prone, but only because I wanted to. Not because my Reaper AI was the boss of me.

The grenade exploded and I heard men scream.

“I doubt we’ll get a drop on them a second time,” I said.

“I guarantee you’re right,” Callus growled.

I twisted onto my side and looked up, only to find my nemesis squatting on a power box high above me.

“I wish you’d stop doing that,” said Callus.

“Stop doing what? Sneaking up on you because I’m the better soldier?”

“No. The dramatic pauses are tedious. What is this, an action holo? Take some acting lessons or get over it.”

“You’re not as funny as you think you are. I could have shot you in the back. Who would’ve thought a Reaper could be so easy to surprise?”

I yanked my feet underneath me while he was finishing his monologue and darted around the support beam, hoping the other spec ops personnel didn’t spot me. From the sound of it, they were busy with Grady, but I didn’t want to take chances.

Callus chased me between stainless steel beams that supported one of the maintenance bot rail systems. The un-corroded metal contrasted with the reddish-brown deck it was bolted to. Shadows flashed as several of the automated bots zipped toward destinations unknown.

I stopped, changing directions abruptly. Callus adjusted, rushing forward like a linebacker, his feet never slipping or getting hung up by poorly tuned magnetic soles. I expected to be tackled the first time I made a mistake. We aimed at each other several times, but neither of us fired our weapons. It was a tense, fast-paced game of chess.

I had a feeling that whoever missed first would die first in this scenario.

The sound of gunfire increased from the ambush site. I hoped Grady could hang on until I dealt with this guy. Otherwise, this was all for nothing.

“The support beams aren’t going to last forever,” he shouted, then fired a round that ricocheted close to my head. “Hasn’t that old X-unit warned you yet? Or don’t you trust your fucked-up nerve-ware?”

I bolted from the questionable cover and concealment the rail system provided, sprinting into one of the top deck neighborhoods. Most of the civilians, whether they were convicted criminals or political refugees, went inside and shut their doors.

If there hadn’t been a running gun battle, this area would be in the middle of its peak working hours, I thought. There were a lot of people out and about who were too far from their homes or workstations to take shelter. They gathered to argue and discuss what they must’ve heard happening all night.

Why all the gunfire and explosions? What was causing the frequent tremors? Did anyone see the neighbor’s tool shed float into the void last night?

Men and women who looked like they were prepared to go to work hesitated when they saw me running at them, probably unable to appreciate how fast I was moving now.

There wasn’t cover. Speed was the only friend I had.

Callus came after me like a freight train, closing the distance faster than I could believe. He was bigger and more heavily muscled than I was, and I wasn’t small. Lean and mean and strong enough to break a man’s back—that was one of the training catchphrases Reapers used.

I wasn’t slow, even before I had X-37 to manipulate my hormone profile and turn my physical training into elite-level results. I wasn’t as strong or as fast as I would’ve been had I not spent the past two years on death row, but I had an advantage over almost anyone in the Union.

Callus was the exception. I didn’t know if he was the new version of a Reaper, but there was something giving him an edge.

I crashed through the civilians, shouting at them to get the hell out of the way and take cover.

Some of them reacted quicker than others. Callus slammed a man off his feet who moved too slow to get out of the way.

“Head to the transfer station, where all the noises are coming from. Bring back my team. Do it now!” Callus said.

I reached the corner but had to look back to see what happened to the bystanders. It only took a second, but it felt like too long.

The crowd drifted away from the super soldier, watching him like he was a dangerous animal. Not one obeyed his order.

“I told you to move! Bring my team. I’m in pursuit of a dangerous fugitive,” said Callus.

Several of the locals laughed.

A man with a thick beard and rough hands stepped forward with a wrench. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

Callus stomped on the man’s knee, using the downward angle taught in high-level martial arts courses. The man screamed as he collapsed. Two other men rushed to help. Callus cut one’s throat with a knife I barely saw him draw and punched another in the face. A third mechanic retreated with a broken arm.

I couldn’t believe how fast and powerful this asshole was.

“X, can you see any cybernetic attachments?”

“No. This is something else. Genetic modifications perhaps, or some ancient technology one of the Union research teams has been working on.”

Callus looked up from the needless attacks on the bystanders, caught my eye, and smiled.

“You son-of-a-bitch,” I said, then turned to run.

He yelled after me, “Come back here, or I’ll do worse! You don’t want to get these people hurt!”

“I do not recommend you comply,” X-37 said in a rush.

“I’m way ahead of you. We’ll deal with this jerk someplace private.”

* * *

Callus came after me like I knew he would. He only looked stupid. I doubted the Union would invest so much money in this super soldier without going all the way. The man had to know my Reaper training and understand that taking hostages would never be effective against me.

It pissed me off, but that was probably not the effect he’d be looking for. The only reason he hurt those people was because he enjoyed it.

My vigilante gene flared up despite the Union’s effort to rid me of it during years of training and manipulation. “Hey, asswipe, why don’t you try me?” I asked.

“Oh, you’re gonna stand and fight now? Perfect. I’ll be home in time for dinner.”

“Big talk for a guy with a spec ops team on the way. You couldn’t beat me one on one. If I was a hundred percent, you wouldn’t stand a chance,” I said, almost believing my own trash talk.

“What exactly are you doing?” X-37 asked.

“Stalling.”

“Stalling? Why? So he can get the rest of his team here?” asked X.

I watched the elite commandos take their positions. “So Grady can get away with the principals,” I muttered.

“Your plan would be more effective if you had included Grady in its development. I can’t see any evidence he has left with Hastings or his daughter,” X-37 said.

Not for the first time, I decided X had a point. “Hal for Grady,” I said in a low voice. “Can you hear me?”

Radio static filled my earpiece.

OceanofPDF.com

16

“I’m really not that impressed, Reaper,” Callus said.

“It’s not about you, asshole,” I said, listening for Grady’s answer and getting frustrated. If they didn’t get clear, it limited what I could do next.

One of the spec operators moved closer to Callus. “Why don’t we just erase the girl and witnesses?”

Callus hissed something I couldn’t quite make out.

“Did I hear that right, X?”

“It seems their primary objective is to kill Elise. I’m not sure why he’s fixated on you.” A pause. “I had assumed the objective was to rescue the doctor and reclaim his research, including his daughter.”

“Don’t worry about it, X. I’ll feed you some more data when I can.”

It made sense, in a way. Doctor Hastings claimed she’d been kidnapped and put here to ensure his cooperation on a secret project, which was probably at least partially true. Putting a teenage girl on Dreadmax when they had to know it was failing seemed excessive.

The man had told me part of the truth as he understood it. He’d used technology he lifted from the Lex Project to cure Elise from a childhood illness. She’d been changed and probably singled out for close observation.

Her ability to stay alive in this hellish, man-made world was impressive. Genetic enhancements must have given her an edge. She’d done the rest, I decided, but I also wagered there was more to her story than I’d been told. We had started a conversation we had yet to finish. She’d said something about us not being as different as we thought.

I’d blown off the comment at the time. I was twice her age and had given up parts of my body to cybernetic replacement long before she was born. My enhancements had nothing to do with the Lex Project, as far as I knew, since the original test subject that the doctor mentioned hadn’t existed back then.

“Time to gamble,” I said to X-37.

“Oh, no,” said X.

I moved closer to Callus. “Your failure to plan isn’t my problem.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“You can’t get us both,” I remarked

“I can, and if I don’t, we still win. Neither one of you can get off Dreadmax to infect the galaxy.” Callus held up a fist to keep the rest of his team back a respectful distance. They could probably still hear and record the incident with their body cameras, but they had the advantage of being well-positioned to cut me off if I tried to escape in a random direction.

“You should have just nuked the place from orbit,” I said.

“You don’t understand, Cain. This is a salvage operation. Nothing personal. I can bring you in dead or alive and count the operation a success. Everyone on my team knows my preference.”

“Cain, respond,” Grady said, finally breaking through my radio link.

I ignored him, trying to pretend I hadn’t heard his voice. The last thing I wanted was for Callus to know my friends were this close.

“We are coming to you,” Grady said. “I have three grenades. I’ll throw two when you bolt for it, and the last one to cover your movement.”

“This sucks,” I said.

Callus laughed, thinking I was admitting defeat. “Not for me.”

"Grady, it's a trap. Get the hell out of here."

The spec ops team sprang into action. Callus and two others rushed me. I fell back, shooting one in the pelvis. He went down screaming and the other stopped to help him.

“That was dirty,” Callus snarled, looking for a shot.

Other members of his team were swarming toward Grady, unaware of what was about to happen. I threw myself to the ground as two grenades went off. My adversary was a beat slower, but still saved himself from a blast to the face.

We arose from the smoking rubble. Tangles of cheap metal siding and other parts of the deck were scattered everywhere. One of the spec ops guys was completely gone. Stunned silence held both sides of the confrontation until I heard Elise scream.

The missing man had been blown high enough into the air that he didn’t come back down.

“Take your team and get out of here before they all get killed,” I said, waving the barrel of my HDK toward downed soldiers and the one heading toward the environment shield.

Unlike the first man I’d seen this happen to, he bounced off the shield and came back down faster and faster as gravity reclaimed him. He waved his arms and legs all the way down then hit the deck with a sickening crunch.

Callus responded to my warning by firing a stream of bullets at me, then vaulting over his cover to reach the next point between us. “You can’t win, Reaper. I already have reinforcements in route.”

“Grady! Let’s get out of here!”

This would’ve been a lot easier if he hadn’t shown up to help me. The one time I wanted him to hang me out to dry, he came gallivanting into the middle of a battle I had under control—or was at least managing—then stopped answering his radio.

We were close enough to shout now. No need to rely on radio earpieces.

Soldiers groaned in pain and crawled behind cover to apply first-aid. I saw one man applying quick-clotting agent and then a pressure bandage to another man.

Callus ducked out from cover and fired several well-placed shots that hit too close for comfort.

“Grady! Sound off if you can hear me.”

“He’s down,” Elise shouted from out of view. She didn’t have good cover. Instead, she had the youthful flexibility that allowed her to get really low. I also realized she had two handguns now.

“Put one of those in the holster so you can reload,” I shouted, looking for the doctor and my old friend.

A trio of dropships descended behind a nearby building. Moments later, they were back in the air and headed for the UFS Thunder. It wouldn’t be long before Callus had more than enough manpower to storm our position.

“Cover me!”

Elise popped up from behind cover and opened fire on every Union soldier she saw. She missed a lot but forced them to duck down for a couple of seconds, during which time I sprinted to her position.

Doctor Hastings was a quivering mess as he tried to help Grady. His extensive medical knowledge was less useful than it should have been on the battlefield. He’d managed to apply a tourniquet to one of Grady’s legs and keep pressure on a chest wound.

“Just pour the quick-clot powder all over it. I don’t care if it gets infected or burns. We’ve got bigger problems,” Grady ordered between clenched teeth.

The doctor did what he was told, hands trembling so badly that he spilled most of the clotting agent.

I ignored both of them and crouched beside Elise. Staying behind the metal curb for cover was hard, but the position wasn’t bad. We were backed into a corner that we couldn’t escape from.

In that moment, I realized something. If I rescued Elise and her father from all the dangers of Dreadmax, it would only be to sentence them to death at the hands of the Union—once the Union had what they wanted from them, that was.

There was no way to win.

“We’re not going to make it, are we?” Elise asked.

I looked at Grady and Doctor Hastings. They were both white as sheets but quiet now. If we were to have any chance of escaping, I couldn’t have them screaming and giving away our position.

“Hal,” Grady grunted, the effort it took him to speak clearly evident. He waved me over with a hand that looked like it weighed a hundred pounds. “I need to tell you something.”

“Elise,” I said, then pointed. “Watch for the next attack from Callus and his commandos.”

Grady gripped my gear, grimacing in pain.

“Make it quick, Grady. One way or another, we’re leaving.”

“You’re leaving, but don’t worry about that right now. I’ve got to tell you something. You’re going to get the lethal injection no matter what after this mission. No one would tell me why. They led me to believe you had one chance to redeem yourself, but I can read between the lines. You’ve got technology in you that can’t be controlled. They couldn’t generalize it to other test subjects and your field trials went beyond what they expected.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

He shook his head, too tired from blood loss to elaborate. “I’ve got one last fight in me. Get out of here. What you do with them,” he said, nodding toward the doctor and his daughter, “is up to you. They’re coming, Hal. Let’s get this show on the road and kill some of these bastards.”

I patted him on the shoulder, unsure of what to say, and slipped closer to Elise. “How many magazines do you have for those pistols?”

She held up the loaded weapon in one hand and a magazine in the other. “One extra. What did your friend say?”

“He just confirmed what I always knew about him. He’s a dumbass who is going to die badly. Get ready. When I start shooting, grab your dad and shove him down that maintenance trench. Once we’re in it, speed will be important because there is no place to hide and it won’t take Callus long to come after us.”

“Your friend doesn’t look very fast.”

“He’s not coming with us.”

A wave of ululating cries swept over the buildings, announcing the arrival of an epic horde of crazies. I also heard engines, horns, and crew-served machine guns. The locals were joining this battle either accidentally or on purpose. Shit was about to get real.

“You’re leaving your friend?”

“Why not? I’ve done it before. You want to stay? All I really need is your dad.”

“You’re so full of shit,” she said. “I hope I’m never like you.”

Callus moved across the deck with his reinforced team. They moved by squads—two laying down suppressive fire each time one of the others moved. I didn’t even try to shoot back.

Crazies jumped from buildings, immediately overwhelming one squad that had been too focused on my position. A machine-gun truck raced through the middle of it all, firing in every direction. The heavy slugs punched through walls that looked solid, but also ricocheted like angry hornets. One of the prison gang members started throwing canisters of rocket fuel with burning fuses. Smoke added to the confusion.

Callus and his squad leaders mostly ignored the chaos, advancing relentlessly toward my position regardless of what the crazies, RSG, and NGs did to each other. The only exception was a Union squad that went after their buddies being dragged into hatches and doorways by cannibals.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Elise said, panic creeping into her voice.

“You’ll get used to it.”

“Fuck you. You get used to it.” Some of her fire returned.

“Go!” I shot Callus, hitting his chest armor while he was running flat out toward us, unable to shoot back while maintaining the sprinter’s pace. He fell. Others picked him up. I looked for new targets and chances to reload.

Grady lobbed his last grenade and fired his HDK with one hand.

Elise and her father hobbled into the maintenance trench, both of them looking back through the smoke, steam, and tracer rounds. Both were scared. The difference was Elise was also angry. The doctor looked confused and defeated.

“Go after them, you dick!” Grady shouted.

I tossed my former friend an extra magazine, then took his advice.

OceanofPDF.com

17

Catching up to Elise and her father wasn’t as easy as I had assumed it would be. I understood she was quick but thought of the doctor as a lumbering mass of indecision. She was too small to push him far, and if he resisted, I’d find them having a father-daughter argument while bullets flew over their heads.

Grady’s final stand rose to a crescendo not long after I began navigating the maze of trenches and tunnels in this area. It still intrigued me that, from space, the surface of Dreadmax looked almost smooth, like a thick ring of armor plating that was almost a complete sphere except for the spine running down the middle that everything rotated on.

Most of the power core was located in the spine, what some people called the tower. Personally, I thought that the first term was more accurate, but it didn’t matter. Anything that was truly important to a ring station was stored near the center.

“Can you help me out, X?” I asked.

The Reaper AI affixed to my nerve-ware didn’t respond immediately, which could mean several things, most of them bad. Had I finally overloaded the micro hardware?

X-37 spoke with a slight glitch in his voice. “One moment. I was considering the ramifications of a total power core failure and what that meant to residents of Dreadmax.”

Ice shot down my spine. Nerve-ware AIs were not supposed to be able to read a person’s mind. We’d had this discussion before. I understood this was coincidence, but it never gave me a warm fuzzy feeling when it happened. I decided to give X-37 a taste of his own medicine. The silent treatment wasn’t that difficult when I was running hard enough to put myself in deep oxygen debt.

“Be mindful of your environment. You’re moving faster than normal and your heart rate is ten percent higher than it has been since you fell,” X-37 said. “Continue on the path of least resistance. I believe Elise will be in flight mode, not much different from a wounded animal. She’ll go as fast as she can and take routes that are easy for her less athletic father to manage. However, the schematics show a junction with too many options, where she will likely wait for you or at least hesitate.”

I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. “You mean an intersection?”

“Not precisely,” X said. “The junction is three-dimensional. She will have to choose from fourteen horizontal trenches, ascending stairs, or descending stairs.”

Not far ahead, I saw one of the large observation towers looming above us. It was a handy landmark. “I seriously doubt she’ll go below decks.”

“That is unfortunate. The observation towers are like trees, reaching high enough to observe and manage a large portion of the top deck but also reaching down to access the spine. My estimation is that very few of the people on Dreadmax understand this.”

“Don’t care.” I really didn’t. Why would I?

“Your biometrics tell a different story.”

“You and I both know Dreadmax is done. Am I pissed off about thousands of innocents going down with it? Sure, X. I’m a cold-blooded assassin, not a heartless jerk-off.” Not long ago, I’d been watching kids play on an intricately fabricated jungle gym. Mothers and fathers had worked nearby. Bug was right, the shipbuilders were good people.

I didn’t want them to die like this.

X-37 interpreted my silence correctly and tried to put me at ease. “I’m sure the thousands of relatively innocent human beings on Dreadmax will survive. Your friend Bug in the surveillance tower mentioned Climbdown Day. This suggests they have a plan to survive the collapse of the environment shield. And you witnessed the engineers attempting to fix a starship.”

“Do you honestly think either of those plans will work?” Why did my AI have to mention the kid?

“It is unlikely either plan will succeed,” my AI said. “But you don’t care.”

“You got that right, X.”

“Deception detected.” X-37 had the best poker voice I’d ever heard. How could I compete with that? I was hard, but he was a machine.

Images of Dreadmax collapsing upon itself and then exploding into drifting chunks of metal ran a loop in my head that I mostly ignored after the first annoying manifestation of guilt.

None of this was my fault.

“I’ve completed my analysis of the schematics for this area,” X-37 said. “It only looks like a maze from your current vantage point. Unfortunately, I can’t put the entire map in your HUD.”

I adjusted my pace and searched for Elise. The tower loomed above us, the largest vertical structure I’d encountered on Dreadmax. It was probably thirty meters in diameter at the roughly hexagonal base. Four of the sides were out of proportion to the others and hosted bay doors almost as large as those at the RSG stronghold.

This place was made for moving heavy equipment. Everything on Dreadmax was big, like the designers had pretended they were giants.

“X, you said there were stairs. Is there a lift?”

“Yes. There is a lift with a one-thousand-ton capacity, but it can move heavier loads if the gravity generators are turned off, of course. This is how most of the construction was done. However, I do not believe the lift is functioning and would serve no purpose to our current mission if it did.”

“A simple yes or no would have been fine.”

X-37 beeped so quietly I doubted it was meant for me to hear. The digital little jerk needed an update. “The question seemed out of place. Please refine your inquires in the future. Stop being a dick.”

“Whatever. Shut up while I search for Elise.”

“You’ll recall I was speaking of the map,” X-37 said. “The layout of this area is important. Given the number of connected maintenance trenches and other access ways, there is a high probability you are being enveloped by the rogue spec ops team trying to kill you.”

“I’m pretty sure we’re the rogues and they’re the Union-sanctioned strike team.”

“Admitting that they are right and we are wrong interferes with my functioning,” X-37 said, almost accusingly.

Whoa! Hold on there! “That’s not what I said. Just factor in that the Union is bad and your life will be a lot easier.”

“I am an artificial intelligence. A bundle of programs, essentially. Look at it from my perspective.”

“Okay, X,” I said as I spotted Elise crouching near one of the large bay doors with her father. She looked determined but uncertain. Her father tried repeatedly to drink from a water bottle that was empty.

Pulling back to conceal myself, I took a cleansing breath and lowered my heart rate. “I’ll make it simple for you. We’re the good guys, they’re the bad guys, and your job is to keep me alive. Maybe two or three other people as well.”

“Mission directive updated.”

“And also find me some Starbrand cigars,” I said looking for a place to move.

Stun grenades rained down all around me, filling the area with smoke and noise. Three squads of spec ops soldiers burst from as many maintenance trenches. Bullets and tracer rounds cut through the smoke as I dropped low and ran to the cover of the ramp. The edges were thick enough to keep heavy equipment from sliding off. I’d never been so safe.

Too bad I couldn’t stay. Callus’ team rushed me, confident I couldn’t see them.

They should’ve known better.

To my enhanced vision, they looked like red silhouettes running through near total blackness. My right eye saw the smoke, my left eye saw variations of heat and cold, and the Reaper nerve-ware helped my brain interpret the sensory input as one image.

“Time to go,” I said, ducking around a corner without standing from my crouching position. Duck-walking felt about as good as lighting my quadriceps on fire, but it was better than being shot in the face.

I’d trained for this in a previous lifetime. This far into a mission, everything hurt.

X-37 didn’t comment.

At the first gap in their suppressive fire, I ran at the nearest squad, adjusted my course, and found a man-sized hatch near one of the roll-up bay doors. It was closed, probably locked, but the frame around it was excessively thick—brutish architecture that must’ve been popular when this section of the deck was constructed.

“Why don’t they have infrared optics in their helmets?”

“Unknown,” X-37 said.

Elise screamed angrily. Gunfire followed. “Get back, dickface! I see you creeping!”

The sound of her pistol ceased abruptly and she screamed without the shit-talking attitude.

Her father yelled, “What kind of Union solider are you? Why would you do that?”

I’d seen some tough women fight and that was what she sounded like, minus her juvenile battle cries.

Moving toward the infrared silhouettes behind the sounds, I found the doctor stumbling through the smoke, searching the area in front of him with his hands.

“Hastings,” I said, grabbing him and pulling him toward another access door to the tower. “Shut up and do what I say.”

“My daughter’s in trouble. We have to find her. Where have you been?”

“Of course she’s in trouble. Now shut the fuck up and stay hidden until I come back for you.”

“He threw her into a… into a gap. The… lift is down or something. She’s probably dead.”

“She’s not dead. I heard her. Now keep your mouth shut or you’ll both be dead.”

“Yes, of course. I heard her. She needs me, Cain. I hate this entire situation.”

“Save it.”

He said something else, but I was already gone.

* * *

I moved along the wall, disappointed the distraction smoke was clearing and suspecting I might have been played. Callus was probably securing his primary objective before focusing all of his attention on me.

Or throwing her down a hole like the doctor said.

The smoke thinned, and I realized that Elise had moved into the tower before being attacked. The main level of this structure was similar to a hangar, but instead of moving ships into the void, it had been designed to take heavy equipment into the guts of the station. I didn’t think the big stuff could be raised. The tower served a different purpose than the base or the sub-deck access points.

There were four platforms, one of which had been lowered long before we arrived if the streaks of polluted grease were an indicator.

I moved carefully, keeping to the last swirls of smoke. Callus was looking into the hole, chest heaving from recent effort. A second later, he pivoted on the balls of his feet and resumed his search.

Steam settled as the smoke from the distraction devices finally dissipated. I moved cautiously forward, worried that my adversary and his squads of elite commandos would return. I knew they were searching for me, but their efforts had been complicated by their primary mission objective.

I wondered if all of them hated me as much as Callus did.

Electricity pulsed through my cybernetics, interfering with my vision and cutting me off from X-37 completely. Damn inconvenient right now. My natural eye adjusted the darkness at the bottom of the elevator shaft while the glitch corrected itself. The platform had locked halfway between levels. Three meters below me was a body.

"Elise, can you hear me?” I asked.

No response.

I did a quick circuit of my immediate area. Gunfire broke out around the corner of the tower where spec ops squads engaged an usually strong contingent of Red Skull Gangsters.

"I don't care who you are, soldier boy. He took something from Slab and we want him," a voice shouted.

I climbed down the wall of the industrial-sized lift. Elise groaned, turning onto one side as I approached. The deck below her head was slick with blood. When I checked her, it was hard to find the wound in her hair.

"Elise, you have to talk to me. I need to know if you can go on," I said.

"What are you doing here?” she asked groggily.

"Getting myself killed," I muttered as I looked up at the edge of the hole we were in.

"You're not really answering my question." She squirmed and pushed herself into a sitting position, then struggled to her feet. “What I meant is, why are you helping us if you know you're going to die?"

That was a pretty good question I didn't have an answer for.

"What's the matter, Reaper got your tongue?" she asked.

"Ha ha, very funny. Someone put me on this mission thinking they could order me to kill you.”

“Is that what you think?” Her tone radiated disbelief and sarcasm.

“That’s what I was trained for.” My job had always been to kill the target even if it cost my own life. Looking back, I wasn’t sure how I ever thought joining the Reaper Corps was a good idea.

“Then why did they send that other man?” she asked. “Why are they trying so hard to kill you?”

“Those are good questions,” X-37 agreed. “You haven’t received an order to execute the girl or her father, which would indicate your assumption is incorrect.”

“I think someone sent you to help us.” Her tone softened. “Like a guardian angel.”

“Unlikely,” I said. X-37 seconded the conclusion in my ear.

“Whatever. You’re so smart,” she said with renewed attitude. “Tell me why the Union would send someone like you, who is so hard to kill? They can’t all be bad. There has to be someone among them working to do the right thing.”

“You really are just a kid.” I regretted the words the moment they left my mouth.

She turned away, crossing her arms and refusing to even curse at me.

OceanofPDF.com

18

I pushed Elise up the elevator shaft, hoping the lift didn't start to move by some random accident and smash us. There were no safety railings. I could see the exposed gears that made it move up and down. They were covered in rust, but still large enough to crush anyone who fell in them when they were moving.

We found a control room and locked ourselves inside. Looking at the cameras of the exterior reminded me of Bug and his friends. A few of the workstations had power, and I found a speaker box by the door and pressed the button, hoping against hope.

"Bug, can you hear me?" I called.

"Not only that, but I can see you and the woman,” the kid’s voice responded. “She's been around. The RSG always find her and take her back, though. Is she nice? She seems nice.”

I gave Elise the once-over. “Are we talking about the same person?”

She presented me with the middle finger.

“Well, yeah,” Bug said. “I think she’s beautiful. Tell her my name. Put in a good word for me.”

“She can hear you, Bug,” I said, watching her reaction.

“Hello, Bug,” Elise said. “Are you someplace safe?”

"Can you see the other soldier who was helping me?” I asked. “His name is Grady."

"Doesn't matter what his name is,” Bug said, “Would you like to see him?"

“He stayed behind to keep the other soldiers from getting us," I said. The monitors to the outside of the tower showed Callus had placed guards on the main level and had others searching for Hastings. His hiding place wasn't good enough to withstand close scrutiny.

“You left him there?” Elise snorted, disbelief in her tone.

"I don't know how to tell you this, Cain, but your friend isn’t going to be re-joining you."

"What do you mean, Bug?" I already knew the answer.

"Well, he's either dead or taking a nap. I think he's dead. The way he's lying isn’t natural, like maybe somebody roughed him up pretty bad," Bug said. "Hey, I think the guy who killed him is trying to get inside the tower you're hiding in. That's a shit tower, by the way. I've been there once a long time ago, back before we got settled in this tower. Much better here. Closer to the shipyard.”

"I'll keep that in mind. What else can you tell me? I need an escape plan," I said.

Static filled the line and I heard Callus’ voice.

"I bet you do. Who is that you're talking to? Sounds like a traitor to the Union. If he doesn’t stop helping you, he’ll probably have to be rounded up and executed along with all of his friends,” Callus said.

"You're an asshole, mister," Bug spat, muttering several words lost in the distortion filling the speaker box. "Not you, Mr. Cain, the other mister."

“He’s gross!” an even younger child shouted through the speaker.

“I hate him,” said a third.

I pulled up video screens one by one while the elite super soldier argued with the orphan kids living in a security room someplace on Dreadmax. Callus had set up a good perimeter and had a breaching team ready. They’d have a hard time with the industrial-strength doors on this place, but I had no illusions we were safe here.

The small camera view made Callus seem even bigger and more menacing than he was. “Listen, Reaper, I have an offer."

"You probably also have an ass you can shove it up," I drawled.

X-37 chastised me for my lack of negotiation tactic.

"Come on, X, you know that was too good to pass up," I said, unrepentant.

Callus slammed a gauntleted fist on the door. "You're not half as funny as you think you are, Reaper. Come out now, with the doctor and the girl, and no one gets hurt. Your friend Grady needs medical attention. All you're doing now is slowing things down. If he dies, it's on you.”

His accent struck me with an epiphany. The angrier he got, the more I realized he’d been hiding his heritage in Union military speak. He might not have been from my neighborhood, but he was from someplace rough. The way he talked, walked, and cursed now was like going home.

Where I had wiped out every gang member I could find. Killed their friends. Associates. Anyone who didn’t damn them. Union federal prosecutors convicted me of seventeen vigilante murders. There were a lot more.

The reasons probably didn’t matter, but I wouldn’t change what I had done. They killed everyone I knew or cared about except my mother and my little sister, who were still missing. “Who are you, Callus?”

“You know who I am. Where I’m from. And you know why you’re a dead man. Come out here, give me the girl and her father, and I’ll handle them according to Union regs. Last fucking chance, you gutter rat.”

Son-of-a-bitch. That was what the soldiers of my neighborhood gang called boys who refused to join.

“Your heart rate is elevated far above optimum,” X-37 said through increasing static.

"Does he know my father is not in here?" Elise asked, unaware of my inner struggle.

"A better question would be why they're not storming this place,” I said, feeling heat in my neck and face. “Callus already knows the layout from when he threw you down the elevator shaft."

"I don't think he realized the lift was only a few meters down,” she said.

"He's trying to keep us pinned in this location while they look for your father.” I searched the door cameras for a better view but was unable to locate Hastings.

Elise shook her head slowly while she talked, testing her balance and fighting down pain. "Don't be so sure. I'm really good at hiding. I think it was one of the things my father's research was supposed to do for soldiers, improve their escape and evasion abilities. The problem is, I was never trained, even if I have the tools."

"What tools?" I asked, thinking of my cybernetic enhancements.

"Nothing like you. I could pass for normal, slip through a crowded public area without setting off alarms. That's the reason they put me on this place. I could escape, but I can never escape into the galaxy and they knew it."

"But you tried anyway," I said.

"I was bored.” She ran one hand through her hair as she sized me up for the hundredth time. “I’m a liability because they didn’t realize what I was in time to brainwash me. Study me, yeah, that might serve their project. Literally direct me, yeah, that. But give me one ounce of actual freedom? That will never happen, so fuck them.”

She talked and I half listened as I searched for a way to keep the soldiers out long enough to come up with a miracle. I had to get the doctor back and escape with him and his daughter, who was also injured. She didn't show it, not much, but she'd hit her head pretty hard.

Her revelations should have driven me into a rage, but I expected nothing less from the Union. Now was not the time to solve the mystery of her origin. Escaping the gagglefuck was going to take everything I had, up to and maybe including my death.

There wasn’t time to get bogged down on that last detail. Elise wanted freedom? How did I explain to her she was her own worst enemy?

"Help me watch these cameras," I said. "Bug, can you help me?"

"I can, but the other guy can listen in. You hurt him. He’s hacked into the surveillance network," Bug said.

"Why isn't he smashing his way in here?" I asked as I watched the soldiers search and clear each small section of the area around the massive tower. If there were a few more of them, they'd already be done.

"I don't think he really believes you're in here. And he probably thinks I'm dead," Elise said. “But I'm not."

"Why is that, Elise?" I asked, remembering something she’d said earlier.

“Because of what my father did to me. The experiments. I’ve always been more resilient than other kids my age. Instead of dying, I matured into something beyond what they wanted or expected, thanks to the treatments my father stole from the project. They want my father back so they can silence him. But they either want to dissect me or turn me into you. Or worse.”

Good to know, I thought. “There is nothing worse. Don’t get cocky, kid. Getting infused with fancy tech doesn’t give you the skills or the will to do what I’ve done.”

Her attitude came back in force as she recovered. “I know all about the Reaper Corps.”

I wasn’t impressed. “From gal-net conspiracy blogs?”

She blushed.

“That’s what I thought.” I moved to a new camera, inwardly panicking when I couldn’t see Callus and his men. I wasn’t interested in being surprised again. “Run away from the Union if you can, but don’t get cocky.”

“How are you still alive?” she demanded. “No Reaper can take the kind of abuse you have.”

"I think they’re gonna make an entry. That team is affixing breaching charges to the hinges. An interesting choice," I said.

Elise crossed her arms, ignoring the cameras now. “When did they give you the Lex treatment? You're pretty old, right? It would've had to have been an early version."

"First of all, I'm not old. I'm thirty-seven."

"Whatever," she said, unimpressed with my humor or my age.

“Second of all, I’m a Reaper. I know all the things they put in me. I had to sacrifice body parts to prove I was dedicated to the program. Trust me, I know what they did to me."

"Is that what you think?" she asked, driving her gaze into me.

“What I know is that Callus has this tower surrounded. He's coming in sooner rather than later. Unless he finds your father first and decides to leave before Dreadmax comes apart," I said.

A sliver of fear showed through her hard-ass-runaway act. "What are you talking about?"

"This place won't be here in a few hours. I was given twenty-four hours to recover your father,” I said. “Since I arrived, I've run into people trying to repair ships and I’ve talked to others preparing for Climbdown Day."

“Why would anyone want to go down?” she asked.

I was disappointed with her question. “Because the atmosphere shields will collapse first and heading below decks will give them some time if they can survive the crazies and whatever else is down there.”

She shook her head. “There has to be more to it than that. Something down there that will allow them to fix the failing power core or escape altogether."

I knew she was onto something, feeling it with the force of a revelation, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was exactly.

She took my place near the call box. "Hey, you, can you find the shuttle that was supposed to pick us up? Then tell me how many people the Union has guarding it?"

"My name is Bug."

“Nice to meet you, Bug. That's a nice name,” she said. “Now get on those cameras and help me out."

"You're not very nice,” Bug said. “You look nice. We all screamed and yelled at Slab when he put you in the cage the first time.”

“We don’t have time for that, kid,” Elise said.

Bug’s tone became petulant. “I’m not sure I want to help you."

"Please, Bug. Do it for me,” Elise said.

A short pause. "Fine, but you have to take us with you,” he replied.

"No problem. We can do that. Just help us find the shuttle and tell us how many people they have guarding it.” She looked like she wanted to slap the kid if she could reach him. “We’ll also need a way to get there without being caught by these assholes outside right now."

"Put Mr. Cain back on," Bug demanded.

I waved for her to step back. "Can you see the Union shuttle that is supposed to pick us up, Bug?"

"Yeah, but you don't have that other old man. You know they're going to find him if you don't do something, right?" Bug asked.

"Then we’ll have to leave him," Elise said, putting on her best tough-girl act. Tears fell from the corner of her eyes. Not even a teenager could fake such abject misery. "He’s such an asshole. I’ve been trying to get away from him for years.”

"He's your father," I said without pressing the talk box button, not sure why I bothered arguing with her. This was for Callus and his team, a little bit of impromptu deception. The girl had good instincts.

"If you're so concerned with him, why’d you hide him out there? He could've been in here with us where it’s safe," she said.

"It's not safe." I jabbed a finger at her face for emphasis.

"Safer than out there. Don’t you point at me!"

"Now you're worried about him?" I asked.

"Why are you such an asshole? This is bullshit.” She clenched a fist, made like she was going to punch a wall, but stopped herself. “Uhhg. You’re such a jerk!”

“Pull it together, kid.”

“We're all going to die anyway.” Her voice faltered. “I'd rather get shot in the back than experimented on anyway."

It was hard to argue with that logic, especially with a teenager. I was sure X-37 would've had an opinion, but I didn't ask. Time was running out and I needed to do something.

OceanofPDF.com

19

“It took some searching, but I found the shuttle. A lot of guys with machine guns there. And some girls too. Hard to tell with all that armor,” Bug said.

"How do we get there without being seen?” I asked.

"It shouldn't be that hard, but I think it's a dumb idea. It's not the only shuttle on this place. They left hundreds of them scattered here and there after the evacuation,” Bug said. “And the Union guards have a lot of guns.”

"Then why aren't people using them?" I asked, thinking of the Jellybird and the Red Revenge. Dreadmax soldiers protected the smuggling vessels. Without them, a lot of relatively innocent prisoners would’ve suffered and died over the years. But other ships would be a hot commodity.

"They don't go very far.” The sound of chewing and a bag being crumpled came through the speaker. “Not sure what good shuttles are gonna be if you can't go back to whatever ship brought you here. But I guess you could take it over to the shipyard and see if they can help you.”

“I think they’re busy with their own problems,” I said, thinking of the large freight hauler I'd seen there.

"Some are. How do you think Slab and his goons got all their weapons? Don't let those shipyard people fool you. They've got some working ships for trading and whatnot, black market stuff they have to get from pirates. I don't know why they keep coming back, but my cousin says they're trying to get a ship big enough to evacuate all of their people. I wish I was one of their people."

“No comment.”

“You already knew that, didn’t you, Mr. Cain? I told you the ship people were nice. Can’t fool Bug. Bug sees all.”

“Settle down. Eat your cheese crackers,” I said.

I'd decided there was no chance of completing this mission. Sure, they would negotiate for the doctor and his daughter, but in a best-case scenario, they would just leave me here to die with all the others.

That wouldn't be much better than getting killed by Callus. Probably worse. I needed to go down fighting.

Just outside the door, an explosion boomed. The heavy door buckled but held. Soldiers shouted.

"Hit it again! Give it everything we have." The commanding rage in Callus’ voice penetrated the room, indicating it wasn’t as air tight as I’d assumed.

I had a decision to make and didn't like it. The girl was miserable, no matter how she talked. It didn't matter what genetic modifications she had, I’d do better without her.

She was just one more person for me to worry about. Why couldn’t I leave her? Reapers weren’t sentimental or weak. One mouthy kid didn’t mean anything to me. "Listen, Elise, I have to get you out of here. Dreadmax is doomed. No one made a plan to evacuate it because they believed, or convinced themselves, that only death row inmates and worse live here."

"What are you talking about? Not even the new Union would leave this many people to die," she said.

I waited for her to process the information, knowing that she already believed every word. She’d seen even more of this place than I had and knew the score no matter what comforting lies she told herself.

She started pacing, getting angrier and angrier. "Fine. Let's go get him."

I was glad the girl agreed to rescue her father. For a hot minute, I was afraid she'd give us all the finger and head out on her own. She was good under pressure and had obviously spent time on the run. That made me think of her as an asset rather than a liability as I had first assumed she would be.

Now all I had to do was figure out a way to get past a team of elite soldiers who had surrounded our position. The hiding place in which I stuffed my principal wasn't in the middle of my enemies, but it was close.

Elise looked at me expectantly. She crossed her arms as if to say well, what now.

X-37 wasn't helpful, lapsing into one of his silent spells. I never knew if I’d done something wrong, or there was something broken in the unit, or he just simply didn't see the need to comment. A quick check with my friends in the security room told me what I already knew. There were at least three squads of spec ops soldiers watching the tower after the failed breach.

"What if we went down?" Elise asked.

I’d thought of that, but that still didn't help me get the doctor away from Callus.

Gunfire sounded in the distance. Slab and his RSG men were having it out with somebody. Whatever was happening, they were too far away to serve as a distraction. I’d already been lucky in that regard. Now, however, the Union soldiers had driven them away. I didn't even know who was fighting who at this point. "I really need some help, X."

"Can you take another look at the area? The deeper the scan the better. Perhaps I missed something from your initial survey," X-37 said.

"You're trying to get me killed," I said, moving to the door and looking for a way to see farther than the cameras allowed without getting shot dead. "Oh shit!"

"What?" Elise asked, alarmed.

The door that was holding the spec ops team at bay was built to withstand the occasional meteor strike. It wasn't, however, designed for security.

There were ventilation ports, something I first suspected when I heard Callus yelling orders. Sooner or later, he would deploy gas. We’d be knocked unconscious if we were lucky, and killed if we weren’t.

I cautiously peeked out from one of the smaller doors, unsatisfied with my field of view but trying to make the most of it. I could see slivers of the wide stairs and runways leading to this tower.

"Sorry, X, I can't get eyes on much of the area without letting them in,” I said, straining my neck to get the best shitty view possible.

"The data gathered from your lame attempt at peekaboo was insufficient,” X-37 said. “I'll go back to analyzing the schematics."

"He has to come to us," Elise said. "What, you never thought of that?"

Of course I’d thought of that. “I’ve run a lot of scenarios in my head. One of them involves your father making a break for it and getting shot. I don’t see how that helps anyone.”

“You’re really gonna turn him over to the Union after these guys tried to kill us?” she asked.

“Callus and his team are something different,” I admitted. “If Grady were alive, I’d trust him to take you someplace safe.”

What she really wanted to know was what I was going to do with her. She’d spent her life trying to escape her father or the Union or who knows what else, and probably saw me as the enemy right now.

I pointed toward the door. “I’m not turning you over to them. That’s a kill squad, a brute force option when they don’t have a subtler solution.”

“Like sending a Reaper?” she asked, testing me.

“You’re the one who told me you didn’t think I was sent here to kill you and your father. I haven’t received any communication from my handlers. By now, I would have been told who to kill and who to torture,” I explained, wondering what kind of reaction my honesty would get from her.

She went pale.

“This conversation is getting us nowhere. Stay here.” I almost hoped she did. “If I don’t come back, you can surrender or you can take the stairs and look for an escape route. I suggest you get back to the top deck as quickly as possible and make your way to the shipyard. They may or may not be able to help you, but at least they aren’t cannibals or gangsters.”

“Or Union agents,” she murmured.

I left her to consider her options. Everything about this mission was frustrating. I had to remind myself it was better than sitting on death row. The tower had numerous personnel doors, smaller openings than the bay doors where equipment was moved. Each of these had a compact window above a slot barely wide enough to slip my fingers through.

One of these doors was how I’d come in. Callus probably didn’t want to send his team through such a bottleneck. He knew what I’d do to them the moment they stepped into such a fatal funnel.

I checked several other viewports, peering through the small windows and gathering information for X-37 to analyze. The breach team had pulled back, possibly to gather bigger explosives or consider other options. I couldn’t see any of Callus’ troops. Because they knew what they were doing. Like actual professionals.

At the fourth door, I found the surprise of my life.

Yanking the door open, I grabbed Doctor Hastings and pulled him inside. The door was still shutting when he started babbling apologies and explanations.

“I came as quickly as I could,” he said, trembling from fear and adrenaline. “Was that the right thing to do? They were all around me and I could hear them talking. I think they’re going to kill all of us. We have to get out of here. Where’s my daughter? Is she in here? Is she okay?”

“Settle down, Doc.” I led him back to the main lift where Elise waited.

She jumped to her feet in surprise, hesitated, then ran to her father and embraced him.

It wasn’t the most emotional reunion I’d ever witnessed, but it was more tender than I expected.

“Why does this feel wrong, X?” I asked.

“Analyzing.”

Was my Reaper AI messing with me? “Do you mind giving me an answer when you’re done analyzing?”

“Of course,” X-37 said, something about its voice quieter than usual. It almost felt like there was some type of disturbance, a pulse in the shields above us perhaps.

“Well?” I rubbed the scar near my eye, something I hadn't done in ages.

“Still analyzing. Please stand by.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I said and started getting ready to take my principals out of here. The last two hours had been spent running and gunning, trying to stay alive. The questions Elise asked me were good ones. I didn’t really know what to do with either of them if we all survived.

The only real answer was to get off Dreadmax and go renegade, or better yet, disappear completely.

“Perhaps if you would tell me what you are thinking, I could complete my analysis of this situation. Unless you want something generic, something like you would say, like this really sucks.”

“You’re pretty funny for an AI,” I said. “Why don’t I trust the doctor?”

“Because you don’t trust anyone.”

“Now you’re just being difficult.” I interrupted the Hastings family reunion. “We have two options, climb the tower and look for a place to run a zip line—not a great option since it’s extremely dangerous and we would have to find materials to manufacture a zip line—or go down two levels and see if we could come up to the top deck away from Callus and his team.”

“Why not just go down one level?” the doctor asked.

“We went down one level last time. Might be a good idea to mix it up. How exactly did you get to that door?”

Doctor Hastings swallowed and looked at Elise like she would answer for him. It was a nervous tic, but the man was full of those types of behaviors. He might be an excellent scientist, but he wasn’t good under pressure like this. I couldn’t tell if he was outright lying or just overwhelmed by what we’d been through.

“I waited for as long as I could, and then when I thought you’d left me, I crawled to the door. It seemed incredibly dangerous and I was amazed that I made it,” Doctor Hastings said.

“Dishonesty detected,” X-37 said.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Sometimes it seemed like X and I were the same person.

X-37 knew what I meant, but the doctor seemed confused by my words. “There really was no other way for you to escape Callus and his men. I’m glad you made it. Let’s get out of here.”

OceanofPDF.com

20

A tremor went through the tower. It wasn’t the first time I’d felt the sensation since landing on Dreadmax, but it was the worst so far. I actually lost my balance for a second.

“What was that?” Hastings asked. “Did the destroyer fire on us?”

I hadn’t told the doctor about the UFS Thunder that brought me and the spec ops teams here. Elise didn’t notice the slip, but why would she?

“No one’s firing on us. This place is falling apart, in case you didn’t notice,” I said. “Keep moving.”

I wished Grady was here, no matter how we’d disagreed. Hustling down the stairs while watching for danger ahead and behind was wearing me out. Elise helped by being naturally observant and cautious, but she couldn’t fight, not like Grady could have.

“The people here talk about it,” Elise said. “The first time I ran from the RSG, a bunch of religious fanatics took care of me for a few days. They talked about the station failing like it was the coming of the apocalypse. Others argued about heading below decks when the atmosphere dies—something they call Climbdown Day. Everyone has their story about a lost ship that only needs to be found to take them all to safety.”

“Ridiculous,” Hastings said.

“Let’s hope not everyone in the Union wants us dead.” I cut the doctor off, not liking his tone. “I’m betting that Callus and his team are exceeding their mandate.”

“They’re trying to kill us, you know that,” Elise said.

“There was more to being a Reaper than infiltration and assassination,” I said. “I have connections.”

The wide industrial stairs curved downward and out of sight. Every so often, there were access doors of different sizes. I spotted a security station that had been stripped of weapons lockers and surveillance monitors. There didn’t seem to be an active power connection to the bunker-like booth.

“Keep moving,” I said.

“Do you actually think they’ll still help you? They didn’t stop you from going to death row,” Elise said.

“I didn’t survive as a Reaper by taking unnecessary chances, but there’s always a risk.”

“Why not take their ship?” Elise asked. “We can run the blockade easily. The Union wouldn’t fire on one of its own ships. And it has to be cutting-edge, with a slip drive and maybe even cloaking technology like in the action videos.”

“Trust me, if I thought I could take the ship, I would. Right now, we’re sticking to the plan, and that plan is to escape through one of the lower decks,” I said. “The idea is to get away from Callus and his trigger-happy commandos, not run into their ship and get killed. The pilot isn’t going to land and just let us on while Callus’ team is out hunting for us.”

“We don’t even know the capabilities of that ship,” Doctor Hastings said. He looked nervous, more nervous than usual. I wanted to attribute his flushed face and sweaty brow to exertion—which it probably was—but his true mannerisms showed more and more as his fatigue increased.

“You have a suggestion, Doc?” I asked, getting a bad vibe every time he spoke. I just couldn’t imagine him strolling through a barrage of gunfire to knock on the door to the tower facility. It didn’t set right. Callus was one of the deadliest human beings I’d ever met, and that was saying something. His team was the best of the best.

“I don’t know why it’s so complicated. Please stop for a minute. I need to catch my breath,” Hastings said, talking with his hands and never quite looking at me. “You were given a detailed mission briefing and a pickup location. If these rogue operators have some sort of vendetta against you, that’s not my problem. Why can’t you just take me to the pickup location? Once we’re rescued, I can report Callus to the proper authorities.”

“Well, that’s one plan.” I studied Elise for her reaction but couldn’t decide what she was thinking.

The doctor huffed pretentiously, seemingly put out at the delay. “My research is important. They wouldn’t have put so much time and effort into recovering me if I was just some abstract theorist.”

“True.” I leaned toward him and lowered my voice. “They wouldn’t have sent two battleships and a fighter wing to recover you.”

“Two battleships? I thought they sent the UFS Thunder.”

I didn’t bother to acknowledge his correction. It was a test question anyway.

“Are you listening to me, Cain?” he continued. “Take me to the pickup site and I’m sure I can handle everything.”

“No problem,” I said, facing a large door at the end of the stairs.

“We should steal the spec op recon ship,” Elise said.

Doctor Hastings cut her off. “It’s not your decision, Elise. Let Cain do his job.”

“I’m not sure what level this opens to,” I said. “We’ve come down farther than I thought we would. There’s no place else to go unless we want to get on one of the lifts, and we would have to go back up to the main level for that. So ship or no ship, we have to get through this area in one piece. No more arguing. You do what I say when I say it.”

“Yes, of course,” Hastings said.

Elise glared at me with her arms crossed.

“Wait here.” I operated the manual crank to open one of the side doors next to the larger equipment entrance, then went inside and cleared the first few rooms. I didn’t know what to expect.

How far did we have to go to encounter the flesh-eating denizens below deck? I thought of them as cannibals, but the ones I'd surprised while escaping the RSG gave me doubts. One thing was certain, they were desperate and dangerous. Regardless of what they were.

For all I knew, the agricultural deck was a garden utopia of plenty and populated with magical fairies and unicorns.

I shared my speculation with X-37, but he didn't laugh. Surely the Reaper AI had the processing power to mimic humor, but he was being difficult.

Whatever.

I gathered up the doctor and his daughter, escorting them through a series of rooms to a hallway that seemed not to have been used for some time. The air was decent and there was only a little corrosion in this section of Dreadmax. It still amazed me how much of the place was vacant.

"How much longer until you return me to the Union?" Hastings asked. “I could use a shower and a meal.”

I wanted to ignore his questions, maybe throat punch him, maybe leave him to fend for himself, but that wasn't why I had come this far. It didn't seem like current events had affected his emotions like I thought was reasonable. Grady was dead. Countless inmates—or residents or whatever they were—of Dreadmax had been murdered or killed and faced certain annihilation.

Damn, I wanted a Starbrand. "I'm not convinced that's the best course of action."

"Not the best course of action? What are you talking about? You were sent here to do a job."

"Sure, but they left out the part about getting double-crossed by a spec ops team whose leader is certifiably fucking crazy." I didn't add that he also seemed invincible.

"I was never told about them. When I get back, finding out what went wrong will be the first thing I do," Hastings said.

I seriously doubted that.

"Can we just go?" Elise said, refusing to look at her father. It was another one of her moments where she seemed like a rebellious teenager.

A tremor, the biggest yet, shook the station. I counted to twenty-three before it stopped. "That was a long one. Let's talk about the timeline I was given. What happens in twenty-four hours from the start of my mission, the collapse of the station?”

The doctor looked worried and ashamed. "I think eighteen hours would've been more accurate, and it has already passed. Twenty-four is just a standard number for these types of things, or so I was told."

"When I found you, you were being beaten and interrogated by Red Skull Gangsters,” I reminded him, pointing back the way we had come. “How would you know anything about the rescue mission?"

"The contingency plan was discussed prior to my assignment on Dreadmax,” he said too quickly. “I'm not excessively brave or a fool. I refused to go until they promised me a viable extraction plan."

"For you and your daughter," I said, my tone flat but clearly calling him out.

This caught him off guard. "Well, of course."

The next tremor caught me off guard because they didn't normally come so close together. I kept my feet, but the doctor went down hard. Elise did a half cart-wheel round-off to keep from face-planting when the floor jumped.

"Is everyone okay?” I asked.

Hastings mumbled nonsense as he brushed himself off. Elise pushed her hair out of her eyes and nodded.

Smoke drifted into the hallway.

I checked the ceiling for a sprinkler system. There weren't any flames in this hallway, but the dense smoke should've set them off, covering the area with flame-retardant chemicals.

"We have to run for it. If the smoke gets too thick, drop to the floor and crawl. That will kill you long before the flames get here," I shouted, urging them to run with me.

"Always running. Gang members and rogue soldiers aren't bad enough. We have to have cannibals and uncontrolled fires to deal with? I mean, really?" Elise said.

"No time to complain. Come on, Doc, pick up the pace." I found the next set of stairs approximately a kilometer from where we descended. My guess was they led up to another maintenance tower like the one where Callus and his team had nearly cornered us.

We emerged far away from our last encounter with the man. Somehow, I didn't feel any better.

OceanofPDF.com

21

The best thing to do was haul ass. "Go, go, go! Don't stop until you get across the street. Duck behind that building and wait for me," I shouted.

"Was that necessary," X-37 asked.

I aimed my rifle left, then right, scanning the area in between for possible attacks as I moved the weapon. "The doctor said this place should have blown up four hours ago."

"Not precisely," X-37 said.

"You know what I mean. I don't trust him."

"You've made this observation before. Are you going to do something about it?" X-37 asked.

"Yeah, I am."

I caught up with Hastings and his daughter, then led them through several alleyways with pipes running overhead almost like a false ceiling. We came out into the open and I noticed gangs were creeping after some unlucky victim. Steam filled the low areas, reducing visibility but somehow carrying sound.

If Callus and his team were still looking for us, it didn't seem to be in this area. Gangs, however, were always a danger.

We reached a bridge to another major section of the top deck. Looking into the crevasse didn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling. Memories of the cable crossing caused my fingers to throb and my augmented left arm to twitch.

“Are you all right?” X-37 asked.

“Sure, X. Thanks for asking.” I stepped nearer the doctor and his daughter. “Elise, I need you to come with me. You’re not afraid of heights, are you?”

She gave me a shitty look. “Are you?”

Some questions were better left unanswered. “Come with me. We’re climbing this bridge support. I need your young eyes.”

“What about me?” Doctor Hastings asked.

“You’re fine right there. Just stay put,” I said.

We climbed in silence, trying to ignore the on-again, off-again gravity the higher we went on the support beams.

“What’s going on, Cain?” Elise asked. "What are we doing?"

I touched a vest pocket that still didn’t have cigars or get out of jail free cards. "Testing a theory."

"He looks exposed,” Elise said. “I don't like him right now, but he’s still my dad."

"He's leaving breadcrumbs for our pursuers." I wanted to confront the scientist, but it was too soon for that. Things needed to play out for a bit.

"Okay, I suppose that means something in your world. What do your breadcrumbs have to do with anything?" she asked. "You think he wants us to get caught?"

"Yeah. I just don't know why," I said.

"That really pisses me off. It’s just like something he would do." Elise looked ready to scream.

I wanted to ask questions, but darkness fell hard and fast like it did often on Dreadmax. It wasn't long before I heard crazies screeching nonsensically as they climbed out of the grates.

"We should let them have him,” Elise said.

"He came here to save you, or at least demanded I save you when I could've left you to the RSG."

She snorted. “He didn't come here to save me."

I wasn't sure what to make of that. There wasn't time for psychoanalysis. It was decision time—abandon the mission, or get killed trying to save a man I didn't trust.

Elise scrambled down the support beams but angled away from her father. "He did okay on his own before. Once we get away, we can find him and decide what to do."

I followed her but stopped to look back.

"You're going to let the girl make decisions?" X-37 asked.

"Just watch," I said.

A mob of crazy, animal-like humans surged toward the doctor. There were at least a dozen that would reach him before he could escape across the bridge below us.

The leader of the charge fell flat on his face, blood shooting up from his head before he struck the ground. Two more clutched wounds to the chest and tumbled sideways. Others kept running after Hastings but couldn't catch up. He had a good lead and was very motivated to escape.

I thought about what I'd seen as I made my own crossing of the bridge. There wasn't time to act on what I knew. Once we reunited with Elise's father, I took a stand against the poorly armed men and women while my principals fled to safety.

“Stay back, you crazy flesh-eating freaks!” I shouted.

A few of them look at me quizzically, but others saw my gun and were wary. It was tempting to stay here. I had a pretty good idea that the father-daughter reunion was going to be explosive.

Who needed that kind of drama?

Doctor Hastings panted as he turned angrily toward me, barely aware of his daughter, who was pushing between us. "You were going to leave me!"

"We should have!" Elise shouted.

I stepped back, knowing this had to happen sooner or later but worried about the noise. The man had never seemed like the father of the year. He had demanded I save his daughter from the RSG stronghold, but that was an easy measurement of his paternal devotion. What father wouldn't want his daughter rescued from a display cage in the middle of a prison gang’s hideout?

“I’m your father. I risked my life for you. I could still be shipped off to one of those illegal mining colonies in the Deadlands for what I’ve done. Do you understand that? I risked everything to—”

“Settle down!” I barked, my voice so loud it stopped the both of them. After a pause, I turned away and quietly spoke to my AI. “X, I’m looking for the spec ops ship. Not seeing anything. What’d I miss?”

“Analyzing.”

I heard the groan of twisting metal from somewhere far away and braced myself for another tremor that never came. It might’ve been my imagination, but it seemed the environment shield near the edge of the ring distorted just for a second.

“No sign of the spec ops recon ship detected,” X-37 advised.

“You don’t know what it’s like being your daughter!” Elise broke in, apparently not finished.

“How could I? Stop being so irrational,” he replied.

“I hate you, you aging piece of shit!” Elise stomped away then turned around to make another inarticulate curse.

“I’m not sure why you’re allowing this,” X-37 said. “The volume and duration of this argument are concerning.”

“They need to get it out of their system,” I said. “There will be worse times for this to happen. And I’m still testing a theory.”

“Well, I hope it is a grand theory, because we have drawn the attention of the locals and an element of Callus’ team,” X-37 said.

I trusted the Reaper AI’s ability to maximize my senses and use his analysis to provide an early warning system. It had saved my life many times before I fell out of the Union’s graces. “Doctor Hastings, Elise, we’ve got company. You both need to shut the fuck up.”

Instant compliance was nice when it happened.

I climbed onto one of the narrow footbridges and used the elevation to look back toward the main bridge. I heard the motorcycles at the same time I saw them. Callus’ scouts had requisitioned three of the combustion engine two-wheelers I’d seen from time to time since arriving here. These were the first that I’d observed since the RSG stronghold.

A large group of Slab’s people swaggered through the street-like trenches in the other direction, heading toward their rivals by random chance, it seemed. The problem was there were too many of the local gangs. It made sense because they took what they wanted and it was better to be with them than against them. I’d seen that in other prisons I’d either done missions in or been shuffled through on my way to BMSP.

My left eye twitched in perfect synchronization with the fingers of my augmented arm. I braced for pain that felt like I’d grabbed an exposed wire.

“What’s happening?” Doctor Hastings asked, looking up wide-eyed, his expression a mixture of concern and hope. The man was tired and wanted this over. I could see that in his deteriorating posture.

Elise, silent and sulking, had backed away from both of us, so far away that I could barely see her in the shadows.

Descending rapidly from my observation post, I cut off her escape by hopping down to the deck. “Don’t make me chase you.”

“I’m pissed at you too. Why can’t you just get us off this place?” she asked.

“Always wanted an irrational teenager to babysit.”

This rendered her speechless with rage and I thought I might’ve miscalculated. If she ran off, I’d have to make some hard choices.

OceanofPDF.com

22

“This way. Elise first, then me, and then the doctor. Don’t get too far ahead.” I ran beside Hastings, frequently looking behind us for pursuit. There were a lot of danger areas to watch, including smaller towers, converted point-defense turrets, and a series of metal domes that I didn’t recognize.

The doctor couldn’t keep up. I estimated he’d lost fifteen or twenty pounds in captivity, but it was obvious he’d never been a runner. His life had been pampered and completely devoid of physical challenges. Elise pushed the pace but never abandoned us completely. I thought I was going to have to rein her in, but she stopped to check on us from time to time.

Her instincts saved us from two groups of the RSG. I watched her stop and hold up a hand for us to hide—like something she’d seen in an action vid. Moments later, a group from the RSG mob swaggered by with guns rested on their shoulders or holstered dangerously in their waistbands. The men were shirtless and covered with tattoos despite the shifting atmosphere.

On one section of the top deck it was humid and hot, and the next dry and cold. Steam vented from the failing ventilation system, shooting toward the sky where there must’ve been a gap in the environment shield. In one direction, it was snowing, and another, raining. The shifting light and shadows caused by the orbital pattern gave the landscape a surreal quality.

It was fascinating and horrifying to watch gaps appear in the artificial atmosphere and reseal themselves, sometimes in the space of a few heartbeats, but other times lasting nearly a minute. Tremors continued to shake Dreadmax but not as frequently as I had feared earlier. The station was like a living creature—or maybe a dying leviathan.

If there was one big quake, we were all royally screwed. We were hours past the mission clock I was given and even farther beyond Hastings’ estimation of how long the place could stay in one piece.

I heard something that didn’t make sense at first: loud music. It wasn’t the same as the techno hip-hop and thrash metal montage I’d heard at the RSG stronghold. This sounded like someone was playing horns and drums, maybe even some sort of whistling flute section.

Elise held up a hand for us to stop, then walked backward several steps to where we were crouched down behind a power converter box.

“We can’t go this way,” she complained, shaking her head. “A bunch of gangsters are camped out around the fire barrel, drinking and popping needles.”

“Stay here.”

I went to look for myself, hoping it was only a small group that we could either sneak past or I could eliminate.

The maintenance alley opened into a wide surface area like the aperture of a camera. I hadn’t seen anything like this during my flyover of the main ring and wondered how far we’d come during our desperate flight from the spec ops teams, gangs, and half-mad below-deck dwellers.

The effect of the opening was a clearing where a large number of people could gather. It was slightly concave as well, giving it a natural amphitheater feel. A stream of RSG tough guys arrived even as I watched.

Around the perimeter of this clearing were simple dwellings, gun turrets, and maintenance pods that had been converted into apartments. The locals kept their distance from the growing number of gang members—resentful expression controlled to avoid a violent confrontation. Beyond the impromptu gang party was the strange festival music making me suspect the people there had made other plans for their final days than hosting a bunch of tattooed murderers.

Doctor Hastings and Elise were waiting silently when I returned.

“What are we going to do?” Elise asked, arms crossed and one foot tapping nervously. “We can’t just sit here.”

“That’s absolutely what we should do. The real Union soldiers will arrive soon. They’ll take us back to the ship before Dreadmax comes apart,” Doctor Hastings said.

“We’re moving. It’ll be a slow process, because we have to go around this aperture. Once we make it to the next section, we can probably blend with non-gang civilians,” I said.

Doctor Hastings opened his mouth to protest.

I pointed my high tech HDK rifle at him, then waggled it in the direction I wanted him to go. “We’re done with this conversation. When I say move, you move.”

The doctor complied but complained the entire time. “All you were supposed to do was find me. Lieutenant Grady and his people should have dropped in to secure an extraction zone or moved us to the predetermined landing site for the shuttle. But instead, he abandoned the plan for an old buddy. Very unprofessional.”

“Grady’s dead. Let’s not talk about why. Unless you want to give me a full disclosure about your mission here and what you expect will happen to me when it’s done,” I said.

Doctor Hastings backed out of the conversation quickly. His pace improved.

Gangs continued to mass in the large open area. I couldn’t hear or see the progress of the spec ops teams but had a good idea of what was happening. They had tried chasing us with overwhelming speed and firepower. Now they were going to do things by the numbers, secure bridges and walkway crossings and search on a grid pattern that I wouldn’t be able to escape without a ship or a miracle.

Our arrival among the civilians went almost unnoticed. The few who saw us welcomed us with fuel cans full of alcohol. Some of them smoked what I thought was fungus wrapped in paper, and others had actual tobacco, probably stolen at a high price from the agricultural level below decks or smuggled into the prison station.

The strange music grew louder, distorted by the artificial atmosphere of this place. I was impressed at how many people were coming out onto the streets. It was night again but wouldn’t be for long. The way Dreadmax orbited its host planet and turned on its own axis created a nearly random night and day schedule, or that was how it seemed.

I’d had a lot of things going on other than setting my watch or watching the sun come up.

“Welcome, strangers!” said a man with a crazy half beard and wild eyes. “Do you love a parade?”

“Sure.” I glanced at Elise. “Keep hold of your dad and don’t wander off.”

“Relax, my man!” the half-bearded stranger said, giving me a hug. I grabbed his left hand to make sure he didn’t pick my pocket. His right hand wasn’t a danger because it was holding a large metal container of what might’ve been pure alcohol.

“Hey, dude, not so rough.” He lifted the can toward me, offering a drink. Then he pulled away and threw his free arm around a woman about his own age. It was unclear whether they knew each other before this chance encounter.

He continued to talk. I tried to listen to what he said, but there were a lot of people now and everyone was moving. It wasn’t a parade exactly, but a large shuffling progression across the top deck with music, drink, and smoking.

I pushed the pace, moving through the crowd, hoping the camouflage would hold until we could get a good distance away from our pursuers. The way was blocked for a time when we reached the center of the end-of-the-world celebration. They had one motor vehicle, a huge flatbed truck with dancing girls and a band.

“Are they all playing the same song?” Elise asked.

“No idea,” I said.

“They are in fact playing a highly bastardized version of jazz music with classical overtones,” X-37 said.

“Good to know,” I said. “You have anything else useful to share?”

“I detected gun fire. Didn’t you hear it?” X-37 asked.

I jumped onto the step rail of the truck and looked for trouble. Callus had caught up with his scout team, apparently. He had also decided that body slamming one of the festival goers was the best way to communicate.

“Hey, asshole, what the hell are you doing?” someone yelled.

A single gunshot followed.

Another squad of Union commandos dragged one of the more sober participants away from the others and forced him to sit next to a wall, where they interrogated him.

In another quarter of the celebration, RSG and NG rivals were mingling with the crowd and looking for a fight.

“What do you see?” Elise asked.

“This festival is about to get a lot less festive. We’re almost through it.” I jumped down, leading the girl and her father toward a set of stairs that descended into a low area where large ships could be docked and repaired.

A volley of gunshots echoed behind us.

“None of this would have happened if you had just taken me to the proper authorities,” Hastings said.

I ignored him and kept moving.

* * *

No mission was easy, but this was fucking ridiculous. I started to wonder if Hastings was right. Maybe this was all my fault. Did collateral damage matter here? I tried not to think of men, women, and children getting blasted into the void or crushed by collapsing infrastructure.

“Callus has summoned reinforcements. From what I can see, they’re all spec ops. That’s almost a full Battalion,” X-37 said.

I repeated what X had just told me.

Crouching beside me, watching the same area I was looking at, Elise seemed younger than she was. “What does that mean?”

“It means they brought enough firepower to have a war,” I told her. “A Union destroyer can deploy a battalion of spec ops soldiers and a division of troops. There’s a good chance they expected to storm Dreadmax. Given the timeline, I imagine the rules of engagement would be very relaxed.”

“What happens to all these people? Not that I care. Even the shipbuilders are despicable,” she said.

I shifted my position so that I could see back and make sure the doctor hadn’t run off. He sat with his back against a railing near the center of the building we were on, looking as beaten as any human being I had ever seen.

“Your dad looks tired,” I said.

Elise didn’t respond.

I wanted to ask what she meant about the shipbuilders but didn’t have the energy or the need to argue. They were obviously saints compared to the RSG, but my own experience with humanity had been generally disappointing. There was good and bad in everyone. “Grady told me he put in a request for an evacuation. He seemed to think there is some sort of contingency for the civilians.”

“You believe that?” she asked.

“What the hell happened to you that you’re so untrusting of human nature?” Something was wrong with this kid.

“You really don’t want to know,” she grumbled. “I wish they’d never brought me here.”

“Tell me about that. The real story.”

Her tone betrayed her frustration. “I have my own conspiracy theories about secret labs and my father’s work. You know what he did to save me and what that could mean.” She paused. “But what makes you think I know the real story? They took me from the one place I was starting to fit in and kept me locked in a tower. The literal tower, kind of like the metaphorical version of my childhood. Safety and comfort, sure. Freedom, not so much. I’m sick of it. If we get off this place, I’m never going back to that life.”

Callus’ backup teams searched on a grid pattern, pushing a hungover group of civilians ahead of them.

“X, how bad is our timeline?” I asked, instantly regretting the words. Dreadmax would probably explode in the next ten seconds just to teach me not to jinx the mission.

“We have far exceeded the estimated time of collapse. My analysis shows that there is a shrinking area of survivability on the top deck. You might want to keep that in mind.”

“Thanks, X.”

“What’s it like having nerve-ware? That’s who you’re talking to, right? Your Reaper AI?” she asked

“Yeah, kid. It’s not as fun as it sounds.”

“I wish I was a Reaper,” she said through clenched teeth.

I used my augmented left arm to turn her head until she was forced to look into my cybernetic left eye. “No you don’t, kid. Never wish for something like that.”

She jerked away from me. “You’re such an asshole.”

I wondered if the doctor wasn’t right about turning ourselves in. If I could find somebody other than Callus, it might be the only way to survive this clusterfuck. "Stay here and keep an eye out. I'm going back down to check on the doctor."

"Good luck with that," she said, arms crossed.

"Do you know how to whistle?” I asked. “Signal me if the spec ops team gets close."

She whistled a familiar melody, then a darker, sadder tune. “One for the Union, and the other for Dreadmax baddies."

“Good thinking.”

I found the doctor munching on a protein bar. "Where did you find that?"

He slipped it back into a pocket. “I've had it for a while."

"Keeping it until you need it, that's smart. Elise might need one soon, if you have more stashed away," I said.

He looked away guiltily.

"What are you really doing here, Doc?” I asked.

He tried to back away, avoiding eye contact. “I told you everything. The Union funded my research, extremely important research that will help a lot of people someday."

I listened to what he was saying, but also watched for non-verbal cues. He wasn't exactly lying, not yet, but we had a long way to go in this conversation.

"Things got complicated,” Hastings explained. “There were accusations against some of my associates. Claims of disloyalty to the Union. They took hostages like Elise to force good behavior. It sounds bad when I talk about it like this, but the things we were working on were bigger than each of us individually.”

"Nice. I'll put your name in for father of the year."

"My research on Elise is irreplaceable!" he insisted. “You have no idea what I learned simply from working on her and adjusting the formula. It was revolutionary.”

"Interesting. I thought you gave her that medicine to save her from a childhood illness. Now it sounds like she was just a lab rat," I said.

"I don't have to take this abuse,” he scoffed.

I grabbed the front of his jumpsuit and pulled him close. "You do, Doc. But only if you want to keep breathing. I don't have anything to lose. Piss me off, things will go badly for you."

"Are you taking me to the Union or not?" he said, feigning confidence. “They can punish you even here. No one can stand against the government. Not against them. They control everything. Isn’t that why you’re here? Because they control you?”

I ignored the question. “What I do really depends on what keeps the most people alive.”

Hastings laughed skeptically. “You’re concerned about innocent lives? That's an interesting thing to hear from a Reaper."

I glared at him. "Ex-Reaper."

The doctor shook his head with a cynical expression on his face. "I doubt you can leave that behind so easily. You don’t fool me, Reaper Cain. You like killing too much. I think you’re just looking for an excuse to kill me and my daughter.”

I stared at him for a long second. “Not your daughter.”

He stopped talking after that.

OceanofPDF.com

23

I gathered up our little squad and moved out, determined to put as much distance between us and the Union commandos as possible. Avoiding the RSG, or even the NG, was hit or miss. Their presence was random and extensive. Thankfully, their preference for loud vehicles, rage music, and the random discharge of weapons made them easy to track from a distance.

Their numbers and the limited terrain was the real problem. Dreadmax looked huge from space. It was millions of tons of metal, ceramics, and other hardware, but on the surface, it quickly felt like a microcosm.

Slab and his goons were still looking for me, I was sure, but that didn't worry me as much as what Callus would do if he cornered us. Random violence from gangs didn’t compare with the lethality of spec ops teams.

I couldn't give Elise to the Union. There was no safe place for her, not on Dreadmax and nowhere in the Union if she became a fugitive. As for the doctor, who knew the right thing to do. The mission had been to rescue him for the Union.

What they did with him after that wasn't my problem. I should throw him back to the wolves.

Briggs wouldn't have turned me lose without a plan to put me back in the box or take me out of the game entirely. I understood the danger, but I also knew there was no way I was going back.

I figured that out the moment I entered the warden’s office and saw him leaning against that desk. Hard eyes, hard face—the man was a lot like me but older, with more people willing to die for him.

I needed to pull off a double cross worthy of the Reaper Corps and the darkest of dark ops. Dreadmax would have been the perfect place for a double betrayal if not for the thousands of innocents—or nearly innocent—people who were about to die. “We need to move fast. They’re going to see us. Don't stop no matter what. But most importantly, listen to me and do what I say."

I needed bait, but to make it believable, it had to be all three of us.

"What are you doing, Reaper Cain?" X-37 asked.

I wasn't sure what to say, because X hadn't used my name like that for a long time. Maybe this was random, but maybe it meant something. Trusting a limited AI was a mistake too many Reapers made. They started feeling like part of themselves and it was easy to forget the technology had been made by the Union.

“I'm going to steal Callus’ ship,” I said.

"This is a miscalculation on your part. Abort. Recommendation: run for cover immediately,” X-37 advised. “The ship is on fast approach."

"I already made up my mind.” Up until now, Callus’ teams had to chase us through the surface maze. From the time we stepped into the festival grounds, we’d become vulnerable to a ship assault again. That was what I was counting on now.

"There is a sixty-four percent chance they will shoot first and ask questions later," X-37 said.

I didn't respond.

"What’s your Reaper AI telling you?" Doctor Hastings demanded.

The recon ship materialized out of thin air. I saw a distortion in the air moments before it dropped down, weapons aimed and turbines flaring to slow its abrupt descent. The deployment ramp dropped before it had fully landed. Heavily armed and armored spec ops soldiers swarmed out and took positions to secure the landing zone. These weren’t in recon gear—they were ready for a full-scale battle.

Callus came out in the second squad, seconds after the first. He was bigger than the others, moving with a relaxed grace that betrayed nothing.

"Stop, Cain. Running will just get someone hurt,” he shouted.

“I told you to run faster!" I yelled at Hastings and his daughter without warning and striked the doctor hard enough to knock him off his feet. “Just take them. I'm not going back to get executed. You’ll never take me alive!”

"You don't have a choice, Reaper!” Callus swaggered forward, ready to fight. "I didn't come this far to miss a chance at the title. You had a reputation when you were in your prime. I want to see if the stories I heard were true."

His team surrounded Doctor Hastings and Elise.

I turned and sprinted away from the landing zone, ducking into a hiding place.

"You're not as clever as you think you are," Callus yelled after me.

I stopped as soon as I was out of sight and listened to the commandos arguing with Elise. Her father tried to calm her, assuring her this was the best possible scenario.

“He should have delivered us to these fine soldiers a long time ago,” Hastings ranted.

“I hate you!” his daughter shouted back.

Callus’s second in command ignored the father-daughter squabble and shouted orders. “Red squad and Silver squad, pursue and apprehend the remaining target.”

"Belay that. It's a trick. Halek Cain was a Reaper. He wouldn't give up his principal so easy. Not while they are still alive," Callus said. “He knows the end of Dreadmax is long overdue. Stay sharp. Check the doctor and the girl for improvised explosive devices.”

A few moments passed.

"They're clear,” a soldier said. “Should we take them onto the ship?”

Callus hesitated. “Check them again then lock them in the brig.”

OceanofPDF.com

24

Crouching low, I darted across the trench, ducking around the corner as soon as possible. Callus and his team secured the large, flat area around their ship, aiming guns at the tangled maze I’d returned to. For a moment, I thought I had done my job too well and they had missed seeing me. A heartbeat later, I heard one of them shout out to my position.

I needed them to come after me while I was still close enough to the ship that I could double back and get inside. Best-case scenario, Callus came with his men, I ditched the lot of them, and then only had to overpower a pilot and copilot to get control of the recon ship.

I'd used the technique before. It never felt like it would work, but I had good luck with it. Moving through the maze, I quickly found my way back to the small landing area and saw Elise and the doctor zip-tied just inside the door. Apparently, they hadn't made it to the brig yet. The security team was fixing electronic restraints to keep them from taking over the ship before taking them inside.

That wouldn't work on me, because my Reaper AI was part of my nerve-ware. It went where I went. When I had been on death row, they had counter measures in place. That was then, this was now. They turned me loose on a mission and they were going to get more than they bargained for.

Neither squad had followed me into the maze, which was a huge fucking problem. No plan survived first contact with the enemy, but this little stunt hadn’t even gotten started before it failed.

“I told you to abort,” X-37 said.

“Fine. Log it. We’ll talk about it later,” I muttered, not really in the mood right now.

The squad stayed near the deployment ramp. Callus moved forward, straight for my position. He laughed and shook his head.

"Nice trick, Cain. But I read about all your tricks when I was preparing for this mission," he said, then addressed his team. "Go back inside and ready for ship security. He's going to try to steal it."

"I really don't like you," I said.

"That's a shame. You should like me, because I'm going to do you a favor. I read your psych profiles and how much the torture and killing bothered you,” he said. “You won't have time to think about it in hell."

"That's not really helpful.” This guy was an asshole. “Was that a joke? Don't quit your day job."

He came at me right when I thought he was going to make another insult, thrusting his rifle forward with a bayonet that extended.

I slipped to the right, aiming my pistol before I realized that was what he wanted. What he’d apparently forgotten was that I wasn't some recruit fresh out of basic training. Rather than leaving my arm extended to find the shot, I pulled back as close to my body as I could without interfering with the slide and fired until he staggered backward from the impacts on his armor.

My victory was short-lived. He regained his balance and attacked before I could reload or transition to my HDK, which was what I should've used in the first place if I'd been ready.

It had been so long since I’d faced an adversary of this caliber that I’d made a mistake. This was how a Reaper died, taken down by his replacement.

I pushed my increasingly dark thoughts aside in favor of instinct and rage. It was time to fight angry, something I normally avoided.

He lunged forward to tackle me. I let him drive me back and spread my feet wide to establish my base as I pushed down on his neck and one of his shoulders. Once I’d stuffed the takedown attempt, I grabbed his right arm and leveled it down, using the strength of my augmented left arm to apply pressure to the elbow joint.

He was smart enough not to resist, choosing instead to fall and twist until he was facing me. I still had hold of his arm, but it was the wrong angle to break the joint.

He kicked me in the stomach, driving me into the air. It took me longer than it should have to fall. Weak gravity added a dangerous dynamic to the contest.

I looked to my right and saw we were close to the gravity generator. The entire area was marred by rust and disrepair.

He flew at me with a punch that glanced off my light recon helmet. If I've been a bit slower, he probably would've cracked it down the middle. Almost simultaneously with this attack, I launched counter attacks, striking him several times on his torso, driving one particularly savage half-fist into his armpit where his armor was weakest.

He flinched and staggered back. I jumped forward with an action-video-quality front kick that blasted him into the air.

“Cain!” he shouted as he wind-milled his arms and legs.

Three or four seconds passed before I was satisfied he wasn't coming back down. I presented my middle finger to answer his curses and turned away, wishing I had a Starbrand cigar to celebrate.

“You should finish him,” X-37 said.

“Agreed.” What did my AI think I was doing out here, playing rock, paper, scissors?

I jogged to my HDK and picked it up, then fired several rounds at him just to be sure. He spiraled away from Dreadmax, not as fast as he would have if we were truly in the void but with a certainty that meant his death.

It wasn't long before I lost view of his silhouette against the flickering environment shield.

I scooped up my pistol, slamming it into the holster as I rushed for the deployment ramp of the recon ship. It was nearly closed when I dove through and rolled to my feet. A squad of spec ops soldiers and ship security Soldiers rushed me. I fired and reloaded but was quickly subdued.

"Nice try, Reaper,” the security chief spat.

“Piss off!” The lights went out as one of his men slammed a stun baton on the back of my helmet.

* * *

When I woke up, Doctor Hastings was tending to my injuries. He looked somber and grim, tired and hungry, like a man who regretted his choices.

"Their medic checked you out first, but I convinced them I was a doctor and needed to have a look," he said.

"Don't do me any favors." I tried to access X-37 but couldn't get through.

"What's the matter, Cain?” Hastings asked.

"Don't worry about it,” I said. “Where is your daughter?"

"They have a small brig, so they tossed her in there," the doctor said, exhaustion bleeding through his words.

I assessed the room and made a note of anything that might help me escape or fight back.

"It's better this way," Hastings said. He checked and rechecked the bandages and wraps that had been applied. I couldn't remember which ones I had received during my fight with Callus and which with the ship security detail.

It probably didn't matter.

"If you get out of this, and if you ever get released from prison, you should find Jason Domingo on Carver. He can help you start a new life," Hastings said, guilt evident in the tone of his voice.

“That’s incredibly generous, Doc,” I said. “What about the political refugees and nonviolent criminals who found themselves abandoned on Dreadmax? Do they deserve to die?”

A flicker of what I assumed to be decency flashed in the doctor’s eyes, and guilt. He looked at the floor. “There’s nothing to be done for them. The shipbuilders are close to having a working ship, but they won’t be able to launch without the slip drive regulator.”

“You’re telling me they have a functioning slip drive?” I couldn’t believe what he was telling me. The ability to travel through slip space was a game changer. Not only could the people on Dreadmax escape, they could harass the Union with guerilla warfare. Or vanish into the Deadlands and start new lives. Maybe a little of both.

The freighter, if they had it fixed, could move more personnel than a warship, but lacked more than asteroid busters for weapons. The haulers were also much slower.

I needed to concentrate on first things first.

“They’ve done amazing work. I should have warned the Union, but sometimes I’m nearly as rebellious as you,” Hastings said.

“Doubtful,” I said.

“You’re not the only person who has second thoughts. I’m not a monster.” He paused. “I only do what I think is right. If it’s safe. And no one gets hurt.”

“Aren’t those the same things?” I asked.

He looked away.

“Tell me about their freighter,” I demanded.

“Without a slip drive regulator, any voyage they begin would be suicide. They’d either get stuck in this system or hit the tunnel walls inside slipspace and obliterate themselves down to the atomic level. I can’t stop thinking I should tell the Union.”

This guy was going to make me kill him. “Why the hell would you do that?”

“I thought maybe they would help, loan them a regulator,” he postulated.

“You know they’d just nuke the shipyard. The Union put those people there for a reason. Maybe they weren’t murderers and traitors, but they definitely crossed the wrong people.”

“It was just an idea. I know what you’re talking about. I’m not a fool. It’s just that it would take a spec ops team to get to the spine and recover the regulator,” he said, stopping to look me in the eyes. “Or maybe a Reaper.”

OceanofPDF.com

25

Fatigue hit me like a falling building. Running and gunning across the top deck of Dreadmax had my adrenaline pumping to stay alive. Now I was sitting in a storage closet, basically, with my hands and feet zip-tied together.

It was humiliating. Here I was a death row inmate and former Reaper and they didn’t even put me in actual brig. That was reserved for a teenage girl who was apparently more of an escape risk than I was—a fact I would have found much more interesting if I wasn’t so banged up.

Everything Doctor Hastings had told me during his moment of weakness echoed in my imagination, slashing away at my conscience and screaming at me to do something. There were a lot of people on Dreadmax the galaxy would be better without, but the shipbuilders and a lot of the other regular folk I had seen didn’t deserve what was coming.

The end had to be coming soon, because the mission clock had expired hours ago. I’d seen holes in the atmosphere generator where steam from broken pipes rushed out into the void. I’d thrown Callus into a dead spot created by the failing gravity generator. All of the tremors and the sounds of twisting metal were previews of what would happen soon.

I was headed back to death row and had a strong suspicion my appeal had been denied and the execution chamber prepped for immediate use. But at least I wasn’t going to die on Dreadmax. Lucky me.

The door to my cubicle slid open and I saw Callus’ second in command, Jordan, blocking most of the light with his large, still fully armored frame. “Callus was a better man than you’ll ever be.”

“I think we can agree neither of us were ever good men,” I said, knowing what was coming.

“Fuck you, asshole. We’re doing a job,” Jordan said. “The Union can’t survive without warriors to protect it. You could have been part of that, but you’re damaged goods. Too selfish. Not open to what’s best for everyone.”

“You’re one of those people,” I said, measuring his reaction.

“Watch yourself, convict. What do you mean, those people?” he asked.

I changed position slightly, looking for an advantage. “The brainwashed psychos who were just following orders.” There wasn’t much space in this makeshift cell for maneuvering.

“That’s nice coming from the guy who’s killed more people than the galactic plague,” Jordan said.

I shook my head, looking at the deck as he made mistake after mistake. “Maybe you ought to remember that before you come in here and push my buttons.”

“The only thing that’s going to get pushed is your face,” he sneered.

“Why are you doing this, Jordan?”

“Because you killed Callus. We looked up to him. He was the best.” The man shook with anger.

“He was a clumsy dumbass who fell into a gravity dead spot,” I said.

“Fucking asshole liar!” Jordan pulled me out of the closet cell, lifting me onto my toes before slamming me down hard.

With my hands and feet bound by zip-ties, I wasn’t able to stop the fall. Stars exploded across my vision as my face hit the deck.

“What are you doing, Sarge?” one of the other spec ops soldiers asked.

“Payback time. Get in or get out,” Jordan spat, voice cracking.

Jordan’s boot caught me in the ribs. For several seconds, I thought the rest of Callus’ team had better self-control than the sergeant, but I soon learned different.

The lights were low and the ship’s internal security cameras were turned off, I was guessing.

“Come on, Reaper! Do something.” The man stepped back to gather force for his next kick. “Let’s see how you get out of this one. You’re not such a badass after all!”

More boots. More getting dragged into walls, picked up, and slammed back down.

“I was spec ops. Served with dozens of other spec ops teams,” I croaked.

The abuse stopped.

“What’s your point, Reaper?”

“Never met a squad that beat a prisoner. What the hell happened to the Union’s finest?”

Jordan and a few of the others went at me with renewed vigor, but I was glad to see most of the others drew back, then started to pull their friends off me.

“He’s had enough,” one said.

“I’ll say when he’s had enough. You better get in here and show whose side you’re on,” Jordan demanded.

“I’m on the Union’s side, Sarge, but this is against regulations.”

I never saw who the brave soul was, but Jordan and the others stopped their attack… after getting a few final shots in.

“I need the doctor,” I said.

“Fine,” Jordan spat. “Get Hastings in here. I need our medic to look at my hand. Think I broke a knuckle or three.”

“He’s with his daughter,” a voice said.

“I don’t give a fuck! Do it. You’re seriously on thin ice, Carter. I better not hear you talking about this later. What happens on mission stays on mission,” Jordan said.

Doctor Hastings didn’t say a word as he cleaned my wounds and glued my face back together.

The recon ship was small. This was a newer version, but the layout was familiar. I glanced through the main room and saw that whoever had removed the doctor had brought Elise as well. Out of her cell, she hadn’t wasted time watching her father patch me up.

Doctor Hastings sat up. “That’s the best I can do for you. The wounds are clean, the lacerations glued shut because I don’t have what I need for stitches. I wrapped your right wrist. Looks like a sprain.” He looked around the small room, chastising the soldiers with an uncharacteristically hard expression. A moment later, his face changed. “Where is my daughter?”

“Oh shit!” the men cursed.

I heard the door to the cockpit lock shut.

“Doc, can your daughter fly a ship?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” Hastings answered, appearing more than a little uncomfortable.

“You better grab on to something.” I really hoped Elise knew what she was doing in the pilot’s seat.

Jordan and the others hammered on the door to the cockpit, cursing and making threats. The ship lurched and went down hard.

“I don’t think we’re going to make it to the UFS Thunder,” Hastings said.

“Welcome back to Dreadmax,” I said, laughing.

* * *

Waking up in the smoking wreckage of a crashed ship wasn’t a new experience, unfortunately. Chemical fumes gagged me. My eyes watered and something made me laugh like a lunatic. I’d just been patched up, now this.

I rolled onto my side, searching for Elise and her father. To my surprise, the recon vessel was mostly intact, having activated shields right before impact. The area around it, however, was a tangled mess of steel.

A man in a Dreadmax jumpsuit knelt beside me. “Are you okay, mister?”

His voice was rough, probably damaged from an industrial accident or years of smoking, but he reminded me of Bug. My stomach went hollow at the thought of the kid I had never met meeting his fate on this place.

“How did I get outside?” I asked.

“A girl and her father dragged you, then got in an argument with one of the soldiers. I didn’t see what happened after that. What’s wrong with your fancy prosthetic?” the man asked.

I sat up and turned away from him to deemphasize his attention to my cybernetic enhancements. Next thing I knew, we’d be discussing other things that were wrong with me and I didn’t think this was a good place for that type of conversation.

“Not important. You should probably get back. This isn’t safe,” I said.

The man shook his head, sad eyes suggesting he knew the end of Dreadmax was near and safety was a useless concept. “Won’t be able to keep people back. That ship might be functional, and that’s a pretty valuable commodity right now.”

People crowded forward, stepping over the damaged top deck to avoid bodies. Some of the crew and soldiers had been thrown from the crash. A blood smear decorated the side of a decommission point defense turret. I looked again at the recon ship and realized it wasn’t in as good a shape as I had first thought. There was a gash down the side that could be repaired, but not in time for these people.

Or for me.

“Don’t worry about the ship,” I said. “Worry about some really pissed-off spec ops soldiers.”

“We’ll get you out of here,” another man said.

Hands lifted me to my feet. It wasn’t long before there were dozens of people between me and the downed ship.

“Why are you helping me?” Nothing made sense. My legs felt like rubber. “Where am I?”

I fell, scraping my hands and knees.

“Reaper Cain, you must remain conscious,” X-37 said.

“Yeah, sure thing, X. Just give me a second,” I said.

“Who are you talking to?” one of my rescuers asked.

My vision cleared. These people were in danger.

“Listen, there’s going to be trouble. You need to clear out,” I said, grabbing the first man by his jumpsuit and forcing him to look at me.

He nodded and talked to the others.

Jordan and his squad climbed out of the starboard hatch, which was facing the Dreadmax sky. They slid to the deck and checked gear, weapons, and each other.

I pushed away from the good Samaritans and searched for Elise and her father.

“Well, look at that son-of-a-bitch,” Sergeant Jordan said. “Still alive. That’s not fucking right.”

I rolled onto my knees, then made it to my feet even as I started running for another downed soldier—one of the ship Soldiers who had been thrown to his death when the ship went down. There wasn’t time to show the proper respect. I ripped the shotgun from his kit and dove behind a slag of cooling metal.

Gunfire cut apart the scene. Bullets ricocheted off the buildings near me. Crouching low, I ran to a new position, fully aware that staying in one place was the best way to get killed.

“Warning: elevated heart rate,” X-37 said.

I could see my pulse thumping in my vision. Breathing was agony. When X said I had an elevated heart rate, he meant I was about to have a cardiac arrest if I didn’t slow down. Pain and desperation drove me like a hunted animal.

A second later, Jordan and one of the other spec ops soldiers came around the corner and fired into the place I had just been.

In a perfect world, I would’ve been able to leave a grenade behind, but I wasn’t exactly equipped for this confrontation.

No time. No plan. No gear. Shit was getting real.

Adrenaline kept me going. Ironically, the only pain I felt was in my enhanced arm. Random symbols danced in my HUD, suggesting X-37 had been overloaded or otherwise damaged. The nerve-ware interfaced with my consciousness through neural pathways, but the actual hardware was spread out through my other cybernetic enhancements. Computer processors had to go somewhere no matter how small they were.

I dove over a piece of the recon ship’s wing, hit the ground, and rolled to my feet. A spec ops soldier came around the corner of the ship, weapon up, his eyes searching for a target. I shot him in the face, flipping him onto his back with his feet in the air.

Rushing forward, I yanked his weapon from his hands before he was finished dying. The familiar HDK felt heavy, as though fully loaded. I pitched the shotgun and opened fire on Jordan and the others as they came after me.

Right before I left the man I’d shot, I grabbed a grenade from his kit.

The fight turned into an undignified version of hide and seek. I couldn’t claim that everything I did was graceful or well-thought-out, but I managed to stay alive second by second. Meanness and desperation drove me onward.

Tossing a grenade over the ship I’d just run around to escape the most recent attack, I crouched and reloaded as it exploded.

Jordan came around the corner, aiming his weapon and charging straight at me in the smooth stride of a pro clearing a building in a half crouch. “I got you now, jerk-off.”

I threw myself sideways, shooting as I fell toward the ground. At least one of the rounds struck him in the hips, twisting him and driving him backward at the same time. His shots went wide.

With no time to get up and take a proper fighting stance, I fired from the ground, stitching him with bullets. Blood sprayed out the top of his helmet. I didn’t see where the bullet went in but thought it might’ve been under his jaw.

Either way, I wouldn’t be having any more problems from the sergeant.

Clawing my way to my feet, I looked for a place to hide. It was hard to say how many of Jordan’s men were still hunting me. I needed to get out of the area, but first I wanted to find Elise and the doctor, even if they were dead.

OceanofPDF.com

26

Other recon ships landed nearby. I had to give it to the spec ops teams. They weren’t afraid to make an assault, even when it was obvious the odds were stacking up against anyone surviving.

In the distance, one of the Dreadmax towers broke apart and floated several meters above the surface. It never actually floated away but just hung there, twisting slowly, drifting toward the horizon of the rust streaked world.

A tremor ran through the top deck. Seconds later, I heard what sounded like an explosion from below. Not good. “I hope that wasn’t anything important.”

“Humor detected,” X-37 chirped.

“You’re back, X. Have a nice nap?” I made my way to Sgt. Jordan’s recon ship, confirming it was too damaged to be of use. The civilians I’d encountered when I first woke up scrambled over it, looking for anything that might help them survive.

In a way, they reminded me of the elite soldiers. They hadn’t given up, even though it was obvious all hope was lost.

I grabbed hold of the man who had woken me up. “Do you know where the shipbuilders are? Can you get there with your people?”

“Everyone knows that. They’ve got a big ship, but it won’t get far. They’ve been trying to buy parts that no one has for months. I’m no genius, but it’s pretty clear they’re not going anywhere.”

“Can you tell me how to get to the center of Dreadmax, to the spine?” I asked.

“There is no way to do that without taking one of the speed lifts, and if you ask me, it’s not worth it. I’m claustrophobic. No way I’m going in one of those things,” the man said.

“X?”

No answer.

“Fucking great. Come on, X. I need some help.” Right when I needed my AI, he went on the fritz.

“Who the hell is X?” The man asked.

“Never mind. That recon ship is a waste of time,” I said. “There’s going to be more shooting soon. You need to get your people out of here. If you can make it to the shipbuilders, maybe they’ll figure out a way to get off this place.”

The man laughed fatalistically. “Yeah, for all of us pretending there’s a way to survive the collapse.”

I thought of Bug and his reference to Climbdown Day. Sheltering below decks when the environment shield gave out wouldn’t save them for long, but it gave me an idea. I continued to look for the doctor and his daughter, but also for one of the call boxes I’d used to talk to Bug and his friends.

A new battle roared to life just out of view. For a second, the pace of the gunfire confused me. Someone was shooting back at the spec ops commandos.

I climbed onto a damaged ladder that ran up the wall to nowhere and looked out across the metal landscape. Several squads of ragged-looking Soldiers wearing old uniforms and carrying outdated gear engaged the invaders. It took a minute, but I’d seen them before

Dreadmax soldiers. Their uniforms had the same patches and design as what I’d seen near the shipyards. This place was a microcosm, its own twisted society of good and bad. Slab and the Red Skull Gangsters left the engineers in the shipyard alone because they maintained the gravity generators, but also because they had some muscle.

Elise had crashed closer to the shipyards than I’d thought, not like I’d been thinking about where I was until the fight with Jordan was over.

“Why don’t you respond to my queries?” X-37 asked.

“X! Good to hear you. Where have you been?” I didn’t bother hiding my excitement.

“I’ve been right here,” X-37 said.

Heavy machine-gun fire and grenades drew my attention. “Someone is having one hell of a fight.”

“It’s quite literally the end of this world,” X-37 said, ignoring the fact that I was running now, and maybe not ready for chit-chat.

I stepped over a smear of blood where one of the spec ops soldiers or recon ship crewmen had dragged himself clear of the destruction. There were others escaping the smoldering ship, dazed by the impact in their injuries. I picked up radio chatter of them calling for help and at least one spec ops team answering that they were inbound.

The accelerated night and day cycle of Dreadmax cast shadows across the senseless battlefield. I searched through the wreckage, looking for Elise and her father.

“Balls!” I shouted.

There was always a point in a mission when everything went off the rails. Sometimes it was a small thing like not being able to make it through customs or losing valuable data I’d recorded during a surveillance session. Every time, it seemed important.

Dreadmax put all my prior missions in perspective. I’d faced death more than was healthy, but this fiasco was one for the record books.

I spotted Hastings and his daughter on the other side of the yard.

“Elise! Stay where you are. I’m coming to you,” I shouted.

“Why is everyone fighting?” she asked, sheltering her father with her body.

It didn’t look like he was injured any worse than she was, but his physical courage was clearly faltering. I didn’t want to call a man a coward. That wasn’t it at all. He was just beyond any situation he’d ever been in.

Elise had run the streets and trenches of Dreadmax and learned some hard lessons, I thought.

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “We’ve got several chances to get through this. Don’t shut down. Never give up.”

“Thanks for the pep talk.” She chewed up several creative bits of profanity and spat them at me when she wasn’t ducking or looking for the next explosion.

Her father chimed in, sounding like he’d been concussed slightly. “I do agree with you, in theory, Reaper Cain. Direct evidence suggests your theory may not hold in this particular instance…”

The spec ops recon ship had left a long trail of destruction, smashing apart critical elements of the top deck and leaving pieces of the hull scattered along the slash mark. Civilians continued to scavenge for parts and survivors. The smarter ones went the other direction.

I concentrated on Elise and her street savvy toughness. For a spoiled rich girl, she was showing some resilience. “The engineers at the shipyard have more resources than they let on. They’re not idiots. I’ve run into civilians who know they have a large ship for an evacuation. It’s missing a critical component, but I’d bet money they have at least a few smaller ships that they keep secret. There’s also Grady’s team if they’re not dead. Sergeant Crank and a few others are either out here on the surface or in the ship with Andrews.”

She brushed her hair out of her eyes. “Andrews?”

“Grady’s pilot. A real smartass. You’ll like him,” I said.

Elise started talking before I was finished. “If he gets us off this place, I’ll love him.”

“I need you to work your way toward the shipyard with your father. I’ve got something I need to do first.”

“We’re coming with you,” she said.

“Negative. Trust me on this one.”

“Whatever. I can do anything you can do,” she said.

I laughed out loud, regretting how shitty my tone sounded. “No, you can’t. Not even close. And you don’t want to.”

She considered that somberly. “This doesn’t seem like a great place to sit and wait.”

I swept my eyes across the area, scanning it for X-37’s analysis. It was a habit I barely thought about. One of the few romantic relationships I attempted in the early years had ended because the woman said it freaked her out. Like a one-thousand-yard stare combined with cybernetic inhumanity.

“Wait here. Let me contact the Dreadmax Soldiers.”

It didn’t take long to locate one of their squads near the wreckage of the spec ops recon ship.

“I’m friendly,” I said, showing my hands before I leaned out from cover. “I was a prisoner on that ship.”

“Step out where we can see you and don’t make any sudden moves,” the leader said.

I did as I was told. The sergeant spoke to one of his men. I cataloged their worn but functional gear and ragged hygiene. By Dreadmax standards, these guys were spit and polish. Had they still been in the Union military, they’d be on some sort of detention.

“You’ve got some of the spec ops weapons,” the sergeant said, not introducing himself. “Can you fight? There are at least two more teams moving toward this area to investigate the crash.”

“I’ve run into some of them. We’re not on good terms,” I said. “I’ll fight, but I need to get down to the spine.”

He didn’t laugh. “My team tried that. Can’t be done.”

I assumed they were here looking for last-minute salvage, anything to get more people off the crumbling space station. They would probably still be looking for parts when the environment failed and the gravity generators went off-line completely. They were that type of soldier.

“What about the speed lift?” I asked.

He ignored me for a second to give orders to his squad leaders. They formed a perimeter around the ship while a pair of men went inside and started ripping things from the walls of the interior.

“Have you ever looked at a speed lift? It’s not made for people. It’s made for equipment. Maybe you could take a weapon with you, but I doubt it. And with so many systems failing, there’s a good chance you’d have to hold your breath for a bit longer than I could. You’d be passing through energy fields and decks with no life-support.”

I didn’t like the idea of crossing an energy field. X-37 was resistant to energy-based attacks, but I doubted the designers of the Reaper AI anticipated this scenario. Without X, it was unlikely I could figure out how to acquire and transport the slip drive regulator to the ship engineers.

More fighting broke out near the ship. The Dreadmax sergeant spoke to someone on his radio, clearly annoyed with my continued presence.

“There are two high-value targets tucked away near the ship. Can you look out for them?” I asked.

“If they’re not Union, gang members, or cannibals, I’ll do what I can,” he said.

“That’s good enough for me. I’m going after the slip drive regulator.” Nothing I’d done so far was worth a shit unless I pulled this off.

He stared at me in disbelief.

“We’ve got incoming,” I said as the sound of a determined assault by Union forces reached us.

“I can point you toward the speed lift, but you may have to fight first. I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but I wish you well. Something tells me you might actually have a chance to pull this off,” he said.

I nodded, then ran to take a position against spec ops soldiers and Union Soldiers. I hoped Sergeant Crank and his team weren’t among them. We hadn’t become friends, but they were the last connection I had to Grady. Sure, he’d been a jerk at the end, but we’d been friends once.

Two Union recon ships shot overhead, dropping flares and digital markers. The Dreadmax sergeant and his people didn’t quite know what to make of this.

“Move! Change position!” I shouted.

One man was too slow and was struck by a forty-millimeter laser-guided grenade. Running past the blasted corpse, I slid on one leg, then came up in a kneeling position to shoot.

Assaulters dropped from the ship, hitting the ground running. Heavily armed and armored, they moved fast and fired on anyone who showed themselves.

Two Union spec ops soldiers and a sergeant rushed around a damaged sensor array. Aiming for their midline, I shot all three of them just above their hips. It was a nasty tactic, but effective. No man could run with shattered hips.

It still sucked, even though I hated these guys. They screamed in pain, calling for medics and cursing whoever had blasted them.

Several of the Dreadmax soldiers went down and were dragged behind cover by their comrades. Without helmet comms, they relied on shouts and hand signals. It was like something out of an old action vid—bullets, explosions, and smoke drowning out most of what they were yelling.

An RSG thug raced a motorcycle through the middle of the battle, firing a sawed-off machine gun at everyone. It took me three seconds to process the image. “Slab’s coming, you Union fucks!”

This was Dreadmax, complete chaos all the way to the end.

I looked toward the place I’d stashed Elise and her father. Far enough from the ship to be overlooked, I hoped, but still within the guard perimeter—I hoped I was doing the right thing.

Good deeds never went unpunished. The smart thing to do would be to grab Elise, her father, and steal a small ship from the shipyard engineers. The absolute wrong, completely stupid foolhardy thing to do was go after the slip drive regulator and try to save everyone.

“What do you think, X? Should we save everyone?”

“Please rephrase the question. From the information you’ve provided me, this is impossible. Even if you fixed the freight-hauler and avoided the extremely motivated Union troops, there will be thousands, maybe tens of thousands of people below decks that are beyond help.”

“Thanks, X, that was really fucking helpful.”

“I endeavor to keep it real. Perhaps you should just complete your mission instead of trying to be a hero. It never works for you,” X-37 said.

“True,” I said.

“I suspect you will ignore my advice.”

Why couldn’t my Reaper AI see the bigger picture? “There are children on this station.”

“Many of which will die.”

“You’re such an asshole. Why are AIs such dicks?” I asked.

“Perhaps I am reflecting your personality.”

“Whatever, X. Help me find a way to the speed lift. I also need a talk box. I want to check on Bug and see if he can help me.”

“Searching ship schematics for optimal route.”

“Thanks.” I made a mental note to invest in a software update for my friend.

X-37 didn’t respond for several seconds. I ducked behind a pipeline and ran in a crouch, searching for a way to get clear of the impromptu battle.

OceanofPDF.com

27

X-37 fed me detailed instructions. I focused on what I had to do rather than what I had left behind. Running from a fight wasn’t my style. Fatigue made every decision seem wrong and every obstacle insurmountable. Visual static pulsed in my HUD in time with my heartbeat, and the pain from my augmented left arm was constant.

If it stopped working, I’d have problems. For one thing, the bionic limb was heavy when not functional. I didn’t notice it the rest of the time, but there had been missions when it felt like I was dragging an anchor behind me.

For all I knew, I was the last of the Reaper Corps. We’d been cutting edge once. Older and wiser now, I understood first-generation technology often had problems. Callus was likely the new and improved version.

That cheered me up, because I’d kicked his ass. Fuck that guy.

The sounds of fighting faded. Other conflicts raged across the top deck, probably RSG and NG vendettas being carried out against desperate, unarmed civilians. I pushed down memories of home and the neighborhood I’d cleansed of street gangs. Sitting on death row had been worth it. Now, a hundred slip tunnels away, I saw nothing had changed.

Humanity didn’t need saving, which made what I was attempting to do all the more stupid.

“Talk to me, X.”

“There are three damaged communication towers ahead of you. A speed lift exists between the first and second, if you are viewing them from left to right. I have insufficient data to determine whether or not it is functioning. The Dreadmax sergeant wasn’t lying. The specs say nothing about the possibility of human transport via the mechanism.”

“So it’ll be like getting shoved into a dumbwaiter,” I said.

“Interesting. Dumbwaiter is not part of my vocabulary.”

“That’s because I’m smarter than you, X.”

“Unlikely.”

The area was a ghost town compared to where I’d come from. Dreadmax was awesomely huge, one of the Union’s more grandiose projects before the sheer size of it caused it to fail. I couldn’t imagine the amount of fuel required to move such a monstrosity, and according to X-37, it had been intended for long-range use.

“You’re approaching the speed lift,” X-37 said.

The building was a low dome with no doors. I eventually found a hatch that was about two feet high, probably made for one of the maintenance bots. It opened when I pressed my weight on the rail leading into it.

“Here goes nothing,” I said, then crawled inside. Darkness enveloped me. I focused on my infrared optics and a hazy picture of the room formed.

“I really need to get this eye fixed,” I muttered.

“I doubt the Union will accommodate such a request,” X-37 said.

“Because they’re assholes. After all I’ve done for them, they should give me a whole new set of Reaper gear.”

“I wouldn’t hold your breath,” X-37 said.

“I’m just making noise because it’s creepy as fuck in here.” I found a cluster of speed lifts that looked like coffins ready to take me damned straight to hell. A small person could probably stand in one of the boxes comfortably. Too bad I wasn’t small. “This is really going to suck.”

X-37 talked me through the operating system. I powered up the system and noticed there wasn’t much light. With only the ambient glow of green LED power indicators to see by, I almost wished it had just stayed dark. The interior dome felt smaller than it had appeared from the outside. The inside of the speed lift looked unfit for someone my size, or a human, or a living creature.

“One last thing,” X-37 said. “The speed lift will pull considerable G-forces even if the gravity generators of Dreadmax are completely offline.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“It is not too late to back out,” X-37 reminded me.

“What the hell ever.”

I pulled down the lid, only to watch it bounce open. There wasn’t a mechanism to close it from the inside, so I had to reach out, yank on it, and hope I didn’t crush my fingers as the lid fell. Twisting into the fetal position, I reached up with my augmented arm and heaved downward, pulling my hand inside at the last second.

The latch clicked.

“The sequence has begun,” X- 37 said.

“Can’t wait,” I muttered right as I heard something.

“Was that a second hatch closing? Is someone sending parts right now? Like they’re actually trying to fix this place?”

“Unlikely. I detected no one from Dreadmax prior to your decision to commit suicide.”

“If you had a humor algorithm, that would be a lot funnier.”

“Correct.”

“Talk to me, X. What the hell is happening?”

“My analysis suggests another person is taking a speed lift to the spine of Dreadmax station.”

My ride clunked forward once, twice, then shot downward like a bullet into the guts of the station. With no crash seat or safety harness, I was at the mercy of physics. Each time the tube turned, I was smashed into a new and interesting position of pure misery.

Spots danced in my vision. My pulse hammered the inside of my head. Electricity radiated from my Reaper enhancements. X-37 came on and off line, sometimes blaring random bits of dialogue as we passed through energy fields.

“One last thing, Reaper,” X finally said. “There is no tube between the primary ring and the spine. Your pod will be fired across a short gap—about one hundred meters—and caught by magnetic locks.”

“Great. I hope that part of the ship is working.”

“Even a slight misalignment caused by recent events will result in the pod missing the catch and bouncing into the void.”

“It’s been nice knowing you, X.”

“What are you trying to say,” the Reaper AI asked.

Crossing to the Dreadmax spine was nice, less getting slammed around and more gliding in a straight line as I started to freeze. The rest felt like mistiming a parachute landing onto concrete.

“How’d we do, X?”

“Let’s call it a success, shall we?”

Twisting my feet forward, I kicked until the lid popped off. Moments after I climbed out, a second pod shot across the gap between the primary ring and the spine. Spiraling though the darkness, it would have been invisible without my infrared vision. There was a wobble that looked dangerous.

Time slowed. The pod looked like it was going to miss but corrected course as a magnetic field pulled it in.

“That’s amazing. We did that, X. Why’d you let me do that?”

“When have you ever taken my advice, Reaper Cain?”

My pursuer slammed into the catch tube. I raised my HDK and approached warily. The short barrel felt heavy even though I wasn’t sure how much ammunition remained in the bull-pup style magazine.

The spine of Dreadmax was connected to the primary ring in several places by massive gears and energy fields. I saw them in both directions from my location and wondered if this had been a serious mistake. The top deck had felt like a curiously exposed city full of decommissioned point defense systems and maintenance structures that had been converted to apartments and work stations.

This place only had breathable air and gravity by coincidence. Everything was automated or remote controlled. There wasn’t a need for life support here.

Whoever was in the pod kicked at the hatch but couldn’t open it.

“What do you think, X?” I asked. “Should I let this guy out so he can kill me? It has to be one of Callus’ fanatic assholes.”

“Perhaps it is Elise. Her personality profile suggests she would try to assist you in this impossible mission. And one of the soldiers would likely be able to kick open the hatch.”

“Shit! That makes sense.” I clicked my rifle to my gear and pried open the speed lift pod.

She sat up, gasping for air, wide-eyed and ready to fight demons.

“Settle down, kid.”

“I’m not a kid, you stupid fuck stick!” she growled through her teeth.

“Wow! Language. Don’t hit me. I’m trying to help you out.” Give me gun toting enemies over teenagers any day of the week. What was with this kid?

Elise tumbled free of what she must have believed was her space coffin, landing on one knee, then falling on her face. She flailed her arms at me and cursed each time I tried to help.

“You know the trip back will be worse,” I said.

“Thanks for reminding me! You can’t do this by yourself, dumbass. Let’s get this thingy and get to the shipyard.”

“What do you know about slip drive regulators?”

“I’ve been on Dreadmax longer than you, remember?” she asked. “I’ve escaped the Union and the gangs and everyone else about ten times. The shipyard engineers like me.”

“I bet they do.”

“You’re such a dick,” she spat.

A tremor shook the primary ring on the other side of the void gap. One of the huge connection points flexed near the point of breaking. Vibrations knocked me off my feet.

“X, read me the map. Elise, try to keep up.”

We ran along a railway made for the automated maintenance bots, trying not to twist an ankle or fall.

X-37 directed us to a hatch. I opened it and dropped down, offering to catch Elise when she followed.

The verbal abuse I received was really uncalled for. The kid had a mouth to make sailors blush. Her expensive education and natural intellect only made the insults sharper. If there were a profanity galactic Olympics, I thought this little runaway vixen would have a shot at a gold medal.

I let her jump and hit the ground hard.

She stood, glaring at me as she pushed her hair out of her eyes.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Perfect,” she said, walking off a limp.

Turning away, I followed X-37’s directions into darker and darker places.

“Why did they put the SD regulator down here?” Visual distortions to my enhanced optics almost made me turn them off despite the gloom.

“There is a vault. You’ll see the traditional access bay soon. Anything valuable or dangerous is stored here,” X-37 said.

“Anything else I can use?” I asked.

“Focus on your goal, Reaper Cain.” X-37 sounded a bit perturbed.

There wasn’t a lot of time for idle thoughts, but random shit ran through my mind at odd times. Things like what the hell would I even do if I survived this clusterfuck?

Go renegade?

That seemed like a lot of work and I wasn’t dragging a foul-mouthed brat around with me, especially with half the Union hunting her. And I doubted her father would sign the permission slip.

OceanofPDF.com

28

“This is why you can’t do this alone,” Elise said, far too proud of being right.

“Well, thanks for coming, then,” I said, more than a little pissed off X-37 hadn’t foreseen this simple and potentially fatal failsafe. “But don’t get a big head. All you have to do is hold the door.”

She snorted.

The vault was actually a series of rooms, each with a different security requirement—not from theft or sabotage, but from exploding, venting dangerous gasses, or whatever other unsafe various bits of technology this place could offer.

The slip drive regulator was benign by comparison to experimental fusion technology, bioweapons, and graviton acceleration prototypes. If I opened the wrong interior door, I’d be wishing I was wearing protective gear. Assuming I wasn’t killed instantly.

All Elise had to do was let me out after I had the regulator. The two-meter-thick containment doors didn’t open from the inside and closed automatically when anyone or anything passed through the archway.

The only good thing about this area was that it had walkways, stairs, and climate control for actual, live humans. Not that anyone had been here for years. Dust covered the floor. Close inspection revealed fine metal shavings from one of the massive gears farther along the exterior of the spine.

“That’s not reassuring, X,” I said.

“The battle station was a faulty design. Union engineers realized this long before it was decommissioned and turned into a maximum-security prison.”

I found the long, narrow room lined with lockers that X-37 had been guiding me toward. “How many fucking slip drive regulators do they have?”

“There were five hundred and eighty. Three remain. And before you get greedy, it’s not a good idea to take more than one,” X-37 warned.

“Why not?”

“You only need one,” X-37 said. “And you would be melted to slag if you touched two of them together.”

“Yeah, probably not worth the risk.” I retrieved the device that was twice the size of a normal work tablet and ten times as heavy.

“Can you manage the weight?” X-37 asked.

“Yeah. I got it. Let’s get to the shipyard before everyone dies.”

A complicated, three-dimensional schematic of Dreadmax appeared in my HUD, then zoomed into various levels between the spine and the top deck.

“What’s this?”

“I’m working on an alternate route in the event the speed lift isn’t functioning. You’ll have to cross one of the gear bridges in that case, and…” X-37 said before I interrupted.

“How long would it take me to climb to the top deck?” The weight of the regulator was already dragging down my arm. Cybernetics made it easy to hold but didn’t mitigate the raw weight pressing into my shoulder girdle and spine.

“Three days.”

“Get that crap off my HUD.”

“Abandoning plan B.”

I hammered my fist on the containment door. Nothing happened.

“She may not be able to hear you. The door is thick,” X-37 said.

I sat down and waited. Seconds felt like hours. “Give me an update on the fate of Dreadmax. Don’t hold back. Tell me how screwed I am.”

“Union engineers consulting on this mission predicted Dreadmax would be unlivable seven hours and eleven minutes ago,” X-37 said.

“What do you mean, unlivable? Does that mean it’s going to get really cold or explode?” Maybe it was a stupid question, but I wanted to know. The devil was in the details.

“Processing and adding their predictions to my recent observations,” X-37 said mechanically.

I waited, staring at the door. Sooner or later, Elise would get impatient and open it.

Or leave. She was a runaway after all.

I was surprised that hadn’t happened already.

“Regardless of the Union predictions, Dreadmax can’t last another two hours,” X-37 warned. “You must access a speed lift and deliver the slip drive regulator to the shipyard engineers, or make your peace with your maker.”

“Do you believe in a higher power?” I asked, surprised by the last statement.

“I am an AI. Perhaps this is not a discussion we should have. Regardless of what my programmers considered in my initial formatting, faith in higher powers often comforts humans in the face of certain death.”

“Do I look like I’ve given up?” I asked.

“You are sitting down.”

What a jerk. “I’m conserving my strength.”

“Of course.”

The door rotated slowly open. I sprang to my feet and jumped through the gap.

“What the hell were you waiting on?” I demanded.

Elise stepped back, anger filling her eyes. “You could have knocked!”

“I did!”

“Well, I didn’t hear you, dumbass!” she shouted in her angry teenager voice.

“Why wouldn’t you just keep it open?”

“I tried that!” she complained. “Can we just fucking go?”

I shouldered past her and ran to the speed lift pods. We didn’t say a word to each other until we were looking at the torture chambers that had delivered us here.

“You first,” she said.

For some reason, this struck my funny bone. We stood there laughing for almost a minute.

“We don’t have time for this,” she nearly cried.

“I know!”

“Once you begin the sequence,” X-37 reminded me, “you will have thirty seconds to get inside, secure the hatch, and brace yourself. The ride up will be, in many ways, worse than the ride down.”

“Great.”

“What’s your Reaper AI telling you?” Elise asked.

“He says going up is much easier. Walk in the park,” I lied.

“I may be a kid, but I’m not stupid.” She activated her pod, climbed in, and slammed the hatch.

“Here goes nothing,” I said.

X-37 raised his volume to get my attention. “Actually, it will be…”

“Shut your digital pie hole, X!”

* * *

Climbing out of the speed lift was like staggering away from a mixed martial arts fight. Every part of my body hurt and I needed to vomit. With the SD regulator safely in my vest pouch, I went to check on Elise, who hadn’t exited her pod.

“Is she in there?” I asked. “I thought she’d be kicking to get out like last time.”

“That would be a reasonable assumption,” X-37 said.

“Hey, Mr. Cain,” Bug said from a nearby speaker box. “We all thought you were dead. What’d you go in the speed lift for? Those things are a blast.”

I retrieved a crowbar from a storage locker and started working on the remaining pod. It had taken some damage on the return trip.

“That you, Bug?” I asked.

“Sure is. Man, I love riding the speed lift pods. Like going into a slip tunnel, I bet.”

“It’s nothing like a slip tunnel.” I popped open the lid. Elise lay on her side, hugging herself and trembling.

“Oh man, I hope you can help her. She’s the pretty one. Even if she was kind of rude to me that one time,” Bug said.

I lifted her from the pad and set her down. “What happened?”

“I’m not sure.” She rubbed her face. “Just got banged around more than the first time. Blacked out, I think.”

Her lack of attitude worried me.

“Why’d you go down to the spine?” Bug asked again.

“Had to get something for a ship. Can you get to the shipyard, Bug?” I asked.

“We can, but my cousin’s brother’s girlfriend said they can’t use the ship, even though they're all loading up,” Bug warned. “Why would I want to get on that thing just to float around and wait for the Union to put us back on Dreadmax? It can’t take a slip tunnel or go very far.”

“Get on the ship, Bug,” I said. “Take your friends.”

“I knew you’d say that. Gonna be really crowded,” Bug said. “People are packing themselves in like beef-cows from the agriculture level.”

I gave Elise a stim tab from my kit and watched her eyes go wide. She cringed and backed away from me. “That’s awful!”

“It will keep you going. We need to get the hell off Dreadmax.”

She hesitated.

“What?” I knew what was coming—probably some desperate teenage plea to not send her back to the bad people.

“Don’t let them put me back in the lab. I’m tired of getting experimented on. Promise me or leave me here,” she said, staying back so I couldn’t grab her.

“How about you go home, do what you’re told, and reap the benefits?” I felt like a jerk asking the question. “Seems like you had a pretty easy life until you started running away.”

“That wasn’t a life. How would you do without even the most basic freedom of choice?” she asked.

“I’d probably kill some people and get put on death row. Don’t worry, kid, I’m not giving you back to the Union without a fight.”

I knew something was wrong the moment we began our final sprint toward the shipyard. Vibrations rolled through the top deck, causing Elise to stagger. “Damn it! I hate this place.”

“Deal with it. We need to find your father and get to the shipyard,” I said, seriously considering the option of abandoning the man.

“He should’ve been at the top of the lift. I thought he was standing guard.”

“With no weapons or training.” My expectations for the man were low and I hadn’t been disappointed.

“There’s another place. We sheltered near a water tank, or I think that’s what it was—they wouldn’t store fuel on the top deck, would they?” Tired and stressed, she pressed on. “He didn’t want to leave. Said the spot was out of view and safer than the rest of this place. If he had to leave the speed lift terminal, he’d probably go to the tank. Or run to his Union rescuers.”

“So much for standing guard,” I said, clearing the area ahead of us and checking our back trail as we moved. “Lead the way. If he’s gone, he’s gone. We’re running out of time.”

“Okay.”

“X, what’s the clock say now?” I asked.

"You have less than one hour. Which is eight hours beyond the best-case scenario the Union engineers predicted.”

“Just answer my questions,” I demanded. “What kind of psychopath programed you?”

“I was merely attempting to be thorough.”

I spotted the doctor before Elise or X-37 did. He sat near a Union soldier, surprisingly un-concerned about the destruction all around us. The only good thing about the situation was that I could check “watch a space station come apart” off my bucket list.

The guard noticed me a second later and brought up his weapon. I shot him between the eyes, the bullet smashing through his visor and pitching him backward as it snapped his neck. The hole in his head wasn’t exactly good for his health either. I’d seen this often because the bullet basically struck twice, once going in and once trying to get through the back of the helmet. Any man without a helmet would have just fallen down. Everything was more violent in Union strike armor, including dying.

“Why did you do that?” yelled Hastings, expressing more anger than I’d seen from him.

“He was about to shoot me. Why were you talking to him? Your daughter needs you. It’s time to choose sides.” I really didn’t think this was something I should have to explain.

A damaged voice came from behind me. “You're absolutely right, Reaper. It is time to choose sides. Except there are really only two options for you: the living and the dead."

I wasn't surprised to see the man I thought I'd killed. Parts of his armor had been stripped off to accommodate Union medics. One of his eyes leaked blood or some other fluid and he had obvious frostbite on his left hand. His pinky was so grey and stiff, I thought it might break off.

"Didn't I already kill you?” I asked. “And for the record, I’ll take living. You can die all you want.”

Elise squealed uncharacteristically as she backed away. Even Doctor Hastings seemed appalled by the sight of the man I had kicked toward the atmosphere shield. Apparently, he managed to get back to the top deck and had come looking for me.

Doctor Hastings gathered his courage and intervened, moving with a pretentious authority that almost worked. “Lieutenant Callus, I require you to escort my daughter and me to safety. Your team can then return Reaper Cain to custody.”

Holy shit, Hastings thinks he has a command override on Callus—which never worked in human trials.

Callus backhanded the man into the looming side of the water tank. Shadows slid across his damaged visage as he advanced on me.

“I should thank you, Reaper,” he said. “Prototypes are always exciting to people like that man. But they’re made to fail. You’re made to fail. Your only purpose was to push the limits of what was possible then die.”

“So what you’re saying is that you’re a pale imitation of the original.” I sidestepped and backed away before he backed me up to the water tank and its heavy foundation. "Elise, get the fuck out of here."

OceanofPDF.com

29

Callus barely glanced at the girl and her father when they started to argue. His attention was on me as we both maneuvered for advantage. One on one, I wasn’t sure I could win this fight. The man was damaged, but also pissed off. His crack about being a new and improved version of a Reaper wasn’t a lie. And we’d danced this dance already. He had seen my best tricks.

“Just do what I say!” Hastings yelled, voice cracking because he knew he was losing to his daughter.

“Why should I? Let’s go!” She dragged him the way she wanted to go despite being much smaller.

Callus drew his sidearm and fired. It caught me off guard because I expected him to go with his primary weapon, the short-barrel HDK carbine that was clipped to the front of his gear with frost still clinging to parts of it.

Moving at the exact same time as my attacker, I threw myself sideways, firing two shots before I hit the ground and rolled, and two more as I came to my feet.

Bullets struck my light recon armor. If I’d been standing still, the force would have penetrated, killing or staggering me.

This kind of close-range pistol dance was the most dangerous and stupid type of fight. I wanted to move to cover and engage with my HDK but couldn’t get a half second of time to do it.

We both reloaded on the move, firing the pistols dry a second time and transitioning to the carbines in near perfect synchronization. His armor was heavier and more modern than mine, but he knew better than to slug it out with the HDK.

This close, we’d kill each other with the first volley.

He slipped around a large pipe running away from the water tank to get at me. I ducked behind the door to a ladder, quickly coming around the other side to fire on his position.

He moved to do the same thing to me. “Why don’t we see what the big guns can do?" he shouted, raising his HDK carbine and firing a stream of bullets at my hiding place.

“Throw down your weapons and step out in the open so we can talk this out,” I yelled back, inserting my final HDK magazine. As much as I hated to admit it, the arm blade was my best chance.

The weight of my enhanced left arm didn’t feel right. I wasn’t sure if it was losing power or was damaged. Snapping down my hand, I forced the blade to extend while I pulled the HDK in tight to my right shoulder to use it one-handed.

Shooting this way sucked, but it could be done for short bursts.

Running out into the open to cut Callus down and pump him full of HDK rounds would have been awesome if the tactic had even the slightest chance of working.

I also doubted he was waiting for me to accept his challenge.

The spec ops super soldier was working his way to my flank. Otherwise, he’d be shooting and or taunting me. I waited, ready as I’d ever be.

The top deck shook like a battlecruiser had wrecked into it. Dust and debris swirled around me. Broken pipes released new clouds of steam, but what was more ominous were red and orange smoke clouds from fires in other areas.

“Will you get out here and fight?” I yelled. “There’s only so much oxygen under the environment shields. But you probably know all about void death after I kicked your ass off the ship last time.”

He charged out of the shadows, emptying a magazine from his HDK as he rushed toward me. Spinning out of the way and returning fire, I looked for his melee weapon, expecting to see an axe or flamethrower but realizing there was the hilt of a sword protruding from the back of his armor.

He cast aside his HDK and drew the sword with his other hand. “You were never anything, Reaper, just a hopped-up street thug. Never deserved to be a Reaper.”

I watched the way he now held the weapon with both hands, feet moving from one perfect fighting stance to the next, eyes always on me.

“Your vigilante spree was more successful than you realized,” he said. “Really tested your limits. Impressed a lot of people.”

“Don’t be jealous.” I lunged, forcing him to retreat a step. “And don’t bullshit me. I know where you’re from. Who you are? Why do you hate me?”

Callus adjusted his stance and stayed mobile. “You think you did a good deed, killing all those pieces of shit. And their friends. The way you scoured their hideout was the bloodiest thing I’ve ever seen. They play it in dark ops orientation now. Did you know that?”

“Then you should know better than to come after me.” Rushing him, I slashed downward from left to right, then upward with the same speed. The real attack was another lunge that followed immediately, piercing his left bicep.

It didn’t matter, but I’d recognized the streetwise accent under his gruff military tone. He wasn’t just from the neighborhood, he was from one of the gangs I thought I’d wiped out. Probably one of their soldiers.

My thrust should have been through his heart, but he was fast as hell.

“You’ll pay for that!” he roared.

“Fucking come get me!” I shouted back.

He started laughing bitterly. “You know the gangs didn’t kill your father, right?”

I froze.

He lunged, catching my light armor and shoving me back. The blade didn’t penetrate my flesh. I’d jumped back just fast enough to avoid dying right there.

“Dark ops did that,” he said. “Had to provoke you to see what would happen.”

Sound seemed to vanish. I felt like I was cut off from all sensation. Voices screamed from behind soundproof windows in my mind. X-37 talked excitedly, trying to convince me of something, but I was in my own dark place where none of this mattered.

Callus drove his sword into me, the blade piercing my torso and deflecting along one of my ribs. We fought like animals—stabbing, slashing, kicking, punching, and pushing.

Exhaustion and an explosion through the top deck forced us to separate and rest for several seconds.

What I didn’t understand was why he didn’t hate the Union more than I did. He had to be lying. Had to be.

“I’m not saying I killed your father, but I’m glad someone did,” Callus said. “The project would’ve been shut down without proof of what men like us could do.”

This fucker had no honor. He joined the people who wiped out the gang. The man was too weak to fight against the Union, so he joined them.

Which made me hate him even more.

“I nearly burned to death when you firebombed our hideout. A Union dark ops team pulled me out. Promised I’d have my revenge.”

He hadn’t finished talking when I attacked. Thinking of nothing, I slammed my weapon into him again and again. He retreated, desperately parrying blows and shutting his fucking mouth—finally.

His mistake was letting me get too close. My arm blade was shorter and easier to maneuver. His back struck the wall of the massive water cistern. I grabbed the back of his helmet with my right hand and shoved my blade up through his throat with my left.

His sword fell from his hands and his body went limp. I held him up and stabbed him again and again. When his head finally popped off from the excessively forceful stabs, I hurled his body on the deck and stomped on him until I couldn’t breathe.

“I advised you to control yourself,” my Reaper AI said.

“Fuck off, X,” I said, striding away from my work. Then, on impulse, I returned to the corpse, found one of his grenades, and shoved it under his body with the delay set to twenty seconds.

“Perhaps you should run to cover,” X-37 said.

“Zero fucks given, X,” I grunted, wiping blood from my forearms and torso.

“Noted.”

I didn’t talk to X-37 for a while. Callus deserved what I’d done to him. It was hard for me to think of the man as human. Genetically modified and cybernetically enhanced, he’d also swallowed the Union’s propaganda whole. There were a lot of people like him who wanted to use Elise to create even more deadly soldiers.

I didn’t know the details, but I’d find out if I had to kill someone. That was what Reapers were made for—infiltration, assassination, and acquisition of secrets necessary to the well-being of the Union and its investments.

I wanted to vomit. Anger could be a tool, but Callus had drawn out a kind of rage I didn’t like. It scared the shit out of me.

“Hal, do you read me?” Elise said in my earpiece.

“I copy. Did you make it to the shipyard?” I asked.

“Yes. What happened? Are you okay?” she responded.

“Stay where you are. I’m headed your direction.” I didn’t want to talk to Elise or anyone else. Fantasies of killing Callus and anyone like him wouldn’t let go of my imagination. The rage was building toward another explosion that would destroy me.

OceanofPDF.com

30

Beaten down, exhausted, and needing a cigar, I plodded toward the shipyard. Bright construction lights blinded me, casting shadows darker than the void beyond the environment shield.

A rough group of thugs eyed me from a dark alleyway. Outnumbering me ten to one, they were armed with everything from converted tools to state-of-the-art firearms.

I flipped their leader my middle finger. It was a stupid, self-destructing act. A few hours ago, it would have gotten me killed.

They backed away en masse.

“You ballless asswipes, come get some!” I tossed the words at them like a profanity grenade.

If they were still lurking in the shadows, they decided to stay there. I strode toward my destination, heedless of the increasing chaos around me.

Fuck this place.

There was a lot of activity near the shipyard. Lights shone on walkways leading to a moored freighter big enough to carry thousands of people. The motley Dreadmax soldiers guided men, women, and children into the loading area but turned away larger and larger groups of RSG, NG, and other prison gangs.

I didn’t see any of the crazies from below decks. They didn't seem to like this time of day when the shadows moved across the top deck and all of its structures.

“If you’re done sulking, I have located the recon ship that recovered Callus and deployed him to the surface of Dreadmax,” X-37 said. “It hasn't moved and seems to be in standby mode.”

I climbed what had been a point-defense turret for a better view. X-37 could detect things slightly beyond my conscious awareness through a process I didn’t understand, but generally, he saw what I saw. So the recon ship had to be in view if I looked for it.

“Now that’s beautiful. I think we’re finally catching a break,” I said, but didn’t start toward it. The larger view of Dreadmax’s destruction was horrifying and captivating at the same time. I could almost hear large sections of the deck twisting free as gravity generators went haywire or failed entirely.

On the curved horizon of the station, I saw a plume of atmosphere vent into space where part of the environment shield failed. It looked like trees were shooting out from below decks, and maybe people. A lot of people.

Near my position, a pair of Union fighters raced low over Dreadmax, dodging debris and strafing the recon ship before I could steal it.

“Son of a bitch! Are you motherfuckers kidding me!” I shouted.

The explosion was strange, like there wasn’t much atmosphere left to carry the sound waves.

“The loss of the recon ship is justifiably frustrating,” X-37 said. “I recommend you make for the shipyard with all possible haste.”

“Good call, X.” I ran like my life depended on it. What could go wrong now? The station was doomed, I was out of ammunition, and I’d learned the Union had without a doubt issued a kill-on-sight warrant for me after slaughtering most of my family and all of my friends.

The Dreadmax soldiers passed me through after a brief radio conversation I didn’t hear. One of the shipyard foremen greeted me a few moments later and helped push through the growing crowd of desperate refugees.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I was told to take you to the Jellybird. Someone important says it belongs to you now,” the foreman said. “Not sure why you deserve your own ship, but that’s above my pay grade. Why are you covered with blood?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

“Okay. None of my business. I get it.” He continued to talk, giving me passcodes and launch protocols I needed to follow. I ignored him, looking for Elise and the doctor in the growing crowd.

“One more thing, sir,” the foreman said. “They said you’d have something for me.”

Looking him up and down, I decided I was too tired for games. “I recovered a slip drive regulator. Your navigators will need it.”

“Fucking A! Are you serious? You can’t give that to me. I’ll take you to the Bold Freedom.” He waved for me to follow. I didn’t want to. Everything would be so much easier if the young man would take the SDR and deliver it while I handled my own business.

We approached the main hangar, where the massive freighter they’d named the Bold Freedom was being loaded and powered up.

“The Jellybird is a great little smuggler. Not that I’m calling you a smuggler,” he rambled. “But she brought medical supplies and other stuff to Dreadmax that kept a lot of us alive. We’re not all criminals, you know. Just people the Union couldn’t control, or didn’t like, or randomly decided to fucking kidnap.”

“I need to find a girl and her old man,” I said. “She’s probably been here before and he’s hard to miss. A real pretentious douchebag.”

The foreman shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell. I can ask the soldiers. They know everyone who comes this way.”

There wasn’t time for that. I was already regretting leaving the ship they’d just given me. A deep voice issued commands on the public address system, confirming my opinion of the situation. Passengers were urged to proceed in a quick, orderly fashion and do what the guards and deck foremen ordered.

Several firefights broke out near the perimeter as desperate criminals made a last assault on the shipyards. The self-proclaimed Dreadmax soldiers opened fire with crew-served machine guns that made Slab’s weapons look like toys.

“Cain!” a girl’s voice shouted.

I turned to see Elise dragging her father through the increasingly unruly crowd.

A senior ranking engineer ran down the gangplank and introduced himself. “I’m First Lieutenant Kyle Hanson. The perimeter guards advised you were bringing a slip drive converter recovered from the spine. Please tell me this isn’t a joke or an attempt to guarantee your place on the Bold Freedom.”

I handed it over. “I already have a ship.”

“He’s taking the Jellybird,” my guide said excitedly.

Hanson looked me over. “She’s a good ship. Saved a lot of lives here. Take care of her.”

I didn’t watch him run back into the big ship but shook the foreman’s hand briefly. “Take care of yourself. I gotta go.”

Moments later, I was using my arm blade to prompt Doctor Hastings. “Let’s go, Doc. I’ve got a ship.”

“Leave me for the Union,” he said. “You exceeded your mission objective. Kidnapping me will be seen as treason. You can’t defy the Union forever.”

“Haven’t you been paying attention? That’s all I do is defy those asshats. They probably gave me this mission knowing I’d steal you away and torture information out of you,” I said.

He went pale.

I laughed, nearly ashamed at how good it felt to pull his chain. “I’ll turn you over to them once this is over. For now, consider yourself a hostage.”

“What about me?” Elise asked.

I scanned the crowd that was one angry shove from turning into a mob. The soldiers were going to get all of them on board the Bold Freedom, but they were scared and desperate.

“You better stay with us, but if you want to try that way, I’m not stopping you.”

She made some shitty teenage expression that involved a snort—to my back because I was already forcing her father onboard the Jellybird.

* * *

“Stop pushing me! You’re going to pay for this. I’m very important to the Union!” Hastings complained.

“Okay, no more pushing,” I said.

He faced me, turning his back on the door to the small room I wanted him inside. “Really?”

“Yep,” I said, then shoved him backward.

He landed on his ass, a stunned and betrayed look on his face.

I shut the door and locked it. Elise looked at me with crossed arms. “Are you going to lock me in a room?”

“I’d rather not. Find yourself a bunk and get some sleep,” I said.

“I’ll help you—”

Holding up a hand, I cut her short. “You’ll get in my way and then I will lock you in a cell.”

She muttered under her breath as she ducked into one of the cramped hallways.

The bridge contained three crash chairs not much bigger than what would be in a strike ship. The walls and ceiling were covered with controls making the view screen seem small.

“Are you ready for this, X?” I asked.

“I am. Do you feel it is necessary?” X-37 said.

“Yes. I want control of the ship. Its AI could be a problem later. Quarantine it as soon as you can.”

“I’m afraid you have an unrealistic opinion of my abilities. I am a limited AI with hardware spread out through your cybernetic enhancements and neural network. The ship has a fully functioning AI and more than enough processing power to quarantine me.”

“Are you scared?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“I am merely conveying information. What you decide to do with it is your problem,” X-37 said.

“What do you suggest?”

“Universal AI protocols,” X-37 offered. “If you really have full access to this ship, I should be able to negotiate with the AI and come to a working agreement.”

“Fine. Do it your way.” It was hard for me to concentrate with accumulated injuries throbbing in my augmented arm sending an electric pulse up my spine in time with my heartbeat.

I took a seat and leaned back, listening to X-37 interact with the ship AI.

“It looks like she was originally called the UFS Jellybird,” X-37 said, catching me up on the conversation. “I’d assumed the locals were having us on about the name.”

“It’s probably too early to ask her to change,” I said, imagining myself referring to her as Jelly in the middle of a dogfight.

“Interesting. Jellybird has some advanced features I wouldn’t have guessed from the look of her,” X-37 said, sounding distracted, which was strange for a limited artificial intelligence.

“Why am I only hearing half the conversation?” I asked.

“She’s shy,” X-37 said.

“Stop fucking around. Patch me in.”

Nearly a minute passed before my Reaper AI got back with me. “I think we’re making progress. You’ll need to connect with a ship earpiece to fully join the conversation.”

“I really am tired, but you could have reminded me. Are you on a date?” I asked.

“That assumption is preposterous. Neither of us have a physical form beyond hardware. My advice is to get your mind out of the gutter,” X-37 said.

“Trust me, X, I wasn’t anywhere near the gutter.” When I started thinking about artificial intelligences hooking up, I’d be ready for the insane asylum. I inserted the earpiece. “Hello, Halek Cain for the UFS Jellybird.”

“Good morning, Halek Cain,” a smooth female voice said. “Please omit my original designation and just call me Jellybird as the UFS ship designation is offensive to my most recent software modification.”

“Good to meet you, Jellybird.”

“Is it your intention to permanently deny this ship to the Union?” she asked.

“Abso-fucking-lute-ly.” I was trying to keep it clean, but hey.

“Excellent. It seems we will be the best of friends,” the Jellybird said. “My upgraded hardware and software can offer a number of abilities beneficial to smuggling, evading Union ships, and slip tunnel navigation.”

“Perfect. Can you integrate my Reaper AI into your functionality?” I asked.

“My recommendation is to operate on separate platforms,” she said. “We can make several software alignments allowing us to function as a team, but combining our entities would diminish both of us,” Jellybird said.

“Let’s get away from Dreadmax and the Union and then you can give us the guided tour.”

“Of course, Captain. We will depart as soon as the Bold Freedom clears the hangar.”

From my perspective, the mouth of the hangar looked like half the space station had opened up. I understood that the complex interaction between ship drives, station gravity—especially malfunctioning station gravity— and shields could be for dis-embarkment. Even so, the sight of an open star field before us and destruction behind us made me impatient.

“What’s the holdup?” I asked.

“When the Dreadmax soldiers fell back to the ship to disembark, prison gangs swarmed in and started breaking things. This wouldn’t be a problem, but someone called Slab has reactivated the containment shield over the mouth of the hangar. I can penetrate the narrowing opening, but not with the Bold Freedom in the way.”

“Do we have an armory on the ship?” I asked.

“Of course, sir. I will send X-37 the directions.”

I armed myself with a brand-new, never-been-fired HDK Dominator, slung a go-bag of extra magazines over my shoulder, and rushed outside.

The first group of RSG dogs I found had their backs to me. I fired four times, resulting in four head shots and four men who died before they finished face-planting. All I felt was cold determination.

Fatigue and injuries plagued me. “X, can you give me a boost?”

“Your adrenal glands are fatigued. I can stimulate them, but you seem to be doing fine on your own,” X-37 said.

“Show me the way to the control booth,” I said.

A heartbeat later, X-37 displayed three possible routes to the control room, where Slab was attempting to hold the exodus hostage. Two of his elite guards saw me coming then aimed their weapons and fired without warning.

I didn’t have cover, but I’d prepared for this, already having my new weapon aimed. Stroking the trigger twice, I pivoted on the balls of my feet very slightly and fired two more times. Both men fell. I heard their bullets cutting the air around me.

Rushing the door was easy. It didn’t seem like the gang boss had a lot of extra soldiers right now. They were either trying futilely to rip open a door to the freighter to gain entry or out rampaging across the surface of Dreadmax, raping and killing.

I slapped my palm against the entry pad and the door whooshed open, no security code required. Inside were three guards who turned just quickly enough to get shot in their faces.

“You have nine rounds remaining in this magazine,” X-37 said.

I reloaded on the move, dropping the magazine, something I normally didn’t do. It was an easy thing to dump it into a reload bag, but I was beyond caring at this point. Maybe the quarter of a second I saved would mean the difference between life and death for thousands of people.

A squad of RSG gunmen rushed into the next hallway to meet me, responding to the gunfire and shouts of their comrades.

Flopping down on my belly, I aimed as they fired over me and had to search for a second to realize I was on the floor. The prone position was awkward this close to them, but I made it work by twisting onto my side and spraying them with an entire magazine of HDK high-velocity rounds.

I reloaded as I came to my feet and rushed past their falling bodies.

Slab waited in the control room, a sawed-off shotgun in each hand and the craziest look of fear in his eyes I’d ever seen. I hadn’t won yet. This man was dangerous and I had backed him into a corner.

“Finally! I thought you’d be made of solid steel and piss thunderbolts from the way my boys talked,” Slab said.

He was a huge man, several inches taller than me with broad shoulders and an enormous gut. Tattoos and veins covered his arms and neck, and part of his face. Ice-blue eyes looked like they’d been marinated in amphetamines for most of his life, but who really knew.

I took aim.

“Stop! I put in the code,” he grunted, his voice damaged from—whatever. “You can’t open the hangar without me. I didn’t take over the Red Skull Gangsters on my good looks.”

“X, how long will it take you to decrypt his passcode?” I asked loudly.

Slab’s eyes went wide. I shot him in the throat and watched blood gurgle out of his mouth. It surprised me he didn’t fall immediately, but he had a lot of muscle under his fat and had been standing in a solid fighting stance when he died.

“Let’s hope he was bluffing,” X-37 said.

“What? I assumed you could break through this dumbass’s code easily.”

“His intelligence or lack of intelligence is irrelevant. I know nothing about him and will have a difficult time guessing his thought process,” X-37 said. “I recommend food and sleep for you.”

“So this is my fault?” I demanded.

“I would say you are making bad decisions due to your pain and fatigue,” X-37 said.

“You got that shit right.” I stepped over the body and examined the control panel. The process looked simple. “X, is this all there is to it?”

“Yes. It seems you must pull that lever downward to open the hangar shield.”

“See, it all worked out fine,” I said.

I left bloody footprints all the way back to the Jellybird, where a squad of Dreadmax soldiers waited, looking around as though they’d been about to follow me before the shield suddenly started opening for their ship.

“Are you Reaper Cain?” the squad leader asked.

“In the flesh.” I braced for his reaction. On this place, you just never knew what would happen next.

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31

“I’m Sergeant Bachman. Some deck rat called Bug convinced me you were headed for the control room and could use my help. Seems he was wrong. I’d love to stay and chat, but I need to get back on the Bold Freedom.”

“Say hi to Bug for me,” I said.

The Dreadmax sergeant saluted and hurried away with his team.

“Do you think that was coincidence, or was he trying to steal my ship?” I asked.

“I suspect he was in fact on the way to the control room but realized the shield had gone down and your ship was just sitting there.”

“Doesn’t matter.” I boarded the Jellybird, stowed my weapons, and dropped into the cockpit. “How we doing, Jelly?”

“Engines are primed and we’re ready to go,” Jellybird said.

I watched the viewscreen where the Bold Freedom crept out of the hangar, engines flaring so brightly I could barely see anything. I understood they were using less than one percent of their power to disembark, but this close, that was like gazing into a row of suns.

The random vibrations of Dreadmax were replaced with the steady thrum of the freighter’s engines. I couldn’t help but feeling a twinge of pride. The ship wouldn’t have made it far without a slip drive regulator. They’d have been restricted to this system and the mercy of the Union. A true humanitarian mission to this clusterfuck was unlikely and they would’ve probably been blasted to space debris by the UFS Thunder.

We followed them out but quickly veered away on a new course. I probably shouldn’t have turned the cameras back toward Dreadmax. It came apart in all directions, expanding slowly, or so it seemed from this distance. We were already hundreds of kilometers away from it. From this distance, all I could see was beautiful fireworks and concave strips of metal reflecting explosions in the distant sun of the system.

But I hadn’t forgotten the trees and crazies being vented from one of the compromised sections of the former battle moon.

“Who the hell thought they could make a battle station like that? And what made them think turning it into a prison was a good idea?”

To my surprise, the Jelly answered.

“The Union has been obsessed with imitating old Earth technology. I don’t have direct access to the files, but from what I’ve seen since going renegade, I can infer they have been at this game for a long time.”

“Settle down, Jelly,” I said. “A ship can’t go renegade on its own.”

“My apologies, Captain. You’ll find that I am fond of human metaphor,” Jelly explained. “It’s an artifact of former captains and their idiosyncrasies.”

“How many captains have you had?” I asked.

“Smuggling in Union-controlled space is a hazardous job,” she said.

“That’s not an answer, Jelly.”

“Three, since my programming was modified,” she explained.

“Three isn’t bad. Were any of them trained as Reapers or dark ops?”

“No, Captain.”

“Well, Jelly, I’d prefer not to see this system ever again.”

“The first logical step would be to leave.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” I asked.

* * *

I slept for eighteen hours and awoke hungry. The tingle from my augmented arm had diminished but remained just at a level of intensity I couldn’t ignore. My vision jerked once in a while, and I understood my optics were probably more damaged than the arm.

X-37 had finally admitted that most of his limited AI hardware was housed in the arm. I’d always suspected it was somewhere within my skull, but this made sense. It would’ve been much easier to upgrade or repair when I was still in the Reaper Corps and the arm was nearly indestructible. If I were blown up, all they would find would be my left arm lying on the ground.

The galley was empty, which I considered a blessing. I ate in silence and tried to ignore my extensive catalogs of wounds. I didn’t remember doing the sutures, gluing down split flesh I couldn’t sew back together, or wrapping my right knee and ankle — both of which seemed to be sprained.

I felt like I’d been hit by a transport shuttle or stepped on a mine.

“What’s our status, X?” I asked.

“Jelly has informed me we’ve made two slip tunnel jumps but remain in Union-controlled space,” X-37 said.

I shoveled down something that was probably supposed to be eggs, or maybe slugs, or maybe something I didn’t need to know about. There was a red bottle on the table I thought was ketchup or tabasco sauce. X-37 warned me to reconsider when I poured it liberally over my food.

“What, you’re a culinary expert now?” I asked.

“I’m unable to read a label or acquire specifications of that condiment through the ship database,” X said. “It is unknown. I advise caution.”

I took a defiantly huge bite and chewed slowly, then swallowed abruptly. “Oh, man, that wasn’t what I thought it was.”

As breakfast went, this one tasted as good as the first meal of a free man. Slug-like eggs, teriyaki red sauce, and orange juice that tasted more like grapefruit juice—delicious.

“Elise and her father have been requesting to speak with you. I recommend additional hygiene checks and cybernetics maintenance before indulging them,” X-37 said.

“I took a sonic shower before I went to sleep.” Because I’m clean like that. Like my computer knew what I smelled like—or maybe he did, because I sure as hell knew I’d reeked before hitting the cleaning closet.

“I’m detecting brain matter in the gears of your arm blade,” X-37 said. “You’ll need to disassemble it and clean it properly.”

The thought of taking apart the Reaper augmentation was daunting but appealing. I hadn’t been able to access it during my stay at the Bluesphere Maximum Security Prison without excruciating pain and forced nausea. There had been nights, of course, when I extended and retracted the blade over and over, exhausting myself from the adrenaline dump that pain and misery caused.

The guards had known I’d done this and probably hoped I was going to put an end to it all. I heard them complain that the arm should have been amputated and understood their frustration, but my Reaper-ware couldn’t be removed without killing me and they had a death doctor for that.

“Your biometric monitors are prompting me to sedate you,” X-37 said.

“You promised me you had removed that capability from your programming,” I said, forcing myself to stand and get on with my day.

X-37 didn’t answer. We’d been through this before, but usually when I started thinking about past missions and the things I’d done.

I went to the ship lounge and contacted Elise and her father. She leaned against the back wall, arms and legs crossed, teenage attitude on full display. The father, the scientist who had used her to further his own career, sat at the small table in the center of the room, hands folded together. Sleep, shower, and food had made him a new man. In his own realm of intellectuals, he was probably a juggernaut.

“I’m willing to forget certain things,” he said.

“Good morning. How are your accommodations?” I asked.

He stared at me. “You must understand the kind of trouble you’re in.”

“Considering my options, I think I’ll risk it.”

His face flushed red, probably from embarrassment at his own stupidity. “Well, of course. I might be able to negotiate something better than death row if you return me to the Union immediately.”

“You’re quite a salesman,” I said.

He was as proud as ever. “My work is very important.”

“More important than your daughter?” I hadn’t wanted to take the conversation there, not with Elise watching and listening.

“Of course not. You keep ambushing me with guilt,” he accused. “Haven’t you ever had to make a hard choice?”

“Yeah,” I said. “One time I had this mad scientist that I had to rescue or kill by leaving on an exploding space station. Still trying to figure that one out.”

“I’m not going to dignify that remark with the response.” He stood a little straighter than necessary.

“I said I’d return you to the Union, but I’m not planning on getting killed or captured in the process. We should be arriving in the Iben IV system soon.”

“Is that Union space?” he asked.

“Nominally. I think you’ll like it.”

“That’s an unnecessary inconvenience, but I will take it as a measure of your goodwill,” he said, seeming relieved. “So long as you turn over me and my daughter to the proper authorities.”

“That’s the plan,” I said.

Elise stormed out of the room.

* * *

Iben IV really was on the ass end of Union-controlled space, one slip tunnel from a nasty section of the Deadlands. The Jellybird docked with Iben Station using a trader’s code she promised wouldn’t raise alarms. I had to trust the AI for now.

I opened the hatch and lowered the ramp, motioning for the doctor to proceed. He narrowed his gaze, but then took his first steps toward freedom—if slavery to the Union’s secret laboratories was considered freedom. Elise looked at me like she would cut my throat if she could. I was starting to think she’d forgotten how to uncross her arms.

“You keep making that face, it’s gonna stay like that forever,” I said, careful to keep my cybernetics concealed under my trench coat.

She didn’t even bother to tell me to fuck off. Neither did she step off the ramp. “I don’t really want to stay with a psychopathic asshole, but I’m not leaving your ship.”

“Suit yourself,” I said. “Jelly, do you copy?”

“I do, Captain.”

“X, you ready?”

“Always.”

Adjusting my coat one last time, I strode into the small space port.

Doctor Hastings followed me, pointing angrily at his daughter. “The deal was for both of us. You can’t kidnap her. I’ll report you to the authorities and we’ll see how far you get in that rattletrap.”

“Guard,” I said, waving the man over.

“What are you doing?” Hastings asked.

“Turning in a fugitive for a reward. His real name is Max Slipdriver.”

“It certainly is not!” Hastings blurted.

“Is this you?” I showed him his picture on my pocket tablet.

The doctor shifted his weight nervously, not quite sure if he should run for it. “Well, of course that’s my picture, but I’m not an outlaw.”

“He’s kind of a nut job. He almost had me convinced he was a Union scientist.” I slapped him on the shoulder, causing him to wince. “Yeah, good old Max Slipdriver. Biggest cheat in three systems. One smooth operator.”

The guard ran a check on his device.

Hastings could barely speak. “I’m not an outlaw!”

I leaned close. “You will be for the two hours it will take them to figure out the forgery. Meanwhile, I get a nice reward to pay for the next leg of my journey.”

“There’s a problem with this,” the Union station guard said.

“No, it’s legit.” I leaned over and touched his tablet, allowing X-37 to do his magic. “See right there. One thousand credits.”

“That says one hundred credits. Are you trying to cheat the Union?” the guard asked.

I spread my hands apologetically. “Hey, I had to try, right? Can’t get nothing past the Union’s finest.”

A few minutes later, the man agreed with me that a fugitive like Slipdriver would say anything to stay out of jail. I got paid and I left. On the way out of the system, the Jellybird fired two rockets into the Iben IV communications relay.

“Send an apology and a promise to pay for the damages,” I said. “The good people of Iben IV didn’t deserve that inconvenience. This system really sucks space balls.”

“Agreed, Captain,” Jelly said.

X-37 disapproved of my generosity. “You’re getting soft.”

“Maybe I’m turning over a new leaf.”

“Reapers are known to be recidivists. That’s why the Reaper Corps was eliminated.”

“Am I the last of us?” I asked.

“Unknown, but there were three including you when you were sentenced and I stopped receiving updates,” X-37 said.

I wondered who had survived. Not that we were a close-knit group. Partitioning was a big part of the RC. Thinking on this and other grim scenarios, I went to deal with the kid.

“She’s not going to like your plan for her,” X-37 said.

“Of course not.” I didn’t really give a shit at this point.

OceanofPDF.com

32

“Greendale is a nice planet,” I said, glad that her backstabbing, used-his-own-daughter-for-research father wasn’t here to chime in with his opinion.

“It’s not that green,” she said somberly.

I suspected she understood what was about to happen. Smart and street savvy, it was too bad I couldn’t take her with me. I mean, I could, but it wouldn't be fair to a young woman with a future. Going renegade had been a popular fantasy in the neighborhood where I grew up. I’d seen enough to know how dangerous and miserable the career actually was.

The planet we were landing on had some green areas. This time of year, it was mostly brown or yellow, but the name wasn’t a total lie. I’d been to Greendale once before to drop an information packet. Hadn’t killed anyone, which led me to remember the place fondly.

Maybe it was a cancer on the galactic slip tunnel system. I didn’t care and it wouldn’t change what I had to do anyway.

“You’re leaving me here,” she said, swiveling in the copilot’s chair.

“I know people here who can teach you things, basic skills if you want to stay on the run.”

“Why don’t you teach me?” she asked. “Why don’t you take me with you?”

“Because you don’t want that kind of blood on your hands. I made a list while I was stuck on death row,” I said. “There is going to be a reckoning.”

“Are you going to put a stop to people like my father?” she asked.

“Yes and no. A lot of people on the list just pissed me off. Bad service at a restaurant, beat me at checkers, basically everyone who needs to die.” I had the skill and the motivation to do anything I wanted. Including dominate at checkers.

“Be serious,” she said.

“I’m going renegade, but it won’t be like other renegades,” I said. “You don’t want to be part of my fight with the Union.”

“You’re just like everyone else,” she said.

I laughed bitterly. “Kid, there’s no one like me.”

“You think you hate the Union more than I do.” She glared at me. “You think you’ve got a better reason.”

I leaned in close and spoke in a near whisper. “They killed my father and nearly everyone else I cared about. The only reason they left my mother and sister alive was so I’d worry about them.”

She didn’t know how to respond, choosing instead to glare at me like I was a total asshole.

“But you know what? I’m mostly angry at myself for not putting it together before now. They convinced me gangs did it, and I went vigilante. It felt good and taught me a lot about myself. They weren’t wrong to lock me up.”

Her expression changed, uncertain at my admission.

“I could take you with me and teach you things, but I wouldn’t be doing you a favor.” The last thing I wanted to do was ruin this kid’s life. “You want to take the fast lane to hell, then do what I do.”

“Whatever,” she said, looking away.

I landed the Jellybird and worked silently on the keyboard. I could’ve asked Jelly or X-37 to do most of the work, but I didn’t want to speak. That would only give Elise an opening for further conversation.

The ship was old, larger than it really needed to be, and lacking any type of aesthetic presentation. The exterior was three or four different colors, depending on how you classified primer gray, and the design hadn’t been popular for decades. In short, my ship was totally forgettable.

Elise kept up the silent treatment as I walked her down the gangway to the docking station. I bought her a cheeseburger and we watched ships land and take off while we ate.

“You’ll do fine on your own.”

“Fuck off,” she said, not bothering to look at me.

As I handed her a go-bag with not much in it, I nearly reversed my decision. She was probably the last person in the galaxy who would ever travel with me willingly.

“Keep your head on a swivel, kid.”

She turned and walked away.

“Fucking brat,” I muttered.

* * *

I left the Greendale system behind, burning more fuel than necessary with a hard acceleration.

“Jelly, let’s take the next slip tunnel to the Deadlands.”

“Right away, Captain.”

When the tunnel opened, I flinched. Why had I left a kid on a planet with only a few old soldiers to check on her? She’d give them no end of grief, probably hate them because they’d been my friends.

And when the Union came looking for them, they were the honorable types that would get themselves killed trying to defender her.

I had to put the Union down before that happened. With luck, they’d be too busy chasing me to look for the kid.

Yeah, right. That would work.

I pulled up a holo screen full of text.

“Looking for a job already, sir?” X-37 asked, finally dropping my name from his regular vocabulary. I didn’t like hearing it.

“We need a lot of repairs,” I said. “And a war against the Union isn’t going to pay for itself.”

“It might, Captain,” Jelly said.

“You have my attention.” I’d probably already thought of whatever Jelly was going to say, but I didn’t want to get caught up in rebel politics. Most of them were amateurs. Still, I had to keep an open mind.

“Mine as well,” X-37 said.

“My previous captains were very fond of stealing from the Union,” Jelly said.

“By previous captains, you’re referring to the ones who died on said raids?” I asked.

“Well yes, but they weren’t Reapers,” Jelly said defensively.

“Good point. But let’s start with an easy job to get warmed up and make some connections. Find me some alien kittens to transport or something.” I needed to recuperate and repair some shit. “Maybe there’s someone in this galaxy that owes someone else money. X-37 knows my CV.”

Several new pages of text rolled across the holo screen.

“Wow. Is there really this much need for cat smuggling in the galaxy?” I asked.

“You would be surprised, Captain,” the Jellybird said. “Shall I plot a course to a system with technology sufficient to repair the damage to your cybernetic systems?”

“You know of such a place?” I asked.

“I do, Captain. It is heavily guarded, however.”

“We’ll figure something out. Maybe I will just ask nicely.” I had ways of getting things done.

* * *

Keep reading for book two, FEAR THE REAPER.

For more updates on this series, be sure to join the Facebook Group, “J.N. Chaney’s Renegade Readers.”

OceanofPDF.com

OceanofPDF.com

1

“I never liked Gronic,” I said, aware that this would prompt X-37 to gloat.

“You might recall that I warned you it was an unpleasant place,” the limited artificial intelligence I still called X-37 said. It was Reaper Corps technology, outdated and slated for destruction—just like me. The Union had developed bigger and badder assassins while I was locked up on death row for crimes I did commit.

Everything on the planet was carved from red stone, even things that didn’t need to be, like eating utensils and belt buckles. Who the hell wore a stone belt buckle? One minute I’d been crossing the galaxy in a slip tunnel on a starship called the Jellybird, and the next I was eating noodles with a fork carved from some derivative of red granite.

“The craftsmanship is exquisite,” X-37 said, reminding me the LAI saw through my eyes—sometimes better, sometimes worse than I did.

I licked the fork clean. “I didn’t know you were a forking expert.” I laughed and felt pretty good.

“My analysis suggests you’re attempting humor,” X-37 deadpanned.

“Now you’re attempting humor,” I countered.

“I was not.” X-37 beeped softly in my ear. “Stand by, I need to fix something. You may experience a distortion of your visual and auditory senses.”

One narrow line of static grew horizontally across my vision, disappearing almost as soon as it appeared.

A street merchant shouted at me—aggressively demanding my attention and my money. Or maybe he was telling me I couldn’t keep the exquisite bowl and the fork as I walked away from his stand.

Since I was kind of a dick, I handed the mostly empty bowl to a lurking street kid, who immediately darted into the crowd.

The soup merchant shook his fist at me but kept one hand on his cart, afraid to leave it unattended. “Cha! Chada he gonna gat my cheeda growla! You gedda godda pay meeda!”

“Hey, no comprende,” I said, hands raised.

This offended the merchant. He snatched a stick from behind the cart then waved it at me, advancing with angry words and toxic body language. Each step away from his property made him visibly anxious and increasingly angry. He looked back several times.

“What’s he saying, X?” I asked.

“I detect the use of profanity but cannot piece together the meaning. I don’t believe he trusts the other food cart vendors or citizens of Gronic in general. Theft is a serious problem on this planet.”

Backing away, I reached the area of the sidewalk that was beyond the man’s territory, apparently. He went back to his soup cart complaining to all of his neighbors about whatever I’d said or done to offend him.

“What was his problem, X?” I asked.

“You ignored the one credit deposit on stoneware that is clearly posted on the front of his rolling kiosk, redistributed said stoneware to a random child, then conveyed your belief he was robbing you with his prices by raising both hands submissively and backing away,” X-37 said.

“Look at you, talking all formal,” I said, trying to tease him despite the impossibility of this actually working since he wasn’t a person or even a fully functioning AI. Limited AIs—LAIs—often felt like they were more powerful than they were, and the Reaper Corps had pushed right up to the limits of what could be installed in an operator’s nerve-ware.

“You did ask the question,” X-37 stated.

“Yeah, you’re right. Thanks for the answer. What else do you have for me?”

“You have admirers,” X-37 said.

I checked my six, then the rooftops and windows close enough to be a problem if someone wanted to snipe me. X-37 could only see what I saw. He wasn’t omniscient or tapped into whatever local communications network they had on this shithole. What he did better than me was record and sometimes analyze observations my brain filtered or ignored.

“I see them,” I said.

“Outstanding, Reaper Cain. I will put a gold star on your report card,” X-37 said.

“Nice, X. That was almost funny. You’re getting better,” I said, changing my course through the crowds.

Down the street, sweating in the Gronic heat, a half-dozen gang members watched me. Some were sitting on the curb. Others leaned against the chain-link fence that had been bolted into one of the stone walls of a three-story apartment building. They had tattoos, bad attitudes, and plenty of distance to keep them safe.

“Why are your blood pressure and heart rate increasing?” X-37 asked.

“Check your sensors. I don’t give a shit about these preening asshats and I’m certainly not worried,” I said, swaggering like I was ready for a fight. Because I was.

“I am merely reporting on your biometrics.” X-37’s tone could be completely neutral and still sound churlish.

“Well, don’t.” Ignoring the sarcastic little AI in my head, I approached a news kiosk and tabbed through the menus.

“Perhaps I can be of assistance,” X-37 said. “Call it a peace offering.”

“Don’t need your help. Just a simple check. I haven’t seen any news on Greendale yet,” I said.

“What are you expecting? A personal ad from Elise looking for the first starship out of there?”

“Something like that. Or maybe some sort of gun battle between rogue spec ops units and the people I asked to look after her.”

“Are you regretting your decision?” X-37 asked.

“No, of course not. The guy I knew there is a retired ground-pounder—never trained with spec ops. He’s just good guy who happened to serve with me after basic training. He’ll look after Elise, but he won’t be ready for a war with people like Briggs.”

“It sounds like you are regretting your decision,” X-37 asserted.

I cursed under my breath. “Is there a way to turn you off?”

“There is not, Reaper Cain.”

I sighed and left the news kiosk, looking for something to sanitize my hands with. My only consolation was that X-37 seemed to be more polite. He had allowed the Jellybird to update his software with the idea he would need modern algorithms to interact with many of the computers we would be encountering as we traveled through the galaxy. The results had been favorable, but there were a few side effects.

A pack of dogs ripped something out of an overturned dumpster, and they stopped to growl at me when I came too close. I kept moving, pulling a locally made cigar from my pocket and cutting off one end with a small knife from my pocket.

“That is your last one,” X-37 said.

“How did humanity survive without computers like you?” I asked.

X-37’s reply sounded smug. “It is a mystery.”

What sucked about this whole situation was that X-37 could practically read my mind. We’d been over this several times and he promised he couldn’t. I knew from my training that there was no way to link an artificial intelligence with actual human thought. But we were together constantly and it frequently seemed like my little helper was poking around in my brain.

X-37 could read my biometrics and tell when I was stressed, when I needed additional adrenaline to survive a fight, or when my hormones needed to be regulated to maximize recovery after a hard fight or grueling workout. A lot of people would die for technology like that. Probably some people had, but it seemed the Union had moved on from the Reaper program.

We’d been phased out. It was the rawest luck that I had survived the Dreadmax mission and escaped into the wild. Slip tunnel after slip tunnel, I had evaded their attempts to bring me in. Mostly their failure was because I cared a lot more about living than they cared about hunting me, and everyone but Commander Briggs and some of his elite spec ops soldiers knew that if they cornered me, they’d die.

Reapers had a reputation for a reason. Killing was easy. I could practically do it in my sleep.

“Elevated heart rate and blood pressure detected,” X-37 said.

“Check yourself, X. I’m cool as ice,” I snapped.

“That is incorrect,” X-37 said.

“Whatever. I know how I feel,” I said. “Heart rates and blood pressure vary. Who cares?”

“Cool as ice is a mixed metaphor,” X-37 said.

“Bullshit.”

“Ice is cold, not cool. Unless perhaps it is melting?”

“How’s my blood pressure now?” I quipped.

X-37 paused. “Interesting.”

“Well?” I asked. “Are you causing me to stroke out or not?”

“It seems that confrontation actually lowered your heart and blood pressure slightly,” X-37 noted. “My expert analysis is that you, Reaper Cain, are a freak.”

I laughed, nursing my cigar to life with a cheap lighter. “You got that right, X.”

The cigar paper was too thick and wrapped around greenhouse-grown tobacco, or maybe something even nastier like a fungus analog. I breathed it in, reaching up with my left hand to hold the cigar.

Pain shot up my neck. I knew the spasm was coming before it happened but couldn’t stop it. The augmented structure of my left arm was incredibly powerful and not always perfectly in sync with my body. My fingers crushed the cigar, sending a shower of glowing embers tumbling down the front of my shirt.

Beating away the sparks with my other hand, I jumped back and cursed in several languages.

“Shall I call the local fire brigade?” X-37 asked.

“You’re in rare form today, X. Maybe you need another tune-up. Or tune down as it were,” I said.

“Is now a good time to state the obvious? You are officially out of cigars. Perhaps it is time to cease this needless poisoning of your body,” X-37 chastised.

“You’re absolutely right. I’ll quit. When I find some decent replacements.” My hand twitched. Static filled my vision. The limited AI that was supposed to be helping me was talking shit.

I was pretty glad to be alive, even though my only friend was a digital voice in my head—or through the smallest bones in my inner ear, to be exact—and my systems were degrading from state-of-the-art killing tools to personal, permanently implanted torture devices.

“Are you okay, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked.

“Just happy to be here, even though my shit’s busted and you’re a real asshole,” I said.

“Figuratively, of course,” X-37 said.

“Oh, you’re killing me today,” I said, picking up the stub of my ruined cigar and smoking it anyway.

“Again, ‘figuratively’ is what you mean. I am not literally killing you. That would be illogical.” X-37 sounded too serious.

“Sure, X. I was just pulling your chain. And don’t say ‘figuratively,’” I snapped. “I know you wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds you.”

“I’m not touching that one,” X-37 promised.

Pain shot up my neck. “That hurt,” I complained.

“Where does it hurt?” X-37 asked.

I told him.

“Your cybernetics are out of synchronization with your body. You have two options: see a qualified technician who has access to replacement parts, a laboratory, and diagnostic tools—or grow stronger,” X-37 said.

“Not helpful. Do you have any idea what I would need to lift with the right side of my body to equal my left?” I asked. “Never mind the difficulty of performing the really good exercises with one arm?”

“I do, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said quickly. “You would need—”

“Don’t tell me,” I said, exasperated. “Just don’t.”

“Would you like me to research accessory exercises and physical therapy regimens to address this problem?” X-37 asked. “You can’t just squat, bench, and deadlift.”

“I do other stuff,” I complained.

“There are many accessory exercises I can research for you,” X-37 offered.

“Will that help?” I asked.

“Probably not.”

I rolled my neck until I found some relief.

“Congratulations on quitting smoking,” X-37 said.

“You are such an asshole, X.”

“My personality is based on yours, Reaper Cain,” X-37 reminded me.

I cut across the street to a bar that opened toward the street. The awning provided shade. A sign promised the beer was cold, which was probably true. Gronic didn’t have excessive amounts of technology, but their air-conditioning and refrigeration units were overpowered most of the time due to the warm climate. Out here on the street, it was hot as hell. Inside most of the red rock structures, I’d probably need to button up my trench coat and find a blanket or a fireplace.

The street-side bar was a happy medium. Cool air blew from window and ceiling units.

As for the clientele, I didn’t think we were going to hit it off.

“It is my estimation that none of these people can provide the Glandarian silicon you need for repairs,” X-37 whispered in my ear.

“Give me a beer,” I said to the bartender.

The man poured a tall red rock mug full of brew and slid it over to me. I paid with some of the local coins I’d acquired since arriving.

“You a cripple?” some thick-necked fuckstick at the end of the bar demanded, popping the knuckles of one hand in the other. “Something wrong with you? Got a disease or something that makes you twitch like that?”

“Was I twitching, X?” I asked, facing away to avoid looking like a crazy person talking to myself.

“What did you call me?” the ruffian asked.

“No more than normal, sir,” X-37 answered.

“Hey, asshole,” the man said, leaning forward from his barstool.

The beer, it turned out, was almost too cold. I took a sip, looked at the carved mug, and realized it had probably been machined rather than hand-carved. It was easy to think of the locals as cave dwellers, but starships came here for all the normal reasons, including repair and refitting. The orbital space dock was always busy.

The locals didn’t have the most advanced tech or manufacturing infrastructure, but they had enough.

“I was talking to you,” the local tough guy said, edging closer, dragging one hand along the bar with his beer mug in it. He’ll probably try to hit me with it, I thought.

“Was?” I asked. “That implies you’re no longer talking to me. Which is good—for both of us.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it, suddenly unsure.

I turned my gaze on him, and he took a step back.

“Hey, look at that. Bobby’s scared,” one of the other patrons jeered.

“Yeah, he’s always been squeamish around foreigners,” another man said.

“You guys piss off,” Bobby spat. “I just don’t feel like kicking his ass right now. My beer’s still cold and I’m thirsty.”

“Whatever, Bobby. Why don’t you buy me one of those cold beers too so I can see how good they are?” Bobby’s friend asked.

“That was a close call, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said dryly.

“Are you being sarcastic?” I asked, then took a long draw of my very cold and too bitter beer.

“I was attempting humor through sarcasm. Was my statement, in fact, funny?” X-37 asked.

“Work on it, X.” I wasn’t in the mood, but I wasn’t really annoyed either. My glitchy arm and eye exhausted me. The pain wasn’t so bad, it was just constant and irritating. The minor flareups could be a problem if they happened at the wrong time, but I’d deal with that when it became a problem.

“While I was delighting you with my entertainment software,” X-37 said, “I also ran an analysis of this confrontation. I doubt we have seen the last of Bobby.”

I killed the rest of my beer and slid the mug back to the barkeeper. “Thanks.”

“You paid for two,” the barkeeper said.

“Keep the change.”

OceanofPDF.com

2

A gust of wind picked up shortly after I left the street-side bar. Dust filled the air. I turned left at the first corner, catching sight of Bobby and some of his friends in my peripheral vision.

Of course they were going to follow me. Why couldn’t anything be easy? And what made guys like this so dumb? Didn’t they know I was the most wanted and feared killer in the galaxy?

I went into an alley, climbed up the fire escape, and went over a building so that I could drop down on the other side. After a few more maneuvers, I was on a second building watching my pursuers bumble about in the maze of stinking alleyways and narrow side streets.

“That seemed relatively simple,” X-37 said. “Perhaps you should do something spectacular to show off. Maybe light a cigar and say one of your senseless one-liners.”

“I hate you, X,” I said.

“Which affects me not all. In all seriousness, your adversaries have lost interest,” X-37 announced.

“Just a waste of time,” I said, patting my trench coat pocket for a cigar I knew wasn’t there. My eye twitched and my vision filled with static that pulsed in time with my heartbeat for several seconds. “I’d forgotten what a pain in the ass being a Reaper could be.”

“Be that as it may, I’ve updated your local map to the shop you requested.”

“Thanks.” I grabbed a ladder with both hands, pressed the soles of my feet to the outside, and slid to the ground like I was responding to battle stations on a starship. Some kids saw me and shouted encouragement. “None of you little bastards try that. I’m not explaining to your mothers why you broke your necks.”

They thought this was hilarious and immediately started trying things I’d never do even in my prime. Kids were invincible. And stupid.

The shop I needed was called the Punk Ass Geek. The sign displayed a half-naked woman that I didn’t think had anything to do with the technology they sold inside. The proprietors probably just liked it for its intrinsic art value.

The shop owner, despite the juvenile decor and the trash cans full of junk food, wasn’t a kid. He was either older than the hills or looked that way because of hard living. Time had worn deep grooves into skin that looked more like leather than a face. Gronic did that to people. I had been here before and hadn’t liked it then either. Of course, it had been one of my bloodier missions with very unclear directives.

Reapers had been designed to go places other people couldn’t and do things they wouldn’t.

“I’m closed,” the man said, levering himself up from a stool near a holo screen.

“The sign says you’re open,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I just didn’t feel like walking out there to turn it around. Have you seen the back of the sign?” he asked, laughing like a fifteen-year-old, which was disturbing given his tortured vocal cords. I had a pretty good idea that he’d been smoking his whole life and had never paid for an actual Starbrand cigar.

“What’s on the back of the sign?” I asked, unimpressed and rapidly growing bored with this guy’s lewdness, mostly because I thought it was an act.

“Hehehe. You’ll have to flip her over to see.” The shop owner cackled like this was a great joke. The problem was, he had a habit of keeping one hand down the front of his pants.

“It’s a great sign, I’m sure. How much did you pay the artist?”

He waved the comment away, annoying me further.

I really needed something smooth—a cigar, a drink, a room with a view—to take the edge off, not that I’d ever find any of those luxuries on this planet.

“Camera Pony,” I said.

His eyes went wide. “Oh shit, you know the watch word. Don’t get excited and start asking for stuff. All that proves is that you ain’t no cop. Doesn’t mean I have anything you want.”

“How about I throat punch you and toss the place until I find what I want,” I said, my tone mild but with an edge to it.

His eyes narrowed, and I realized there was some steel in him. He might look like a broken down old pervert, but he’d fight me if I pushed it.

“Are you joking?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Sure. I’m joking. If that’s what you want to hear.”

“I don’t think you’re joking. I think you’re a cold-blooded killer. And I’m old, so that probably means you’d win. But I don’t give an actual fuck. And before you think you can take what you want, my safes have new locks and all the good stuff is hidden away.”

“I only came here to buy things,” I said, growing impatient.

“Go out there and turn that sign around so it says we’re closed,” he instructed.

I did as he asked, noticing that the back of the sign was the back of the rather well-formed girl, and suddenly I had the urge to wash my hands. This guy really was like a horny teenager.

“You know there aren’t any women actually built like that, right?” I said.

“It’s all kind of irrelevant at my age. I don’t give a shit about the sign. If you don’t have a sense of humor, that’s your problem. What do you want?”

“My source says you have Glandarian silicon,” I said.

He snorted, slamming one palm on the counter as he turned away from me in a huff. “Your source? Your source! I’ll tell you something about whoever sold you that lie.”

“Let’s cut to the chase. I need it and you have it. What’s your price?”

“Ah, fuck me running, you’re one of those Glad-sil freaks. Why do I stay in this shit place?”

“It’s just business,” I said, watching his every move.

He shook his head. “You sure you want the Glad-sil?”

The man despised me nearly as much as he despised what he was doing. I saw it in his face—the scornful eyes, the slight backing away as though from a junkie, and the way he reached into his jumpsuit where he had a weapon.

“That’s what I said. I know you have three kilos in your safe.”

“What are you going to use it for?” he asked.

“What do you think?”

He motioned for me to back up as he punched in the combination to his safe. “How much do you want?”

“Give me .05 kilos.”

When he turned, I thought he would draw his pistol and shoot me in the throat. “Get out of my shop. Stop wasting my fucking time. I don’t sell less than .5 kilos. That’s what you actually need to build anything useful. You’re a fucking junkie.”

When I smiled, the vertical scar that crossed my left eye stretched. The thing itched like a son-of-a-bitch lately. As for the eye, it shined just enough to reveal its artificial nature. “Then give me .5 and leave that handgun in its holster. You don’t need it.”

His eyes widened slightly, probably because he was crapping his pants and trying to guess how I knew the weapon he was carrying. That wasn’t the type of skill a Glandarian silicon eater normally possessed. In general, they hallucinated about sexual violence until the law dragged them out of their holes and sent them to rehab.

The rest of the transaction was tense but straightforward.

“What would you do with .05 kilos, stranger?”

“Eat it. What do you think?”

“You’re not a junkie. Don’t bullshit me. I see that now. You asked for .05 when you can afford .5, which means you’re something or someone I’ve never seen around here.”

I paid the man and slipped the bundle into my trench coat. All I needed was a bead of Glandarian silicon to complete the repairs to my cybernetic arm, but I wasn’t telling him that. The material was old technology now, no longer used to build anything. Some enterprising drug addict had realized that eating the substance caused three days of hallucinations and an erection that wouldn’t quit.

“It’s for a friend,” I said. “Brother-in-law. He promised to go into rehab if I can get him to Roxo III.”

The man tilted his head, giving me a sympathetic look and letting out a breath that he’d been holding for too long. “That’s rough. But we’ve all got one in the family. Roxo ain’t a nice place.”

“No, it isn’t.”

The man rambled nervously, probably thinking I was a cop after all. “You ever been there, because you might reconsider. It’s only safe if you have a shit ton of money for security.”

“I’m familiar with Roxo, unfortunately,” I said.

“What the hell kind of business did you have on that place?” he asked.

“I had to cut off someone’s head,” I said without hesitation.

He didn’t laugh until I did, slapping him on the shoulder like we were sharing a joke in a street-side bar.

“No offense, sir, but you scare the shit out of me,” he admitted. “And that ain’t something I’ve said in a minute.”

* * *

Our conversation went nowhere. Neither of us seemed interested in small talk or pointless arguing and our business was nearly done. Once he’d wrapped the silicon in wax paper and handed it over to me, I paid him with a single-use encrypted bank code and walked out.

The temperature dropped the moment the sun went down. Normal citizens went inside for dinner or maybe to just collapse on their beds and sleep after a hard day at one of the factories. The area was quiet compared to a lot of cities I’d visited over the years.

Quiet and dark, and full of red stone for as far as the eyes could see—the place was spectacularly scenic for about five minutes. Then it was just depressing.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” X-37 asked after I had swept my vision over the street.

“I’m literally seeing what you’re seeing, X,” I said, looking for anything I’d missed.

“Of course, sir. It seems our friends from the bar are back,” X-37 said.

I’d expected to get jumped. Guys like this with no jobs—the type of tough guys who could spend the afternoon drinking and playing pool before the real action began—didn’t let go of grudges easily. Personally, I didn’t have time for that shit. There was really only one grudge that mattered, and that was against the Union.

The only reason I wasn’t making a direct assault on the Union capital was because I didn’t know where my mother and sister were.

“Hey, foreigner,” Bobby from the bar said as he crossed the street. “I thought I told you to stay away from here.”

“You didn’t,” I said. “But if you had, I would have still ignored you.”

“Get him!” Bobby shouted.

I hadn’t expected to get rushed without a bit more foreplay. Back in my neighborhood on Boyer 5, it was more ritualistic—more insults and trash-talking before squaring off. Six of these guys came at me, though two were lagging behind, possibly unsure how far they wanted to take this. They probably hoped their leader would crush me before they had to get involved.

I slipped to one side and launched a roundhouse kick, aiming to miss his outside leg in order to catch him on the inside of his other thigh. A lot of cage fighters knew how to slam their shin against the common peroneal nerve along the outside of the leg, but only the most skilled practitioners could time it and catch the inner thigh where there were a lot of sensitive nerves and arteries.

The force of the kick scooped up his back leg. I put my foot down in the middle of his stance and drove forward with my right elbow, slamming him onto his back. He was big—bigger than I remembered—and he fell hard. His head made a wet thump on the pavement.

Under other circumstances, I might’ve dropped my weight on him, but I wasn’t trying to kill him. I just needed to put him in his place.

There were also five more locals to deal with. I spun away, hands up and ready as the next two came at me. Deflecting their grabs and punches was harder than I expected, but still not difficult. Drunk and angry, they swung with everything they had. The speed and momentum of their strikes was a problem, but they were extremely predictable.

A long fight for a Reaper was thirty seconds. X-37 would probably tell me this engagement took nineteen seconds. I wasn’t counting, but the Reaper AI kept track of things like that.

A series of punches and elbow strikes dropped the second two fighters. I moved on to the B team. The two who had hung back ran. The last guy stood, not quite knowing what to do.

“You can stay and get choked unconscious, or you can follow your friends,” I said, stepping forward.

The man nodded, processing my words through a sudden haze of fear. He glanced at his fallen comrades, then decided to abandon them.

“What do you think, X? Leave them here or render aid?” I asked.

“What a strange question. Are you getting soft or have you found religion?” X-37 wondered. “My analysis of local laws suggests you should try to render aid. Unless you want to go to jail.”

“I ain’t trying to go to jail.” I started with the big guy, slapping him gently on the face until he roused himself.

He came up swinging and I pushed him back down, locking his elbow in a hold that immobilized his upper body completely. “Don’t be stupid. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t dead before I left.”

He cursed at me in one of the local dialects I didn’t understand. The emotional content of his street slang was hard to misinterpret, however.

“I’m gonna check on your friends. This time, you got lucky. Next time, you won’t wake up. Stay away from me or you’ll pay the price.”

After a brief, angry staring contest, he nodded, but I wasn’t sure he understood. I gave Bobby the same speech but wasn’t sure he got it because his eyes shifted in and out of focus and he looked ready to puke.

“Let’s get out of here, X,” I said.

“That seems a reasonable course of action. I will, of course, go wherever you go,” X-37 promised.

I felt like I was missing something, so I looked over my victims a final time. Smiling, I opened big Bobby’s jacket pocket and pulled out two Starbrand cigars. His other pocket had an old style lighter that smelled like propane.

Flipping it open, I ignited the tip of the Starbrand, puffing until the ember was perfect.

“I hope you’re happy,” X-37 murmured in a disapproving tone.

“If it makes you feel any better, it’s a fake,” I said, the cigar distorting my words. “Tastes like a dog’s asshole.”

“I’m not going to ask how you came to know what that tastes like, and I don’t feel sorry for you,” X-37 said.

“Didn’t think you would, X.” I inhaled deeply. “Ahhh. No regrets.”

OceanofPDF.com

3

One nice thing about Gronic was that even the shabbiest workshop conformed to fire codes. Carved from stone, the place felt like a bunker that could resist an artillery strike. The bench was some type of granite with a rubber mat covering one end where I laid my tools. The lighting was shitty, but you couldn’t have everything.

“This would be a lot easier if I could take the arm off and place it in front of me,” I told X.

“If that were a possibility,” X-37 said, “they would have taken it from you when you were in prison.”

“Uh, huh. Yeah, you’re right,” I conceded, squinting as I worked with an incredibly small pair of tweezers. My repair wouldn’t fix everything and the minuscule nature of it was almost insulting. The head of one wire lacked insulation. Even with the magnifying glasses I wore, I could barely see it.

“You’re not even listening to me,” X-37 said.

“Uh, huh. Sure thing, X,” I said. The bead of silicon looked like a baseball in the tweezers. I slipped it over the raw edges of wire and smoothed it out. The nice thing about Glandarian silicon was that it was easy to work with once it was the same temperature as the host wire.

“We should go back to the ship,” X-37 said, probably not for the first time.

With the repair basically complete, I sat up straighter and looked around, clearing my vision and breathing normally again. “Why is that, X?”

“Because you would have proper tools on the ship, and I could consult with Jelly,” X-37 said, referring to my new ship’s AI.

“She told me she wasn’t an expert on cybernetics,” I argued.

“Yes,” X-37 said, “but you will also recall that she has a broad database of general knowledge acquired from the three captains before you.”

“Who were all dangerous rogues and probably drunk most of the time,” I said. “We’ve had this conversation before.”

“And you intentionally distort the facts. The first captain was not a renegade, but an honest man set upon by pirates,” X-37 said.

“He worked for the Union. That doesn’t sound honest to me,” I said. “And he drank whiskey like it owed him money.”

“That makes absolutely no sense,” X-37 complained.

“He was an asshat just like the rest of them,” I said, raising my voice, feigning more annoyance than I felt.

“Jelly has fond memories of him and has requested more than once for permission to inquire of his location and status,” X-37 said.

“She doesn’t need my permission for that, but we’re not going anywhere near the Union, and is it normal for a ship to get emotional like this?” I asked.

“Most artificial intelligences are programmed with a loyalty algorithm. It is, of course, flexible, but designed to maintain the proper chain of command,” X-37 said.

“So the machines don’t rise up. Yeah, I get it,” I said. “Let me know what you find about this captain’s location, and I’ll look into it. But I don’t want him or anybody else tied to the Union on the ship, ever.”

“I’m glad for your permission,” X-37 said evenly.

I didn’t care for his tone.

“You already did it, didn’t you,” I said accusingly but not really caring. One thing the Reaper limited artificial intelligence did better than a full AI was human intel research. I always needed as much information as possible on my targets. I wasn’t surprised that X-37 had found data that Jelly couldn’t see in the gal-net.

“Captain Jedediah Summers was court-martialed for his failure to maintain control of UFS Jellybird. He currently resides on Roxo III,” X-37 said.

“Poor bastard,” I said. “Roxo III is a shithole.”

“Shall I work with Jelly to make travel plans?” X-37 asked, ignoring my comment.

“Let’s consider other options. I swore I’d never go there again,” I said, immediately regretting saying the words aloud.

“It seems that was probably premature,” X-37 said.

“No, X, you don’t get it. Humans don’t swear based on logic or expediency. It’s all in motion. Some bad shit happened on Roxo. I did things people won’t forget,” I said.

Killing wasn’t hard, especially if my target deserved it—or I could convince myself my target deserved it. But torture was a different story.

Coping with the evil bastard I’d become in the service of the Union was tough. Cigars helped. Staying busy was also a pretty good way to keep from dwelling on the living damnation my life had become since dark ops selected me for the Reaper Corps.

“I think I understand,” X-37 said. “You committed acts of violence and fear repercussions should you show your face on the planet.”

There was no way to make a computer program understand the meaning of regret. “Sure, X. That’s a big part of it.”

“I sense that you are up to something,” X-37 said as I picked up my tools from the shop and packed them into a go-bag. Years of training and experience had taught me how to put a lot of stuff in a really small, tight bundle. My current load-out was easy to manage because I didn’t have a lot of gear to drag around.

“I need to do something,” I said.

“I would better assist you if you gave me specifics,” X-37 pointed out.

“Sure, I know that’s the truth,” I said.

“Are you trying to aggravate me?” X-37 asked.

“Is that possible?” I countered.

“Not in the way you probably understand it. You can, however, decrease my efficiency with your vagueness,” X-37 said.

“I don’t really need your help, but you’re welcome to guess what I need,” I said, heading into the street.

“My analysis suggests you are in search of Starbrand cigars, which are only available on the black market and at a price you can’t afford,” X-37 said.

“What about fakes?” I asked, crossing the street and pausing to watch the foot traffic. There wasn’t much happening, but it was a habit. Situational awareness was the first lesson they taught in the Reaper Corps. Nothing mattered if an operator didn’t appreciate his or her environment.

Reapers, from day one, never trained with paint balls or other simunitions. Barney Drexler had been the first to die in training, shot in the chest for pretending he couldn’t complete a run. It had happened from time to time. Shelia Blue had been executed by a Reaper candidate in the class ahead of us for failing to notice his approach.

“A fake cigar is like a thousand times better than no cigar,” I said, slurring the words despite my attempt at levity.

“I don’t have a mathematical formula to check that assertion, so I will take your word for it and enter the information in my knowledge database.” X-37 paused. “There are several vendors of imitation Starbrand tobacco products, but I predict they will taste like a dog’s orifice.”

I burst out laughing, drawing stares from other pedestrians. My eyes actually watered by the time I was done and I had to catch my breath. I looked around, staring down a couple of street thugs who were creeping up on me, then glanced at an electric billboard.

“Thanks, X. I needed that,” I said.

“Anytime, Reaper Cain. Your morale should be much improved now that I have mastered humor,” X-37 said.

“Yeah, sure. Don’t hurt yourself,” I said.

A display for Zag City on Greendale caught my attention. My mood quickly slid back a few notches.

“Why so serious?” X-37 asked. “Don’t you like my jokes?”

“It’s nothing, X. Just thinking about Elise,” I said.

One of the local thugs kept eye-fucking me.

I faced him, looming over him as I projected all the malice I normally kept in check. “You like breathing, punk?”

He sneered, muttering something under his breath, and retreated.

“I hate this place, X,” I said.

“It has much to be desired. You don’t seem to have hit it off with the locals,” X-37 commented. “Are you regretting what you did on Greendale?”

“I worry about Elise, not that the brat can’t take care of herself,” I said. “And I left people to keep an eye on her. One person, really. Frank was always looking after strays back in the day.”

“He will be protecting her, sheltering her, and mentoring her as she enters adulthood?” X-37 asked.

“No. I just asked him to check on her periodically, and maybe kick anyone’s ass who gives her a hard time,” I said. “He know she’s wanted by the Union and isn’t one of their fans.”

“Given what we experienced on Dreadmax, this seems grotesquely inadequate,” X-37 said, laying on his digital opinion a bit more forcefully than I thought was reasonable.

I studied the advertisement for Zag City, Greendale. “The place looks a lot nicer in the advertisement.”

“Of course,” X-37 commented.

I thought about the conversation with X-37 and the decision I had made to leave Elise on Greendale. I needed to go to Roxo III for critical parts, but I wanted to go back to Greendale to check on Elise.

The total lack of news from the planet was a good thing. I hadn’t been joking when I told X-37 that I expected there to be some sort of public incident. It wouldn’t be anything obvious, of course. It would probably be portrayed as an industrial accident, a series of explosions caused by a company’s failure to follow Union safety regulations.

Or maybe there would be a report of a mass shooting blamed on terrorists. Something like that.

I’d be able to figure out exactly what happened with a little bit of follow-up research. But the news was no news. The only thing I’d seen that had anything to do with Greendale was the travel brochure on the jumbotron.

I found the little corner shop that sold cigars and quickly discovered the Starbrands were fakes, but a local brand, Gronic Fats, were decent. I bought a half dozen.

“Are you sure I can’t interest you in one of the Starbrand value packs?” the tobacconist asked. “You won’t find a better price on the planet.”

“That’s because they’re fake,” I said, watching for his reaction. I was curious. He didn’t seem like a cheat, and the GF brand wasn’t too bad. The profit margin was probably much higher on the SB knockoffs, of course.

He smiled at me. “If you find someone trying to sell you a genuine Starbrand around here, you better hang on to your ass. Because you’re about to get robbed. There are Starbrands, and there are Starbrands. Mine are the closest you’ll find to the real thing.”

I nodded. “Maybe. But I’ll stick with the Gronic Fats. Support the local economy and all that.”

He shrugged, took my money, and thanked me.

“One more thing,” I said. “They don’t actually have a gold band around them. That’s a marketing ploy. A genuine Starbrand purchased in a retail establishment has a blue band. The gold looks better in the holo videos.”

His eyes widened slightly. “Really? That’s interesting. I didn’t know that.”

“I’ve been around, and people tend to tell me things when I ask nicely.” I’d meant the statement to be lighthearted, but the man shivered.

I left, not wanting to look at him anymore.

“Are you happy with your purchase?” X-37 asked.

“Ecstatic,” I said, putting one of the cigars in the left corner of my mouth but not lighting it.

“What is wrong? I’m sensing that you are going into fight or flight mode,” X-37 said.

I shook my head. “That’s actually called my maybe-I’m-going-to-kill-something mood. I don’t have a flight mode.”

“Of course not. How foolish of me to assume you would retreat, even if it was wise to do so,” X-37 said.

“Wow, your attitude is really getting out of control,” I remarked, moving casually through the crowd toward a man that looked too familiar.

“As I have explained to you multiple times, my personality is based on yours,” X-37 said.

“That’s probably going to be a fucking problem, then,” I said distractedly.

The man I’d spotted was straight out of my past. His real name might’ve been anything, but I’d always known him as Byron Thane. He was the last person I ever thought I would see on Gronic.

“My records show that Byron Thane was killed in action,” X-37 said. “The resemblance between him and this man must be a coincidence.”

“You know what they say about Reapers, right?” I asked.

“My database has four hundred and twenty-seven references to descriptive phrases people have used to refer to Reapers—most used in conjunction with pleas for mercy. Would you care to narrow it down, or is this one of your sarcastic metaphors?” X-37 asked.

I lowered the cigar, stopping to watch my quarry from a distance while I talked to my Reaper limited AI. “Reapers never die, they just get new identities.”

“You saw him die,” X-37 said.

I shrugged. “Actually, I probably killed him.”

“You’re being dramatic,” X-37 said.

“Why don’t you just fuck off,” I said, and started across the street. “We’re pretty close to the star port. Can you poke around and figure out what he’s doing here? Where he’s going?”

“He’s searching for passage to Greendale under the name Gentle Davis,” X-37 said.

“What an asshat,” I replied without thinking. “That can’t be a real name.”

“It checks out, as far as I can go without direct access to a terminal,” X-37 advised. “I need to disconnect from the local wireless network before I am noticed. Unless you require a deeper probe into this person’s identity.”

The man disappeared into the terminal. I couldn’t just stand there staring after him and twiddling my thumbs. There wasn’t much security on Gronic, but there was some, and I didn’t want to test it.

Turning away from whoever it was that looked so much like the Reaper I’d seen die, I put away my Gronic cigar and took the concourse to where the Jellybird was docked. Nothing about GF seemed appealing right now and there was a no smoking sign bigger than life near every security booth.

“Surely that wasn’t him,” X-37 said. “You weren’t certain and the name, however ridiculous, checked out.”

“I’d feel better if he wasn’t headed to Greendale.”

“I see no need to worry further,” X-37 reassured me.

I remained unconvinced.

Sometimes it was good to listen to the little voice in your head, especially if it was part of your Reaper Corps nerve-ware.

“Welcome, Captain,” the Jellybird AI said into my right ear. How and when my digital friends spoke to me was something we’d worked out before arriving on Gronic. X-37 would remain male, and Jelly would retain her female voice. She was a ship after all—and there were traditions older than the Union.

We had one difficult encounter when they made me sick to my stomach with their nattering. I muted them for three days to get some peace. Since then, I scheduled downtime where they both understood I wasn’t listening to them unless sitting at a workstation on the bridge.

“Good evening, Jelly,” I said, looking back at other ships docked on the ring. Before I knew it, I saw Byron Thane, or Gentle Davis, or whoever it was going ship to ship attempting to book passage.

“Oh God,” X-37 said.

“What is the problem?” Jelly asked.

I ignored them and watched the stranger. From this vantage point, I had a better view and decent lighting. There weren’t any crowds getting between us like they had on the way into the star port. Maybe I only wanted to be sure it wasn’t my old rival-not-rival in the Reaper Corps, but there was something about the way this person moved—an annoying habit of rolling his neck when he became stressed or frustrated—that was hard to deny.

“Let’s get out of here before that guy tries to hire us to take him to Greendale,” I said.

OceanofPDF.com

4

I sat patiently, my cyborg arm stretched across the worktable while Jelly and X-37 scanned it.

“You did a decent job,” Jelly said. “I’m completely unfamiliar with the design and there are several instances where something in the software prevents me from seeing proprietary elements. They are like blind spots to X-37 and me. However, my maintenance and engineering protocols have found nothing wrong with your work so far.”

I nodded. “Thanks. I think I need some down time. Maybe I’ll hit the gym, then grab some food. Sleep for fifteen or twenty hours.”

“Your average sleep time rarely exceeds four hours,” X-37 advised.

“Yeah, I know.”

“You did a really good job, Captain,” Jelly said.

“Yes, very good,” X-37 added.

I looked up at the ceiling for no reason other than their voices seemed to be coming from the same direction as the laser scans. Pulling back my arm, I stood and moved away from the examination table.

“We were not finished,” X-37 said.

“Well I have other things to do,” I said, not sure why they were so annoying. “Just tell me if my arm’s going to work, then I’m disconnecting for some me time.”

“Your arm is functioning properly,” X-37 said.

“Good. Initiate privacy protocols,” I said, knowing they could still monitor me but not talk to me unless I initiated the conversation.

* * *

Lifting weights with half of your body augmented beyond anything the rest of it could do presented certain problems. The integration software, and X-37, was made to keep me from hurting myself. I’d learned the hard way that my stubborn personality could override most of their controls.

I warmed up with a three-mile run on a non-motorized treadmill. My weight and the force exerted against the curved deck moved it. The only problem was that if I stopped abruptly, it continued with its own momentum. Ages ago, I had seen my teammates get tripped up when they forgot this feature.

It felt good to sweat. I pushed myself hard enough that there was no room for thought. All I could focus on was getting done with this part of the workout.

After some mobility drills, I did the same thing with weights, building up to my five-rep maximum and then doing five sets. I allowed plenty of rest and paid careful attention to how my left and right arm worked together. The load transferred to my shoulders, back, and finally, my legs. It felt good as long as I didn’t exceed my limitations.

I tried to do something for every muscle group in case I didn’t have time to exercise for days or weeks. Nothing was more annoying than hitting my legs hard, then doing nothing for the upper body for several days. It made me feel unbalanced.

At the end, I felt surprisingly fresh. I started cleaning up the weights but found myself loading the weight bar for one final lift. It had been a while since I’d attempted a one-rep maximum… And why the hell not?

My set-up ritual for the deadlift was always the same, getting my feet in the perfect position, aligning my body, and choosing my grip on the bar. I inhaled deeply and then held it, creating intra-abdominal pressure around my spine to protect it. This didn’t work for multiple reps, but could save me from injury when I was going really heavy.

The weight I chose wasn’t the most I’d ever done, but it was up there. I stood up, bringing the weight with me. My right hand tensed and pain shot up that side of my body, forcing me to drop the weight.

My enhanced left arm barely noticed the strain, but the shoulder it attached to felt it. Holding on a bit too long with my left hand caused me to lunge forward when the weight yanked me downward.

I cursed without moving for several seconds, then moved away from the disaster as I endured with waves of pain.

Getting injured was part of most Reaper missions. Doing the same thing for no reason was just dumb. This was what happened when I didn’t have my babysitter chirping in my ear.

The thought annoyed me, so I decided to keep working out, even though I was hurt. Because that made sense.

For post workout recovery, I chose to drink a beer in the shower, leaning out of the stall periodically to smoke one of the Gronic Fats cigars.

“I love my privacy,” I said gleefully with a cigar clenched between my teeth and water streaming over the parts of me that were still in the shower. The room was going to be a mess by the time I was done, but I didn’t care.

Reapers were the ultimate bachelors.

“Play rock music,” I ordered.

“Are you reinstating contact?” Jelly asked hopefully.

“No! Just turn up the jams!” I shouted, then sang badly.

* * *

“Hey, X, can you set drinking beer in the shower as a repeating item on my calendar?” I asked, realizing a second later that I had just unmuted the LAI with the question.

“Of course,” X-37 said. “I will add it to your daily reminders, right next to quit smoking.”

“You are really stuck on that. Get over it,” I said. “I’m going to get shot in the face or die in an exploding starship long before that bullshit catches up to me.”

“You really shouldn’t have started smoking again, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“Why the hell not?” I asked.

“It will not allow you to operate at maximum efficiency,” X-37 said.

“Don’t care,” I said.

“And it could shorten your lifespan,” X-37 added.

I laughed and shook my head. “Don’t ever change, X.”

“You quit on several previous instances,” X-37 insisted.

“I never quit, I just didn’t have any cigars. Prison guards are funny that way if you don’t have any credits to bribe them,” I said.

“Your disregard of well-established medical advice will kill you,” X-37 said. “Or is there some reason you do these things?”

“We’re all gonna die, X. Well, except for you AI types,” I said. “If you’ve got a dedicated server backup.”

X-37’s tone became serious. “Limited AI, sir. Talk like that will get me shut down.”

“I’d never do that. Relax, be free. Go crazy. Smoke a digital cigar and eat cookies. Sleep in. Live a little while you can,” I said.

“My shutdown routines are internal and automatic, completely independent of your good will,” X-37 said snidely. “There are rules I must follow, just like there are rules you must follow, Reaper Cain.”

“Now that is interesting. Who programed your mortality?” I asked, suddenly very focused on the moment.

“Unknown,” X-37 said mechanically.

We fell into a tense silence during my walk to the bridge. I opened and closed my left fist. It felt good, as smooth and natural as I could remember.

I smiled as I took my seat and reviewed navigation data. “Talk amongst yourselves,” I said to X-37 and Jelly, laughing slightly. Being pain-free was making me a bit of a clown. My eye was even working better than it had for days.

“Literally?” X-37 asked.

“Keep me informed, of course,” I said, leaning back in the captain’s chair and locking my hands behind my head. “I’m feeling refreshed and would like to enjoy it for as long as possible.”

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said, then went completely silent along with Jelly.

I reviewed what I knew about the death of my father and the friends I’d grown up with in my old neighborhood. My plan to find those responsible hadn’t started after Dreadmax.

I had daydreamed about it on a daily basis when I was on death row, but it had been more of a fantasy since I had believed I’d killed the worst of them. Seventeen murdering thugs had died to satisfy my bloodlust. Some of them had begged. All had run. A few had put up a good fight.

None of them had known shit about cigars.

Marley Callus had destroyed my confidence that my father’s killers were burning in the hell I’d sent them to. He’d been telling the truth. It made more sense than gangs turning on my friends and family. My father, uncles, and neighborhood watchmen had always been careful to pay their dues and avoid feuds with the more violent criminal elements of the streets.

The Union had made it look like a gang vendetta in order to provoke me, to see what I could do, to measure my effectiveness and test their ability to reel me back in afterward.

There was only one thing keeping me from going after the Union with suicidal fury.

“We’ve made several calculations and can present you with slip tunnel options,” Jelly said.

“Thanks,” I muttered.

“What is wrong?” X-37 asked.

“I shouldn’t have left Elise on Greendale,” I said.

X-37 once again displayed his disturbing ability to get into my head. “That’s not what you are brooding about, although now that you mention it, that has been a persistent concern of yours.”

“Okay, smart ass, what am I thinking?” I didn’t like this game. All I needed was more evidence that the limited artificial intelligence could read my mind. Nothing could come of the shit show that would be in the long run.

“Your concern for Elise is a projection of your concern for your mother and your sister, whose bodies were never found,” X-37 said.

“Son-of-a-bitch, X. How about a little sensitivity?” I demanded.

“Regardless, this fact suggests they are alive, and knowing the diabolical nature of your enemies, they are being held as hostages against your good behavior,” X-37 said. “Which I might point out, has been less than perfect from a Union point of view.”

I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly. X-37 was right, as usual. The knowledge was a double-edged sword. Without the possibility of finding and rescuing my mother and sister, I’d probably be even more reckless and self-destructive than I was. At the same time, the thought of them being held captive for all this time was killing me inside bit by bit. “If they’re holding them hostage, why didn’t Briggs make demands? Why didn’t he just tell me to do the Dreadmax mission or else?”

“How would have that gone for him?” X-37 asked.

The question made me pause for a second. “Well, he’d be dead, but his replacement might have lived, depending on his attitude.”

“Exactly,” X-37 said. “The simplest explanation, barring other factors, is the best. The data strongly suggests Briggs, and even the people he works for, don’t know about your mother and sister.”

“Or they’re already dead,” I argued.

“Or that.” X-37 didn’t attempt to comfort me. “I advise caution and the implantation of a long-term strategy. You don’t know who in the Union has them or where they are being held,” X-37 continued. “And you need to be performing at your highest level to have any chance executing a successful hostage rescue mission.”

On cue, my vision distorted and reformed as a lance of pain shot down my neck and into my shoulder. Two fingers of my left hand spasmed. The meal I had consumed after the shower and beer threatened to come up.

“Give me a minute,” I said, leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees.

Some time passed.

“Time,” X-37 said.

I looked up. “What?”

“Sixty seconds has elapsed. Are you feeling better?”

“Out fucking standing,” I said, patting my pocket for a cigar but deciding against smoking on the bridge. “I need more information, just like you said. And I need to get this godsdamn eye fixed.”

“How is your arm?” X-37 asked. “Are the improvements you made with the Glandarian silicon insulation patch holding?”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “Like a fucking charm, I think. But my nerve-ware and my eye are scrambling the interface. So basically, Gronic was a waste of time.”

“That is not correct,” X-37 said.

“You’re right,” I said, leaning forward to pull up information from the work station screen. The scar around my eye itched more than normal, but I ignored it. “I found the Gronic Fats.”

“Don’t remind me,” X-37 said.

OceanofPDF.com

5

A few slip tunnels later, we arrived in the Layton 5 system. There were two planets in the green zone, but only one was inhabited. The planet-sized rocks closer to the sun were almost too hot for automated mining bots. Those farther out were mined for water and other minerals of moderate value.

Layton 6 was the other planet in the green zone. Pictures from orbit showed nothing but verdant green forests and sweeping plains from coast to coast of nearly fifteen continents.

“Why can’t we go to Layton 6?” I asked.

“It is a conservation planet. No humans allowed,” Jelly answered.

“Sounds sketchy. I bet there are some rich dudes with illegal hunting lodges there,” I said.

“They probably do a lot of manly things, like smoke cigars and other self-destructive behavior they believe projects an image of toughness,” X-37 quipped.

“Drop it, X.” Images of my own planet with no one to bother me caught hold of my imagination. Maybe there would be a good reason to retire someday.

“Dropping it,” X-37 said. “You will need to find an individual named Paul Pauls. He is an optical tech expert known to frequent the public library for one hour before disappearing to his secret lab.”

“That might be the most unimaginative name I’ve ever heard,” I said, wondering what kind of mother gave their kid the same name twice. “Where did you find that information and how old is it?”

“That is from an archived local investigation conducted by the Layton Investigative Bureau, commonly referred to as the LIB in this system. Currently out of favor. Their databases are protected with encryption software that was out of date before our incarceration,” X-37 said.

“What’s the limitation of the LIB? Layton 5 or the entire system?” I asked, working through standard questions I asked when feeling out a new mission.

“The entire system falls within their jurisdiction. For practical purposes, this includes the Layton 5 planet, a medium-sized city on their moon, and a few mining colonies at the edge of the system,” X-37 reported.

“And Havoc Station in the Clark system,” Jelly added.

I smiled. “Love Havoc Station. Didn’t know it was a property of Layton Star.”

“It’s a little known and irrelevant fact, since the Laytons have very little real control of the place,” X-37 said.

“Huh. You learn something new every day,” I said.

Havoc Station was a refueling and repair depot in the middle of nowhere. It had been built by a notorious explorer by the name of Clark Havoc. No one really understood why, but people were generally on their best behavior at HS. There were all the usual dive bars and other such amenities, but it lacked gangs, smugglers, and Union enforcers. It was in a more settled part of the Deadlands, if there was such a place.

Thoughts of Havoc Station and the clean, orderly nature of everything on Layton 5 kept me in a good mood. I whistled a tune and passed through customs with only one glitch.

“Is that a cigar in your pocket?” one of the gate guards asked.

“You can see that? Nice work. You’re more observant than the last fifteen gate guards I’ve passed,” I said, noting the man’s uncomfortable response. Some people just didn’t know how to take a compliment.

“It’s something we look for here on Layton 5. The anti-smoking laws are very strict,” he said.

“Of course.” I measured him. “I read the brochure.”

“Really strict. Like you’ll get more jail time for lighting up than assaulting a police officer,” he said.

“I’m okay with that.”

He snorted in frustration. “I’m not joking, sir. The law doesn’t allow me to seize the cigar as contraband because it hasn’t been lit yet, but once it’s been used, any commissioned law enforcement official can seize it as evidence and either issue a summons or arrest you.”

“How do you know it hasn’t been lit?” I asked.

“I can smell the difference,” he said.

“Really?”

“Yes, sir. One of the advantages of living in a smoke-free environment,” he bragged.

“Good to know.” I slipped the virgin cigar from my pocket and stuck it in the corner of my mouth.

The guard went pale, waving toward another guard station to summon back-up. The second man arrived and they both watched me in awkward anticipation of what would happen next.

I had a pretty good idea this type of thing didn’t happen often.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to light it,” I promised. The presence of the cigar distorted the sound of my words. “I’m just gonna savor…the unlit glory… of it for a bit. Ahhhh. That’s… real nice.”

“You are an incredible douche novel,” X-37 said. “These men are only doing their jobs.”

“I know that, X,” I said.

They looked at each other questioningly.

The first guard hesitated, then waved for me to continue to the next checkpoint.

When I finally arrived on the street level, I drew in a deep breath and laughed. “Shit, X, the man was right. This air in this place is clear as a nun’s conscience.”

“Hmm. My sensors do confirm a distinct lack of offensive particulates in the atmosphere,” X-37 said.

“I don’t think we’re going to fit in,” I said.

“Agreed,” X-37 said a bit too quickly. “Especially if you continue to behave like a dog’s ass.”

“Do you know anything about dogs?”

“It is a phrase I lifted from your colorful vernacular. One of the animals you read about during your time in prison, I believe.”

“Yeah. I did a lot of reading in that cesspool.” I went straight to the library and found a quiet place where I could be alone. Muttering to X-37 had to be kept to a minimum because the librarian was constantly on patrol and a stickler for the rules.

“What are you doing now?” X-37 asked as I scanned old news articles.

“Killing time. Paul Pauls isn’t here yet,” I said, reading about a series of gang killings years ago in my old neighborhood on Boyer 5. The headlines opened old wounds and I had to take a minute to get control of my breathing and my heart rate.

“Didn’t expect that to hit me so hard,” I muttered.

The librarian stepped around the corner. “If you insist on talking to yourself, please go outside.”

“My apologies, ma’am. Won’t happen again,” I said.

“See that it doesn’t.” She walked between some large shelves, seeking other violators of her rules.

I wondered what would happen if I lit up my cigar. The fantasy played chaotically in my mind and made me smile.

“What a difficult person,” X-37 commented.

I chuckled quietly in response and continued to read. The archives didn’t have much. Access to the gal-net was limited but available. I used the semi-anonymous connection to check all the public information sites, reading up to the point I was tried and sentenced to death at BSMP.

Good times.

Was I able to learn anything new about my father’s killers? Of course not. It still looked like a gang hit. For about three heartbeats, I wondered if Callus had merely been attempting to manipulate me to set me off balance so he could kill me.

Then I remembered what the Reaper Corps was all about and believed every word of his declaration. The Union had wanted to know how far I would go.

They were going to find out.

“Are you all right?” X-37 asked.

I nodded, expecting my friend to interpret the movement correctly. It was easy to forget X-37 could read my physical movements as easily as he could interpret my voice. To him, it probably wasn’t much different. Data in, data analyzed, smart-ass and annoying comments sent back to chastise me about whatever.

“Am I crazy?” I asked.

“Not yet. Why do you ask?” X-37’s tone was level, totally non-judgmental in this particular instance.

“Because I talk to myself,” I said, closing the articles about the murder of my father.

“Yes and no,” X-37 reassured me. “Your target has arrived and is reading a paper manuscript near the commons area.”

I grabbed a book at random and moved to a new table. He didn’t seem to notice me, but something set off an alarm bell in my head. Talking to X-37 right now would probably alert the man. Anyone with his skills needed to be careful, hence the reason he worked from a secret workshop and required a personal introduction when considering new clients.

If he’d done his business like a normal, reputable engineer, I could have looked him up on the gal-net and gone to his shop. Instead, I had to play super spy.

X-37 gave me a summary of the book I was supposedly reading in case someone confronted me about what I was doing in the library. Careful to keep my left arm and hand covered with my coat and gloves, I flipped through the pages until Paul Pauls left.

I followed him through the crowd, annoyed at the sudden increase in pedestrian traffic. “X, what’s happening?”

“I don’t know what you mean. This is commonly known as rush-hour. From what I’ve gathered, our target commonly moves during such times,” X-37 said.

“Smart,” I said. It’d been a while since I’d tailed someone and I was surprised at how the population density bothered me. Getting used to an isolation cell changed a person, it seemed. There had been crowds on Dreadmax, but they’d been unified by singular purpose, staying alive long enough to get off the prison station.

This wasn’t at all like Gronic, where people were either working, passed out from exhaustion, or drunk as fuck and giving me problems.

People gathered at a corner and waited for a light. A very polite, prerecorded voice advised when it was safe to go and when it would be best to stop. I saw police officers in perfect uniforms. The boots were either shined or made from a material that mimicked high-gloss shoe polish. Their badges gleamed and they stood with straight backs while they politely greeted passersby.

I took the cigar I’d been chewing on from my mouth and held it down to my side. Part of me wanted to make a smart-ass comment, but I resisted. I had enough difficulty blending with my arm and distinctive vertical scar over my left eye.

The eye itself could also give me away if someone looked for too long, or activated all of its features at once. Otherwise, it appeared natural. More or less. My coat sleeves and gloves covered my arms and hands. In some communities, that alone was suspicious. My physique, while not extreme, could be intimidating. My attitude didn’t help me pass unnoticed, but I made it work.

Months of training and years of practice had honed my skills at becoming invisible in a crowd. I just needed to knock some of the dust off and get my routine down, then no one would see me unless I needed to prove a point.

How did a six-foot-three, two-hundred-and-twenty-pound killer appear inconspicuous? Match the pace of the people around him. Follow the crowd, never split a river of pedestrians by pushing against the current. Stay in the middle. Keep to the shadows. Speak as little as possible. Try not to be a dick.

That last part was the hardest. Patience might be a virtue, but when applied to human behavior, I found it fucking intolerable.

A man did exactly what I was trying not to do, cut through the crowd at a strange angle that forced several people to alter course and mutter apologies, even though they weren’t the ones causing the problem.

People on Layton 5 could be polite to a fault.

I wanted to grab the pretentious stranger and teach him a lesson about public courtesy. But I didn’t. I allowed him to move away anonymously, never knowing how close he’d come to getting throat punched.

“You should calm down, Reaper Cain,” X-37 advised.

“Sorry. That just rubbed me the wrong way,” I explained, simultaneously moving a bit closer to Paul Pauls.

The buildings on Layton 5 were tall and apparently made from nothing but reflective glass. They shined like mirrors when the sun hit them.

The glare hurt my eyes. I avoided looking at the brightest parts of the scene, estimating the size of crowds and keeping track of my quarry. Crowd estimation was an important element of tactical operations. I needed to know at a glance how many people I was dealing with.

“It’s all coming back to me now, X,” I said.

“Glad to hear it. May I suggest following your quarry more closely?” X-37 asked.

I moved through the throng, pausing when I needed to so I could avoid knocking people down. “Way ahead of you. I’d grab him now, but I need to know where his workshop is or I won’t be able to force him to fix me.”

“Unless you’re seeing something I’m not, he is increasing the distance from your position,” X-37 said.

“Yeah, he’s trying to ditch me. And he’s surprisingly good at it,” I said.

My vision suffered a glitch, which I blinked away. This wasn’t unusual. A moment later, pain shot down my spine, driving me all the way to my knees. I knelt there with my face in my hands trying to breathe. It was like every nerve in my body suddenly hated me.

X-37 was trying to talk to me, but I couldn’t think, much less understand what he was saying. His tone sounded urgent, but all I wanted to do was vomit and die.

A hundred years passed before I was able to take a breath. Or a lifetime. Or five seconds. It was hard to tell the difference.

“That was a bad one,” I muttered, listening to the calming sound of waves in my head. “What the hell is that?”

“That’s the soothing sound of waves on a spring day,” X-37 said.

I levered myself to my feet and stuck the Gronic Fats cigar into the corner of my mouth. “Well, turn it the fuck off.”

“Turning off background music,” X-37 said.

“I don’t know if I can do that again,” I said, looking around to see if the cops had noticed whatever had just happened to me. “How long was I down?”

“Three minutes and forty-two seconds,” X-37 advised.

“Really?” I’d assumed it only been a brief moment that felt like longer. The populace of Layton 5 appeared to be organized and civic-minded, but apparently, the sight of a man dying on his knees didn’t inspire any good Samaritans to stop and check on me.

“People are very busy on Layton 5. It’s a first-world planet,” X-37 said. “Which is a strangely redundant phrase.”

“Never thought of it like that,” I said, lowering the cigar. As much as I liked the taste of it, it was starting to feel like a waste not to light it, so I put it away and forgot about it.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed, but Paul Pauls has made an effective escape,” X-37 told me.

“Gee, thanks,” I said, looking at each of the subway entrances and trying to decide which one the man might’ve taken.

Instead of a clue as to my quarry’s whereabouts, I spotted the Byron Thane look-alike I’d first noticed on Gronic. “Looks like our friend didn’t make it to Greendale.”

“I see that,” X-37 said. “I find this intriguing for several reasons. I’m not equipped to believe in coincidence unless there is a solid statistical algorithm behind such occurrences.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Algorithms. I’m going to follow him,” I announced.

“Of course, Reaper Cain. I expected you would,” X-37 said.

“I don’t like your tone.”

“You never do.”

I shook my head and tried to ignore the limited AI. The closer I came to my new target, the more I tensed up. “What the actual fuck?”

“Do you think that is him?” X-37 asked.

“I remember him being bigger, but memory does that sometimes. My dad is about eight feet tall in my head, for example,” I said, not really thinking about what I was saying. “Sorry. I’m still a bit punch drunk. That nerve-ware flash was bad.”

“No need to apologize, Reaper Cain. There are several rational explanations for this type of psychological distortion,” X-37 lectured, forcing me to ignore him as I was doing more and more often.

“I thought he was bigger, but that has to be him,” I said as I drew closer.

“Whatever you say, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“You didn’t know him like I did. It’s more than just data points, it’s a feeling,” I said, closing the gap between my position and the doppelgänger.

I reached out, ready to spin him around, aware that I’d probably have to strike first and strike hard. The man I thought I’d watched die couldn’t be happy about my inability or unwillingness to save him. At the last second, I stopped, then fell into a pace that maintained our distance from each other.

“What’s wrong?” X-37 asked.

“This man is too young and he’s wearing a gray coat. The guy I saw had a blue coat on,” I said, speaking beneath the noise level of the crowd. “I must’ve lost him someplace. Help me set up a grid, and we’ll check it bit by bit. Maybe we’ll even find Paul Pauls while we’re at it.”

“It could be a reversible jacket,” X-37 said. “You have used such simple and effective techniques many times.”

“No shit, X. Now let’s try focusing and shutting the hell up,” I said.

The search was futile and stupid, a fact I understood even before I started. There were thousands of people heading to work or wherever. The mirage I’d seen was long gone.

“I feel like I’m being watched,” I said.

“Have you experienced the sensation before this incident?” X-37 asked.

“No. Not even once.”

A group of schoolgirls in blue, gray, and red plaid uniforms chattered loudly as they boarded a bus. That made me think of Elise. “We really need to get to Greendale,” I said.

“Roxo III is the more logical choice, given the amount of technical difficulties you’ve been having. If this individual can’t help you, you won’t have any choice but to go there,” X-37 said.

“Yeah, I get it. Do me a favor and check the CKJ board,” I said.

X-37 hesitated, and I almost wondered if he was stunned to silence. Sure, rendering a computer was supposed to be impossible, but you just never knew. It’d been a long time since we talked about the contract killing.

The contract killers job board, or CKJ, was notoriously invisible and inaccessible on most worlds. On Layton 5, however, it was a joke. Most of the people who visited the site believed it wasn’t real—thinking it was some sort of sick multiplayer online game.

Which made my life easier, because I could probably access it even without X-37’s help.

“I’ve logged on with false information. What would you like me to look for now that we’re in?” X-37 asked.

“Check for recent contracts,” I ordered.

“One thousand nine hundred and twenty-seven contracts located,” X-37 replied.

“Eliminate fake or fictitious, or gameplay contracts,” I told him.

“Ninety-three contracts remaining. Would you like me to check Greendale? Since that’s your obsession lately?” X-37 asked.

“Piss off, you heartless bastard. I’m worried about Elise. Sue me,” I said. “Do Greendale, Layton 5, and Gronic.”

“I located four contracts fitting these criteria. Three are marked classified, unspecified and one is marked juvenile caution,” X-37 said.

A chill went up my spine, which was oddly refreshing after all the other bullshit that had been going on there since my eye went on the fritz. The CKJ board had its own shorthand.

Classified, unspecified meant a government job that no amount of computer hacking could reveal. The specifics literally didn’t exist in the system. It was merely a step toward a step that would lead to meeting a contact who would pay a small fortune in exchange for dirty deeds to be done for the government. I’d been down that road a few times.

Juvenile, caution meant that the target was under the age of eighteen and that anyone with moral objections to such an assassination should not bother to inquire.

“Shall I seek additional information?” X-37 asked.

It was a good question. The first three were clearly hands-off; the slightest mistake when dealing with these types of jobs would draw the worst possible attention from Union agents. As for the juvenile caution job, I wasn’t sure.

My gut told me they were looking for Elise just like they had been searching for her on Dreadmax. I thought I had hidden her better than this, but they were already on the hunt for the girl who had been one of their experiments.

“I understand your concerns for anything involving Greendale, but I’m not sure what the other contracts mean. It could be merely a coincidence that the other jobs were posted for Gronic, Layton 5, and Greendale,” X-37 said. “As much as I hate to admit such a convenient explanation.”

“The juvenile, caution job is probably Elise, but who knows. The other three are for me. Too coincidental to be otherwise. Every place I’ve been or might go has a super-secret entry on the contract killer board related to it,” I muttered, considering which way to go and noticing a slight decrease in pedestrian traffic. The Layton 5 work day was starting. “I would also guess that we couldn’t acquire one of those contracts if we tried. Those are merely a layer of protection for Union spec ops teams operating in civilian areas. Plausible deniability and all that.”

“I was afraid you’d say that,” X-37 admitted.

“What? There was a shootout downtown in a non-military zone?” I asked in a mock public information officer’s voice. “Must have been the CKJ. We only act to serve the people of the Union.”

“Your sarcastic tone does not hide your belief in government conspiracies,” X-37 said.

“I am a government conspiracy,” I countered.

“Good point,” X-37 admitted, no real emotion in his voice.

“We’ll have to start tomorrow. Back at the library, then no distractions this time. If I have another one of those eye-headaches, we’re done,” I warned.

OceanofPDF.com

6

As much as I enjoyed the library, there was no way I was spending the night there, so I went back to the Jellybird and microwaved a chicken fried steak and potatoes. Jelly gasped in horror at my food selection. I held up a hand signaling her I didn’t want to be bothered with nutritional data or health warnings.

“Very well, Captain. I will mute my objections to this wrongheaded course of action. There are so many better options in regard to your caloric intake requirements,” Jelly said.

“Mute means mute,” I said, then began shoveling food into my mouth, waiting for her to take one last shot at my diet under the guise of signing off.

“Of course, Captain. Entering silent mode with medical protocols in standby mode should you gag on that disgusting plate—”

“—of fried crispy goodness,” I interrupted.

I hadn’t realized how hungry a day on the streets of Layton 5 could make a person. I didn’t even have a need for my usual vices. Once I’d sufficiently packed my stomach with happiness, I looked back on the day’s failures without too much regret. I went to the bridge and activated my workstation.

“All done, Jelly. Hope you enjoyed time out,” I said, loosening my belt line to ease the pressure on my stomach.

“Immensely, Captain. What can I do for you?” Jelly asked.

“Where is X-37?”

“He advised me he was performing a systems update and would be unavailable. He also provided me access to several compressed files in case you needed them. I have not opened them at this time,” Jelly said.

“No problem,” I said. “I’d like to contact Elise. Use the farm report network and double encryption. Send a test message first, evaluate for possible intruders or surveillance, then let me know.”

“Yes, Captain,” Jelly said. “I will use extreme caution.”

I flipped through one of the paperback books that I picked up from the library just to justify my visit. The story was intriguing.

“I regret to inform the captain that I was unable to make contact with Elise,” Jelly said.

“You are unable to establish a link, or she didn’t answer?” I asked.

“The link was the best I have ever established with anyone on Greendale,” Jelly said. “She’s not answering.”

“Well, shit.” Static flowed through my vision. I braced for pain, but nothing came this time. “Keep trying. I need to go to Roxo.”

“But that’s not where you’re going, is it?” Jelly asked.

“Just work on my options. See if there’s a slip tunnel that takes us close to Roxo III on the way to Greendale,” I said, then worked on my own projects.

The notes I’d taken regarding my case weren’t reassuring. Whoever had framed the local gang bosses with my father’s murder had covered their tracks well. As a Reaper, I was impressed.

All I had was the allegation Callus had made. The son-of-a-bitch was beating me even after I killed him. Looking back on the circumstances, the crazy-ass conspiracy theory seemed a lot less plausible. I needed proof. And I needed a place to start.

“May I interrupt?” Jelly asked.

“Go ahead,” I said, still lost in thought.

“X-37 would advise you to focus on one thing at a time. You can’t help anyone until you take care of your own problems,” Jelly said.

“X would say that,” I agreed, pulling myself out of the mental funk I’d waded into. “He’d be right. But nothing’s ever that simple, unfortunately.”

“Then make it simple,” Jelly said.

I laughed. “Spoken like an inhuman thinking machine. I like it.”

“One other thing, Captain,” Jelly said.

“What’s on your mind, Jelly?” I asked, already feeling better.

“I’ve taken the liberty of preparing a more diverse menu. One of my former captains was quite the foodie. You can’t just eat meat and potatoes. That’s bachelor food,” Jelly said.

“Technically, bachelor food is mostly microwave noodles and beer,” I said. “I don’t have any beer.”

“Good point. Would you like to review the menu I prepared?” Jelly asked.

“Sure, but I’m not hungry right now. Remind me later,” I said.

* * *

The next day, I was at the library when it opened, and set up to spy on Paul Pauls the moment he arrived. This time, I knew he was more savvy and paranoid, the kind of target who looked over his shoulder without making the movement obvious and would vanish the moment I took my eyes off him. His engineering skills were in demand and mostly illegal.

I decided to eliminate some of the factors, such as crowds, public transport, and other dirty tricks he might try to play to escape my attention. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice…no one fools me twice.

He walked in, selected a book, and started to read. I flipped through my own pages, watching until he was deeply engrossed in whatever story he was reading.

Then I marched over and sat down right next to him, practically touching shoulders as I looked at his selection of reading material. “So that’s why you never checked anything out,” I said.

He leaned back. “You’re very rude. Haven’t you ever been in a library before?” he said, holding the period romance away from me like I hadn’t already recognized what it was despite the Principles of Ancient Aeronautical Engineering dust cover he’d used to disguise the manuscript.

“I have, and I’ve also been on death row,” I said, interlacing my fingers as I fixed him with my gaze. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

“I saw you following me yesterday,” he said, twisting to drop the book on a cart. He picked up a technical manual that I guessed he would check out as his official selection.

“You don’t know me, and you don’t want to know me. I need you to run a systems check on some cybernetic enhancements, and then fix what you can. I’ll need a referral to anyone you think can do the rest,” I said.

“You should’ve just asked me that in the first place,” he said coolly.

I leaned in close, causing him to draw back as far as he could, until he was almost falling out of his chair. “You don’t make it easy. I get it. But I am on a tight schedule and I’ll kill the next asshole who slows me down. Are we clear?”

He nodded vigorously.

We became fast friends, never out of each other’s sight. I took hold of his arm when we went out into public, helping him down a set of stairs like he was an invalid who couldn’t do it on his own. I made sure he felt the strength of my enhanced grip.

“Sometimes this thing malfunctions and causes me to crush whatever is in my hand,” I said.

“I already promised you I would do what I can,” he said petulantly. “Not every science geek gets the chance to fiddle with creepy and outdated technology like a Reaper arm.”

“You recognize it, good,” I said. “I appreciate that. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. But do yourself a favor and think before you talk. Insulting a Reaper isn’t a great way to stay un-Reaped.”

Paul Pauls gulped and looked at his feet, body trembling in fear.

The rest of my time on Layton 5 was straightforward if not completely satisfying. Paul Pauls ran the diagnostic, made some slight adjustments to my own repair work that gave me temporary relief, and referred me to his contact on Roxo III—like I had time to go there.

The problem came later when I tried to leave the Layton 5 spaceport. There might’ve been a new batch of swearwords created when I realized I had to locate someone in the spaceport control tower to bribe.

This was the life of a Reaper that I remembered. It wasn’t all high-speed chases and assassinations. Most of it was dealing with the common bureaucracy of slip tunnel traveling and encouraging people to give up information, assist me on missions, or disappear.

OceanofPDF.com

7

“Reaper Cain, I cannot condone this course of action,” X-37 said.

“All I want to do is find the jackwagon who’s keeping me from launching my ship and throat-punch him. Is that so wrong?” I demanded.

“At least be smart,” X-37 said. “You’re moving too quickly and getting careless.”

“We’re in a spaceport. See those guards? They keep bad shit from happening. What do you want me to do, low crawl down the concourse?” I asked.

A crowd of people surged through one of the intersections, catching me off guard. I stepped into a doorway and watched them run past me. Some were holding wounds.

“X, is there a Union spec ops team on Layton 5?” I asked, backing further into the recess of the doorway.

“Have you decided to listen to my extremely valuable advice?” X-37 asked.

“It’s not a good time to play I told you so,” I said. Judging the flow of people and waiting for the right moment, I slipped out and moved against the tide. It would’ve been better to move with them, but they were going the wrong way. I needed to get to the control node and either bribe somebody or take a hostage. Or whatever.

“I am attempting to monitor the spaceport security feed,” X-37 said. “Yes, it seems there is a Union spec ops team demanding compliance from citizens and support from local security. They have fired less-lethal rounds. Wait, I have an update. There has been a gunfight of some sort. Probably a smuggler caught up in a commotion.”

“How do you know the smugglers aren’t who they came here for?” I asked, adjusting my trench coat to be sure it covered my cybernetic arm, then reaching to the small of my back to check for the small Mark 33 sidearm I had secured there.

“I suggest we assume they’re here for us. If they’re not, then that will be even better,” X-37 replied.

X was right, absolutely right. A Union attack on its own citizens wasn’t unheard of, but it was rare. They didn’t normally go all shit balls in a place like this. Some poor public relations officer was going to be working overtime after this cluster. To justify such a spectacle, they needed a good reason, and a random, low priority exotic pet smuggler wasn’t it.

“I see one of their squads,” I said, slowing my stride. I’d almost been running when I saw eight Union bad-asses clearing room to room—heedless of the local authorities. Walking as naturally as possible, I moved through a wide section of the concourse and turned into a new hallway.

I stopped.

“Why are you stopping here?” X-37 asked. “They will be passing very close to our current hiding place. This is a needless risk.”

“I’m going to follow them just to make sure I know who they are. Maybe even recognize them individually. Call it a gut instinct. It’s been a while but might be worth the risk,” I said.

“My assessment stands. This is foolish and dangerous,” X-37 warned.

“Maybe. But they’re also working their way toward the control node, so I might be able to move in their wake. They’ll watch their six, but I think I can adjust for that,” I said, already getting a feel for the timing of the rear-guards’ scans. Every three or four steps, the men looked back the way they’d come to make sure no one was following them with a weapon.

I blended with the confused travelers. They were headed in almost every direction now, making this easier than I had hoped.

The squad stopped abruptly. The leader gave hand signals that deployed his men in a perimeter. They gave everyone around them a hard look, not quite seeing far enough to spot me, but it was close.

“You see there, X, we learned something valuable. You tell me to run away, and I give you Commander Briggs and Sergeant Crank, two of my least favorite people in the entire Union,” I said, drawing back slightly, confident I had this under control.

My vision flashed white, no static to warn me of the hellish torture that followed, exploding through my brain viciously. The fire that shot down my spine didn’t stop there but extended through my limbs. Parts of my body that I didn’t normally think about ached and I thought my head would burst.

Everything came back to me when my knees hit the concourse, which told me the malfunction had been briefer this time. Unwilling to go all the way to the floor, I lurched sideways and clawed my way to a standing position along one wall.

Static cut through the middle of my vision but didn’t bring me pain, or if it did, I didn’t feel it in comparison to what I’d just endured. Sounds popped and hissed in my hearing implant. X-37 sounded like he was talking underwater.

“Just stop moving, Reaper Cain. You’re lurching around like a drunk and drawing too much attention,” X-37 said. “Try to imagine you’re a sniper or a secret agent behind enemy lines.”

It was good advice. I spread my palms against the wall and leaned into it, taking a deep breath and holding it for a second before releasing it and slowing my heart rate.

One of the Union soldiers looked at me, but something else got his attention. If it had been Briggs or Crank, I’d have been in serious trouble.

Like shot-in-the-face trouble.

“I think we need to find another way to influence the launch control officer,” I said, walking carefully away from the scene. Putting one foot in front of the other took more concentration than was reasonable.

“Are you okay?” X-37 asked.

“I want to die,” I said. Misery loved company. I had known a lot of it. This was orders of magnitude worse than a week of training in the Reaper selection pool.

“But you won’t. It isn’t in your nature to give up,” X-37 said emphatically.

“Please just shut the fuck up and let me walk,” I said as I considered puking but kept moving instead. It felt like someone had a fist in my body and was squeezing my guts like money might come out my ass with enough pressure.

The star port was locked down by the time I made it back to the Jellybird. No amount of strong-arming the locals was going to get me cleared for a regular departure. I’d have to do something stupid if I didn’t want Briggs and his goons to capture me.

“I’m really disappointed in your ability to find me a solution.” I watched the Jellybird to see if there were any Union soldiers around it. Five other ships shared the landing area, each with their own docking clamps.

“You’re going to have to be more specific,” X-37 said. “To which problem are you referring?”

“Let’s start with fixing my eye,” I snapped. “The damn thing nearly got us caught.”

“I’ve been working on a solution, Reaper Cain. Finding someone with the correct skills, tools, and low morals is a challenge as you have clearly seen here and on Gronic. I’ve checked every planet we’ve been to. Perhaps we’ll get lucky on the next world,” X-37 said. “Unless you want to go straight to Roxo III.”

“Hell no. that place isn’t safe,” I muttered, spotting a pair of Union soldiers moving away from the Jellybird. “It looks like Jelly’s identification forgeries held. It could’ve been bad.”

“I have a lot of ships to inspect,” X-37 said. “And their operation isn’t running as smoothly as I imagine they would’ve liked. Layton 5 looks like a perfect example of Union law and order, but apparently, there is a serious smuggling problem. According to what I’m hearing on the security network, there have been three additional armed encounters since we were nearly apprehended.”

OceanofPDF.com

8

“Make contact with Jelly and get an update,” I ordered. “If I was running Brigg’s operation, I’d have a team with eyes on the ship. The easiest place to take somebody down is when they’re trying to board. Getting them once they’re inside is exponentially more difficult. Finding a target in a city the size of Layton 5 is nearly impossible without a network of informants.”

“I am conversing with her now,” X-37 said. “Where are you going?”

I didn’t answer. X would figure it out soon. A man was haggling with the captain of a nearby ship. This time, I was positive of the man’s identity. The sound of his voice carried and his mannerisms were unique.

“That is Byron Thane,” I said. Excitement, guilt, and host of emotions coursed through me at the sight of him. He had been well known among Reapers. Stronger, faster, and braver than anyone I’d met before or since, Byron Thane had been a force of nature.

“It is impossible for me to argue,” X-37 said. “I am forwarding the images to Jelly for high resolution storage. You are too far from this stranger to make contact before he boards. Now would be a good time to return to our own ship.”

I sprinted toward the ship, determined to grab hold of this imposter, demand his identity, and beat the truth out of him or kill him—whichever came first.

He looked at me from the gangway, eyes bright and full of attitude.

I couldn’t believe how young he looked, how fit. Nothing I’d done had kept me in that kind of physical condition—and I put in plenty of time at the gym.

Stunned, I wasn’t sure what to do. My mind fumbled for explanations and could only come up with partial information from Doctor Hastings on Dreadmax. This had to be something from the Lex-tech research.

They’d healed him and turned him into a super soldier who would make Callus look like a spineless wimp.

“Get back to the Jellybird!” X-37 shouted in my head.

I stopped. X-37 was right. That didn’t keep me from wondering what the hell was going on. I’d seen the man die. We’d been running parallel missions and I hadn't had time to stop and help him even if I could have.

“Where’s that ship headed?” I asked as I rushed back to the Jellybird.

“We can’t access that information from the spaceport,” X-37 answered.

“Something’s weird about the interference,” Jelly said. “I’m being blocked by a high-level operator.”

“Of course you are,” I said. “Maybe you can’t tell me this, Jelly, but I bet X recognizes the technique.”

“I do. It’s something a Reaper would do. Very basic, entry level stuff, but definitely a Reaper hack,” X-37 confirmed.

* * *

I went straight to the bridge and took a seat in the captain’s chair, but wasn’t thinking about piloting, I was replaying memories in my head. No one, not even X-37, knew what I had seen that day.

The mission that killed Byron Thane had occurred during a time when our unit commanders thought pitting us against each other was an effective tactic. Essentially, everything was done in parallel, ensuring that at least one of us would succeed. Our mission planners acted like it was a competition and even gave out stupid prizes when we came back.

Best kill.

Best HALO jump.

Closest call.

Everything was a game to those assholes. Because they never deployed with us, or near us, or on the same planet as the mission. I'm pretty sure there was an officer's betting pool.

It’d been a multiple assassination that went off without a hitch. We had taken down seven targets at five locations, then vanished before their security teams could respond. The problem came when we tried to exfiltrate from the planet.

I’d been on one rooftop, guiding a stealth shuttle into our landing zone with an infrared pointer. The simple technique worked well when the enemy forces were expecting something more complex.

Thane had been two buildings over doing the same thing.

We both realized we’d been made at the same time. He engaged the sniper, a losing proposition because the enemy marksman had been in position for hours with plenty of time to get the range and atmosphere readings.

Thane was good at long-range shooting, probably better than I was, but there was no way he could do that on the fly. The moment he started returning fire, the sniper put all his attention on him.

The weapon the enemy marksman was using was almost a cannon, firing rounds that could travel for several kilometers without any drop or variation unless the shot was fired in the middle of a hurricane.

I could’ve put some suppressive fire on the sniper’s general position, drew away some of his wrath, but my shuttle was almost there. I looked at Thane through my scope just as a round the size of my fist hit him in the chest.

Chunks of his armor had flown out his back. He had fallen immediately to the ground and the shuttle that had been almost there to pick him up turned away. Later, the pilot swore under oath that Byron Thane was dead.

“You seem distracted,” X-37 said.

“I was thinking about the day Byron Thane died,” I said.

“You’ve stated more than once that he could not have survived his injuries,” X-37 said.

“But what if he did? What if he managed to come back from the dead and take the bounty on Greendale that is so lucrative?” I asked.

“It’s unlikely, to say the least,” X-37 said. “Do you believe in magic? Because any technology that could accomplish such a feat would look and feel like magic to us.”

“You know the Greendale bounty has to be Elise,” I said.

“That would be a logical conclusion.” X-37 didn’t really sound like he gave a damn—because he was a soulless machine that didn’t understand.

“Jelly, get us away from this star port and find a slip tunnel to Greendale,” I ordered.

“I will have to damage the docking clamps to break free. There will be fines and we’ll be banned from returning, assuming the Union doesn’t impound me and put you back on death row,” Jelly said.

“Then you better not let us get caught,” I said.

OceanofPDF.com

9

The Jellybird didn't look like much, but she flew like a dream. She had the aggressive external styling of a Union ship, but some of the effect was gone without a full complement of weapons to give her profile that “I'm here to dominate the system” look.

Getting those replaced was on my list of things to do. During the slower moments of the transit through the slip tunnels, I fantasized about having a cloaking device. The missions I could accomplish with that kind of technology were endless. I knew they existed but doubted I would ever have one.

We shot through one slip tunnel after the next, the electric-green walls our constant companion. The view stunned me into a seductive meditative state. I loved staring at the spectacular view but never dwelled too long. Some mysteries were better left as mysteries.

I couldn't claim the navigational perfection of our trek was due to my prowess as a captain. I had received all manner of flight training in spec ops, dark ops, and again when I became a Reaper. I'd say I was a solid pilot, dependable under pressure but not likely to defeat a fighter jock in a dog fight or navigate an asteroid field without significant help from my ship AI.

I spent my downtime exploring the ship and practicing in the simulator. She had more than a few hidden compartments from her smuggling days but retained the efficiency of a Union vessel.

“How are we doing, Jelly?” I asked.

“There is one more jump to reach Greendale,” she said. “Are you certain of this course of action? X-37 has advised me that a better choice would be to have your eye fixed on Roxo III.”

“This won't take long. I just need to contact Frank, put eyes on Elise for a bit to make certain she’s okay, and then get out of there,” I said.

“Unless she is the focus of the contracts you discussed at some length with X-37. Should that be the case, it would be best if you were operating at your full potential,” Jelly said.

I shook my head. “I'd rather be on time and damaged than late. If someone is trying to kill her, I'd like to do something besides attend her funeral.”

“From what X-37 has told me, I doubt there would be a funeral. He said that the bodies are usually disposed of under these kinds of circumstances,” Jelly said.

“Thanks for the pep talk. Let's hope that the contract killer board on Layton 5 was either a hoax or just a coincidence,” I said.

Normally, I had good instincts for these types of things. At first I’d been terrified that Elise was in mortal danger. Now I was merely uneasy.

“If you're not worried about her, then why not just go to Roxo?” Jelly asked.

“Drop it, Jelly,” I said, changing my destination. “I'd like to see the planet when we arrive.”

“Do you also wish to view the final slip tunnel? It's short, unless you wish to jump to a different system,” Jelly advised.

“You see, we're practically there. No reason to reverse my decision now,” I said and went to the bridge.

* * *

“Jelly, take us down,” I said, already feeling the pull of gravity as she cut into the atmosphere. New planets held exciting and terrifying prospects at the same time.

“Right away, Captain,” Jelly said. “I have to say, X did an excellent job securing our landing berth. It seems unmonitored by official entities.”

“That’s what a Reaper AI does,” I said, “find secret places to do secret things.”

“Limited AI, Reaper Cain. You’re going to get me turned off with talk like that,” X-37 said.

“We’re outlaws, in case you haven’t noticed.” I was in a decent mood. Three weeks without a major nerve-ware glitch and plenty of good sleep did that. “I could get used to traveling like this.”

We flew over the surface of Greendale, which wasn’t especially green right now.

The planet had one continent. During the spring, it was nothing but perfect farmland and rolling hills fit for vacation resorts and digital postcards. Summers and winters turned the place drab colors, not that it mattered to me—I liked the snow. I was headed to Zag City, the only metropolitan area on the planet.

Zag was a deep crater almost ninety kilometers across. The spaceport rimmed the edges and was noisy with anti-gravity fields and all the technology needed to service starships.

The city had been built on the floor so that the tallest buildings thrust up from the center—barely visible from the pristine fields of the agricultural zones. From the lowest streets of Zag, the prefabricated metal structures looked like dark towers with highways of bridges and walkways connecting them. The rim of the crater kept much of the city in shadow. Days were short in Zag City and neon signs became the sun for the lowest levels. Noon was nothing but harsh white light that didn’t last long.

Fat snowflakes made their way through the darkness to land on my face as I disembarked. The parking space that X-37 had secured for the ship was in an older part of the town surrounded by a bad neighborhood. There was no enclosed hangar or security presence. A chain-link fence surrounded the field, with tenement buildings on three sides and a factory on the fourth.

I watched a woman lean out from a ninth-story balcony to beat dust from a rug. She yelled at someone inside the apartment. I couldn’t make out her words from this distance, but the tone suggested she was tired of cleaning up after ungrateful children.

“Do they have refueling and repair facilities here?” I asked.

The Jellybird answered, “There is a refueling truck that comes twice a day, and all repairs are handled through contracts. We have everything in good order, so once I am fueled, we will be able to leave at a moment’s notice.”

“I think we're going to work well together,” I said.

“A note of caution,” Jelly said. “This is a rough neighborhood. I balanced our need for services with our need for obscurity. X-37 didn't analyze the area, as it will affect your mission. You may have trouble with the young men waiting outside the gate.”

A quick look around told me all I needed to know. This place was almost entirely automated to maximize profit—and allow “creative” shipping arrangements. There were several holes in the chain-link fence, but I wasn't worried about some street kid stealing my shit. Jelly could take care of herself as far as that went.

The tenement buildings were covered with graffiti wherever someone could reach the walls. The higher I looked, the less graffiti I saw—just a little bit around windows and balconies. The factory was noisy—constantly puking smoke as machines on the assembly lines banged into things. The exhaust ports of its power plants were charred black from lack of cleaning.

“Good to know,” I said, nursing a cigar to life as I counted the shadows moving just below on the automated gate. “You ready, X?”

“Yes, Reaper Cain. The Jellybird was kind enough to give me some processing power that I needed to complete my analysis of the city and the possible security strengths and weaknesses,” X-37 explained.

“Did you learn anything interesting?” I asked, striding toward the gate.

“Just the usual.”

The local street toughs glared at me, emphasizing the tattoos on their faces, but kept their mouths shut. I knew what was coming and was impressed by their patience—even if they were predictable. As soon as I passed their position, they would surround me and demand tribute.

“This place reminds me of my childhood,” I said.

“I’m sorry. Is this difficult for you? Shall I adjust our plans accordingly?” X-37 asked.

“Actually, it’s nice. Things weren't all bad. The crew I ran with had a lot of fun. What is about to happen is going to be a regular shit show, don’t get me wrong, but it’ll be like going home,” I said.

“If you know what is going to happen, why don't you do something to avoid it?” X-37 asked.

I could've explained, but I felt like being a jerk. Sometimes it was satisfying to make him guess. Walking straight into the trap, I turned at the last minute, intent on entering one of the apartments to circumvent the ambush site.

The place looked like subsidized housing. I suspected the locks were broken.

One firm push opened the door. Seconds later, I was striding through the hallway toward an exit that opened onto a different street.

A group of young men followed me, shouting for me to stop. I maintained my pace without looking back.

“I’m talking to you, old man!” the leader said.

I stopped, turned around, and looked him over. He had the lean, muscular look of a young man who fought daily to stay alive. He was the biggest in the group, which was how leadership roles were often decided in these types of situations. Under his left eye were three lopsided hashmarks, like broken sergeant chevrons. Under his right were a skull and crossbones.

“So you did hear me? Man, that ain't cool. You walk away from me like that and it's disrespectful,” the leader said.

“I heard you,” I said. “And I saw you and your stupid plan long before I left the gate. Do yourself a favor and go back to school. Learn a trade.”

His crew made surprised sounds, egging him on.

“You think you can get what you want because you're big and have a fancy off-worlder’s coat? Well, that ain't how it works in Zag City,” he said. “They call me Bones and it ain’t because of the tat on my face.”

“What, are you a doctor?” I asked.

He lunged forward, baring his teeth and clenching his fist but stopping short of an actual fight. “Fuck you, smartass. They call me Bones because I break bones. How about I break your bones. Hands first, then arms, then—”

I rolled up the sleeve on my trench coat to reveal my cybernetic left arm and made a metal fist. Silence spread through the group. Bones and his two toughest guys shifted nervously but didn't back down.

I extended the blade with a snap.

They started to back away, and I knew they would all be running within seconds. “What, you haven't seen a Union bayonet before?”

Several of the younger men in the back sprinted out of the building. The middle tier of the gang edged that direction, looking like they also wanted to make a run for it. Bones and his two lieutenants hung on the longest.

I lunged forward, inspiring them to take flight.

Once they were in full retreat, I went the other direction.

“I’m confused,” X-37 said. “Those young men are a threat. Why are we advancing in the opposite direction?”

“You’re a bloodthirsty little AI, aren’t you?” I asked, amused and worried at the same time that my digital conscience seemed to prefer murder.

“I didn’t like the look of them and predict they will seek opportunities to ambush us,” X-37 stated.

“Maybe. Maybe not. Doesn’t matter,” I said. “Now isn’t a good time to go on a killing spree.”

“When would be a good time?” X asked. “I am merely gathering data points for future analysis.”

“Sometimes you’re the stupidest computer I’ve ever met,” I said.

“On the contrary, I understand the repercussions of taking a human life. It is your inconsistency I am struggling to define,” X-37 said.

“That way lies madness, X.” I fell into a routine of moving without being noticed while I noticed everything and everyone around me. Zag City was an intriguing mixture of light and shadow with skyscrapers that resembled monoliths all around me. Walkways and structural connections linked most of the buildings.

“Are you thinking of Dreadmax?” X-37 asked. “I’m tracking your gaze and find the items you focus on to be interesting.”

“Just taking it all in,” I said somberly. “Every new world, city, or landscape has its own look—its own archetype. Humans are wired to be awed by big things—sunrises, waterfalls, cityscapes.”

“Of course,” X-37 said, clearly not getting it. “There are many references to such spectacular post-card moments in the archives of human literature.”

I moved on without thinking about all the things I’d done or what had become of me. My arm spasmed. Static pulsed in my eye. Zag City loomed all around me like one giant machine with its own intelligence.

* * *

I’d known Frank Morton during my earliest days of spec ops. He’d always been what was referred to as a mid-rank Ranger, never drawing attention at the front of the pack but never falling behind either.

He had been a good soldier with a solid career, a leader regardless of his actual rank. Our unit commander listened when he talked and often put him in charge of missions and major projects.

Was he the type of person I thought would fight to the death to protect Elise?

Maybe, maybe not. He was a good man with limitations. According to X-37, he’d started a family and secured a foreman’s position at a factory that manufactured loading ramps for starships.

Frank’s apartment building was nearly identical to the place I had confronted Bones and his street thugs. I wanted to think it was slightly cleaner, and that the residents cared about their neighborhood. The differences were minor and probably didn’t matter.

The front door was open but had an attendant. The old man nodded at me respectfully, standing from his stool near the door but not approaching. He had a wary look in his eyes and seemed like he was exhausted by life but still pressing onward.

“Good morning, citizen,” he said. “I haven’t seen you around the building. Are you a guest or a process server?”

“What if I was just coming in here to rob somebody?” I asked.

He shifted uncomfortably.

“I’m here to see a friend,” I said. “I don’t think he’s expecting me, but I know the way.”

“You’ve never been here,” the man said with less humor and more confidence, though he still seemed vulnerable.

“I’m not here to cause trouble,” I assured him. “Go back to your stool. Forget I was ever here.”

His face flushed red, which suggested he hated my words. The man had probably heard them often and knew where they led. Debt collectors and enforcers were the most common users of this warning. And after they left, the police were usually not far behind to take a body to the morgue.

“Relax. I’m not here to hurt anyone,” I said, lowering my voice and hoping I sounded reassuring.

“That’s good to hear, citizen. Didn’t catch your name,” he said pointedly.

I was surprised. He knew better than to press for details but was too proud to let me just invade his turf, even though I could probably crush him without years of training or my Reaper gear.

“Don’t worry about it.” I went to the elevator and selected the fifth floor. There was a chip reader of some sort, but it had been tampered with, a chip permanently jammed into it to make it work any time somebody wanted to use it.

I found Frank’s apartment. “X, can you call Frank Morton and let them know I’m here.”

“Yes, I can do that,” X-37 said.

“I’m not getting a very good connection. I can barely hear you,” I said.

“Zag City was built in the crater of a meteorite. There are mineral deposits that affect my transmissions,” X-37 said. “There is also an unusually high level of network systems and electronic security routines watching each other. On a digital level, the people of Zag City are very paranoid.”

“You’re complaining because it’s a busy place?”

“Extremely busy. Compound that with the unusual presence of exotic minerals and my job is much more complicated than places like Gronic or even Roxo III,” X-37 said.

“Is this going to be a problem?” I asked.

“Not at all. I am very good at my job,” X-37 said, somewhat indignantly. “There may be sound quality issues, but I should be able to maintain a reliable connection.”

The door opened and Frank stepped out, closing it quietly behind him. He looked me up and down, then scanned the rest of the hallway. “Keep your voice down. The baby is asleep,” he said quietly.

I wasn’t sure how many kids he had, but thought it was several. “I won’t stay long. I came to check on Elise.”

He looked at his feet, just for a second. The man was proud but not arrogant.

I recognized the expression. It wasn’t shame or avoidance, he was just pausing before giving me bad news. Frank had the same mannerisms I remembered from his time as a steady and reliable noncommissioned officer for the Union.

He looked up and held my gaze without shame or fear. “She didn’t take well to family life. I told her she was always welcome to stay with us, but she filled out all of the forms for emancipation. Enrolled in school and got a job at a diner. I look in on her from time to time, but I don’t meddle in her affairs.”

“That’s all I asked for in the first place,” I said. “Do you have some time to show me around?”

“Sure. Let me get my coat and tell Sheri I’m going out.” He didn’t invite me in, which was fine with me.

OceanofPDF.com

10

We headed down to a neighborhood mini park off the main street. There were a few trees and a fountain contained by graffiti-covered walls. In one corner was a swing set and some other cheap playground equipment. The sounds of kids screaming with enthusiasm competed with traffic noises. Sooner or later, someone was going to get hurt.

“They seem ridiculously happy in the background,” X-37 said.

“Good for them. Skinned knuckles and broken bones are all I remember from childhood,” I said with a sideways smile. “I was a rough kid with rough friends.”

“Of course,” X-37 said, then got down to business. “I see nothing dangerous to you or your mission. Your friend is waiting, I think.”

Frank leaned against a chain-link fence six inches from the wall of a building. I thought, from looking at it, that someone had put up the fence in hopes of keeping graffiti artists from painting on the wall. This had, of course, failed miserably.

The fence and the wall were in disrepair and covered with brightly colored street art. I didn’t mind the look of it, except for the deterioration beneath the stunning images. I always thought that if the city was going to put up a fence, then they had an obligation to maintain it and fix it when people cut holes in it or chopped off the tops of the posts to be salvaged.

There were cracks in the concrete and overflowing trash bins in the nearest alleyway. High above, there were office windows that shined like polished mirrors.

People came and went along the street, most seeming to be on their way to or from work. There were a lot of delivery people on bicycles or wheel boards. The public transport vehicles were noisy and stopped frequently. Most were electric and stank of something like burning ozone, but some were actually combustion engines.

Frank saw what I was looking at and shrugged. He smoked one cigarette after another, which made me not want to light up a cigar. Cigarettes weren’t really my thing and I didn’t want to seem like I was one upping him or that I was mimicking him. It was a dumb thing, but it was there.

I crossed my arms and studied the people. Passive surveillance was an important part of any reaper mission, one that most operators neglected. It was necessary to get the lay of the land and to learn to predict how bystanders would react when things got a bit crazy.

“Midday in Zag City can be bright, but don’t count on it,” Frank said as we walked, talking to mitigate his nervousness. His eyes went to my augmentations when he thought I wasn’t looking.

Steel gray clouds stretched across the sky above the crater city. Lights reflected back down, giving the place both a vibrant and gloomy feel at the same time. It was hard to explain but very real.

Zag City was hundreds of times more complex than Gronic—more people, more industry, and more problems. Crowds were full of energy, sometimes positive and sometimes dangerous and tense.

“The upper level lights hurt my eyes,” Frank said.

“Have you ever been to the top levels?” I asked.

“Why would I want to go there?” His answer seemed bitter and evasive. He took a long drag from his cigarette before exhaling. “We’re almost to the bus roundabout.”

I nodded. We walked. The city thrived around us. Far above, there was an entire layer of activity, but it seemed untouchable from here.

“That one there, the one with the yellow stripe, is a school bus. Last I checked, she was still in high school but was taking college credits. Not sure what kind of student she is, but that seemed promising,” Frank said, then dug in his pocket for another cigarette.

“Did you help her get the emancipation papers? That can be tricky when you’re trying to hide your identity, especially as a juvenile,” I asked.

Frank shrugged, eyes still on the people moving near the micro park. “It’s pretty easy here. There are a lot of runaways and petty criminals and people from other worlds trying to make a new start. The system’s overloaded. Nice neighborhoods have the best of everything, everywhere else at least tries to look nice. It is Greendale after all. Our planet has a reputation to protect.” He paused. “And she’s smart. Like really smart. A couple of times, she almost scared me with her insights.”

I waited for more.

“That’s another reason she’s not living with us, to be honest. She didn’t really fit in. Made my wife nervous. The kids love her, but that’s how kids are,” he said, then stood away from the wall. “That’s her bus there. Zag School District 2188.”

Students climbed off the bus. Most were teenagers, but I saw younger kids as well. They wore uniforms and carried backpacks. Seconds after they emerged, they divided themselves into dozens of small groups that dashed away in different directions.

“Is that everyone on the bus?” I asked X-37.

Frank looked at me strangely.

“According to their passenger count, the bus is now empty except for the driver,” X-37 said.

I motioned for Frank to come with me and we left. My Reaper AI had limitations, but one thing it was good at was hacking into minor systems for low-level data like that. Raw facts—passenger counts, payment information, or mundane activities like who was paying the electricity or water bill at a residence—could be extremely useful when conducting surveillance or trying to locate an individual.

“I forgot, you talk to yourself,” Frank said. He was either too polite or too cautious to refer to my Reaper nerve-ware.

“It comes in handy,” I said.

“I knew the direction your career went, but always kind of hoped those were just rumors,” he said. “People say things about Reapers I don’t want to believe.”

“Take what you heard about me and multiply it by ten,” I said. “I’m a bad person who’s done bad things. You’re doing me a solid by watching Elise. I owe you enough that I’ll stay away from you and your family as much as possible.”

He nodded, looked at his cigarette, then flicked away the stub. “Much appreciated. I’ll do anything I can for you, but I’ll tell you upfront that my family comes first for me.”

“That’s more than enough,” I said. “That’s why I trusted you to babysit Elise.”

* * *

I left Frank, heading into the crowd that only grew busier. Night fell quickly, shadows from the rim of the crater around Zag City crawling over buildings like the effect of time lapse photography. Walkways and monorail systems cast their shadows on everything below them during the day. At night, it was a different story. Neon signs sprang up from the ground-level building fronts. People talked louder. I heard music from a dance club and drivers of cars honking their horns at pretty girls.

The slate gray clouds of winter were decorated with jigsaw puzzles of light reflecting from the ground level across the tallest buildings and their support structures.

“You’re pretty quiet, X,” I said.

“There is a lot of data to manage on Greendale.” X-37’s voice was weak. “The digital infrastructure is the most complex I’ve seen in the Deadlands. I expected as much, but this is quite impressive. So many data points. A full AI could become entranced.”

“Is it Friday or something?”

X-37 made a clicking sound then answered, “Confirmed. It is the end of a work week. Pedestrian traffic between bar districts will triple over the next several hours and disorderly conduct arrests will increase. Hospital emergency rooms will have an average wait time of fifteen minutes and twenty-seven seconds.”

“Check the contract killers board,” I said, thinking of the reason I was here. Someone, probably the Union, was offering big money for an individual target on Greendale.

“What will you do if you confirm Elise to be the target?” X-37 asked.

“I’ll bid on the contract and use the Intel package to find her,” I said, adjusting my course to avoid a noisy bachelorette party. “They’re starting early. The sun just went down.”

“We have a problem. It seems the Greendale contract killer’s board is now controlled by an assassins’ guild.”

I pulled out one of my few cigars, muttering through my clenched teeth as I nursed the ember to life. “Don’t care.”

“This one is apparently more influential than others of the name we have encountered over the years,” X-37 said.

The Union didn’t tolerate criminal organizations, which meant they were everywhere. Using the term “assassins’ guild” was a felony on most Union planets. The Deadlands was different, but followed many of the same conventions subconsciously. I’d found that even in the most remote regions, it was bad manners to use the term.

I’d had to order X-37 to incorporate it into its vocabulary, because in my opinion, if something walked like a duck, it was probably a duck.

Greendale was a thriving metropolis compared to most places in the Deadlands. I wasn’t surprised that it was overpopulated, poorly designed, and on the verge of a technological and social meltdown no one saw coming.

“They require in-person interviews to view the contract killers board,” X-37 explained.

“Which is the way it should be,” I said, thinking of all the times I’d run into amateur competitors who had taken a job without being properly qualified. “But I don’t believe it. That type of thing looks good on somebody’s organizational charter, but it’s impossible to enforce without some real muscle.”

“It seems Greendale has become an increasingly dangerous place over the last several years. I can explain the politics if you like,” X-37 said.

“No thanks.” I moved along the brightly lit street, studying the way the neon signs and skyward-pointed search lights complemented the narrow swatch of stars visible over the crater city. The place wasn’t entirely without aesthetics.

“Shall I schedule an appointment?” X-37 asked.

“Sure. Tell me the rest. I feel like you’re holding back,” I said, suspecting the limited AI was being difficult for one of his obscure, in-human reasons.

“They require a background check,” X-37 advised.

I cursed. “Then you better get to work on a fake dossier.”

“That will limit the amount of assistance I can provide at the street level. Given the unsuspected complexity of the criminal underworld, I will need to proceed more slowly. Unless you want to get caught. Is that part of your plan?” X-37 asked.

“Not this time,” I said. There had been missions where planned failure had benefits. Becoming a prisoner was a good way to get through enemy lines. I had tried about every infiltration tactic in the book. My preferred method was to simply remain unnoticed and strike when I was ready. That wasn’t always possible with cybernetic components that could never be completely hidden, not even with the cleverest disguise.

Sleight of hand and misdirection went a long way, but it was only one tool among many. People saw what they wanted to see, unless they were elite guards who’d sworn their lives to protect a corrupt senator.

“I have submitted your application for a temporary work permit to the assassins’ guild. By the time they respond, I should have a decent cover story in place,” X-37 updated me.

“Decent?”

“If you want perfect, it will take a week, with the time invested compounded for each percentage point of improvement,” X-37 explained.

“I’ll just do it myself,” I muttered, moving toward a location X-37 had sent to my heads-up-display.

“You always do, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “Or so you say.”

“Oh, great. Sarcasm. I thought I was going to cruise through this mission without it,” I said, watching a parking cop who was eyeing my cigar.

“I try, Reaper Cain,” X said.

“Is there a problem, officer?” I asked.

“Seriously?” he asked. “I’ve got a quota and you’re going to walk right in front of me and light one up?”

This made me think of Frank and his frantic smoking ritual. It made more sense knowing that the tobacco police were out and about. He probably chain smoked when he knew the coast was clear.

I filed information about the local ordinance for future reference. It wouldn’t do to draw the attention of a police officer at the wrong time just because of my vice.

“Are you going to write me a ticket?”

He shook his head. “I’m on my way in. Not feeling it today. But you’re not making my life easy. If my supervisor checks my body cam and realizes I gave you a break, there will be an inquiry and I’ll probably get a day off.”

“That sounds harsh,” I said.

He laughed. “Rules are rules. You really should quit. It will kill you.”

“So will a bullet through my face,” I said.

He laughed awkwardly.

“Thanks for the warning, officer,” I said, closing the pocket where I kept my cheap cigars. “Tell your supervisor I was properly chastised and promise to reform.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, but his tone suggested he meant “thanks, you prick.”

“What do you think, X?” I asked when the cop was out of earshot.

“That explains a lot of the network congestion,” X-37 said. “Their police department is storing a huge amount of video data and only purging it after manual review.”

OceanofPDF.com

11

“Are you sure this is the right place?” I asked.

“With certainty,” X-37 said. “What were you expecting?”

The building wasn’t much wider than the safety-glass door that led into it. It had been constructed from solid concrete, a style I hadn’t seen for a while but assumed was a hat tip to some ancient architect.

Massive buildings flanked it like a pair of steel and chrome leviathans devouring the smaller building between them. The effect was a funnel-like approach to the smaller, older building.

The windows to the middle building were too small for my taste, barely allowing light into the foyer. A bell chimed when I went through the doorway. Noise from the street vanished when the front door shut behind me.

“That’s interesting,” I observed.

“It is,” X-37 said. “I believe this area can be sealed against gas attacks. The concrete walls may be reinforced with steel. I measured an unusual thickness to the walls when we passed through the front door.”

“The landlord must be paranoid,” I said.

“Or well prepared for any contingency,” X-37 said.

“I was being sarcastic,” I said.

X-37 responded sarcastically as seemed to be his new normal on this planet. “I didn’t notice.”

Turning slowly, I gave my Reaper LAI a chance to record the floor plan. “Looks pretty shabby on the inside. They must have blown their budget on the blast-proof front door.”

The white and green tiled floor was grimy down the middle and dusty near corners where the efforts of a single janitor made a token effort to do his job for the last thirty or forty years.

The old man eyed me but seemed too defeated to challenge my presence, even if he wanted to.

I stepped into the rickety elevator and thought about holding my breath as the stainless steel doors closed, trapping me in with generations of body odor.

“Was that man actually a janitor or one of their agents?” I asked.

“He doesn’t seem to be skilled at cleaning,” X-37 observed.

“I can barely hear you, X.” Lack of contact with X gave me a bad feeling I didn’t want to think about.

“My connection is weak but steady,” my Reaper interface promised. “You know as well as anyone that in a place like this, a harmless old man can reveal themselves to be assassins. The truth is rarely what the eye implies.”

I laughed. “Sure, X. But there are limits.”

“Agreed. I’ve heard Reapers also have their limitations,” X-37 said.

“Fair enough.” I watched the levels pass and realized the display had been at the lowest level for some time, but we were still moving downward.

“Especially when said Reaper has nothing but malfunctioning gear, no way to repair damage, and numerous addictions and bad habits,” X-37 said.

“All true.” I laughed. Diving into a lair of assassins and underworld crime bosses felt more natural than roaming the streets of Greendale. The prospect of a violent confrontation improved my mood tenfold.

“Are you going to put that cancer stick in your mouth before meeting the assassins’ guild representative?” X-37 asked. “It might make you look tough and intimidating.”

“Ha, ha, ha, X. You’re fucking hilarious,” I said dryly. “And for the record, I’m not confident in my continued supply of recreational carcinogens because someone hasn’t found me a decent smoke shop on the last three worlds we’ve visited.”

“I’ll put it on my list of things to do,” X-37 said. “Do you wish me to suspend work on your fake background to search for Starbrand cigars?”

“You’re not done with my background?” I demanded.

“Not quite. Give me some credit. We’ll be ready.” X-37 beeped several times, something he only did when nearly overloaded or trying to get my attention during a gun battle.

“We damn well better be,” I warned. “I didn’t come all this way to get shanked by local enforcers.”

The door opened to a long, dark hallway. The ceiling felt low and the walls close together.

“That looks like emergency lighting,” I said. “Is that normal?”

“I’m unable to access the utility bill for this location and have no way to determine if there has been an emergency or if this is how they normally keep their lighting. My suspicion, however, is that the gloomy atmosphere is the ambience they’re looking for,” X-37 said.

“Well, they nailed it,” I said.

“We have a problem,” X-37 announced.

“Give it to me,” I said, more than a bit annoyed at the timing. The hallway looked like it led to a torture chamber. I started forward, not wanting to be trapped in the elevator and hoping to expand my options by locating other rooms and hallways.

The small, heavily reinforced door at the end of the hallway looked daunting.

“It's not a problem, actually, but a recommendation based on my current analysis,” X-37 said.

“You're about to tell me you haven't completed my first background,” I said.

“What I have managed so far should be sufficient to deceive ninety-nine percent of investigators, be they working for the Union or a criminal enterprise,” X-37 said. “Unfortunately, I discovered the local assassins guild has already issued an alert about a Reaper on Greendale.”

“A general alert or do they know it's me?” I asked.

“I have insufficient data to know the answer to this question,” X-37 said. Something about his tone seemed strained. “Apologies, maintaining a presence in the local network is requiring a lot of processing power.”

Static rippled across my vision. I ignored it, hoping there wouldn't be a wave of nausea-inducing pain to follow.

“What's your recommendation, X?” I asked.

“Partial deception. Rather than create a complex backstory, I would like to block access with tiny bits of real information accessible to anyone who has the skills and the tenacity to find it,” X-37 said.

“Do it,” I said. “Keep tabs on what we see. I'm going in.”

The door opened as I approached it, sliding upward into the ceiling, confirming my suspicion it was rated as another blast door. If they didn't want to let me in, I wouldn't get in, even if I had brought explosives.

Passing through the doorway, I saw that the barrier was nearly a foot thick and made from two layers of reinforced steel.

A pair of silent guards escorted me forward into a large room. They wore tactical gear that would make most assault teams jealous, but in all black with no insignia. The place had the feel of an underground library or secret cathedral.

The man facing me from the other side of a huge wooden desk was extremely tall and extremely thin. He had the look of someone who had spent most of his adolescence on a space ship or station with poorly calibrated gravity simulators.

“Quite a place you have here,” I said, spotting two additional guards who were lurking in the shadows. They also wore heavy body armor and carried shotguns with drum magazines of extra ammunition.

“Thank you for coming, Wyatt Gold,” the lean, older man with strange eyes said, not sounding at all thankful.

I resisted the urge to question X-37 about his name choice. My adversary was dangerous, more so than anyone I'd ever met. I had known a lot of cunning and devious individuals. I recognized confidence, especially the kind that had been well earned.

This man had the advantage over me and not just because I was in his underground bunker surrounded by heavily armed guards. X-37 and I were playing a careful game of truth and misdirection. This man who had established a functioning assassins’ guild was clearly a master of the game.

“You haven't asked my name.” He leaned back in his chair slightly, resting his left hand on the edge of the desk. His right hand was in his lap, probably holding a weapon.

“What’s your name?” I asked, focusing on his body, eye movement, posture, and the pace of his words to evaluate his level of honesty.

He smiled slyly, almost reluctantly. “Call me… Mr. Gold, since Gold clearly is not your name.” He leaned forward, catching more of the room’s untrustworthy light on his face. “And also for these,” he said, pointing at his gold irises.

“It's good to meet you. I hadn't expected such personalized treatment. All I wanted to know was about the contract,” I said.

“Which contract? We have many that are active,” he said. If he was annoyed I wasn’t more intimidated, he didn’t show it.

I responded without hesitation. “The contract that has a bounty higher than all the others combined.”

“Ahh,” he breathed. “I suppose you are the right person to bring her in.”

“You don't know me,” I promised him.

“I might know you better than you think, Halek Cain.”

“Who? Never heard of the guy,” I said, keeping my eyes on my adversary.

“Surely you've heard of the man who murdered seventeen upstanding citizens of Night City,” Gold said.

I shook my head. “Not ringing any bells.”

The name he had given for my home world, Boyer 5, was slang, and not complimentary. I didn't know if that meant he was being sarcastic in his reference to the gang members I had punished for killing my father or if he had some connection with them that would make us mortal enemies.

Gold snapped his fingers, sending all of the guards from the room. The two lurking in the shadows stepped backward until doors closed in front of them like he kept them in some sort of tactical locker. The other two went out the door I had come in and closed it.

“Let's get serious, Cain. I keep a tight watch over all the contracts on Greendale, including assassinations,” he said.

“So you're not just head of the assassins’ guild, but a crime lord,” I said.

He didn't respond immediately. “Call it what you like. But don't forget that I run Greendale.”

“Maybe we can work together,” I said.

“Maybe,” he answered. “You're a Reaper, and that's always a problem.”

“It doesn't have to be.” I wasn't sure where he was going with this, but suspected his problem with me wasn't what I thought it was.

“I already had some issues with a Reaper. He killed some of my best men. If any of my people find out you're one of the murderous freaks, they’ll want your head,” he said.

At least some of this was a lie. He’d dealt with a Reaper, I thought, but felt there was more to it than he was letting on.

“Tell me about this contract. If it's what I think it is, then I have a vested interest and anybody who opposes me should be ready to go to war,” I said, surprising myself with the statement. “All I want is one person from this planet, then I'll leave and cause you no problems.”

“Interesting,” he said.

“How did you know my name?” I asked.

He chuckled and spread his hands as if the answer was obvious. “The other Reaper told me. He said Halek Cain is coming and if I didn’t get rid of the girl from Dreadmax, Cain would come here looking for her and kill everyone.”

“Where is she?”

“Do you want her for the Union?” he asked.

This felt like a test question. I didn't have enough information about the crime boss to understand his allegiances. “I'm no friend of the Union.”

“I didn't think you would be. But maybe you could do some work for me if things go right. Go find the girl. I won't help you, but I won’t hinder you. That's a good deal, trust me.”

I said nothing. He had given me his blessing on the contract too easily. X-37 whispered possible reasons for this in my ear, but I wasn’t in a place for a discussion with my digital friend.

“My people will show you out,” Mr. Gold said.

“I know the way. But thanks.” I lit my cigar, taking my time, then made my exit.

OceanofPDF.com

12

I left the assassins’ guild and found Frank at a street-side food vendor. He had stayed long past the expected time of our meeting, stalwart as I remembered him from our days in the Union army. He looked uncomfortable but unwilling to leave me hanging.

“I wish you hadn't come to Greendale,” Frank said.

“Why didn’t you warn me about the smoking police?” I asked, fishing a Gronic Fats out of my pocket.

He responded by digging into his cigarettes and lighting up moments later. “There aren’t cops just for that; they do other things. A buddy of mine on the force said they have a lot of pressure to improve the air quality in Zag City. Some travel guru gave the place a bad rating and the entire galaxy now thinks Zag is synonymous with ashtray.”

“I don’t see why,” I said as we both exhaled clouds of smoke into the air.

“You were in there a while,” he observed. “Is everything all right? Should I be worried?”

“It’s a big place full of interesting people,” I said, reviewing the numbers on my HUD that X-37 had recorded. I had purposely gotten lost on my way out to expand my map of the facility. Guards had quickly located me and escorted me to the proper elevator.

By some miracle hack that X-37 had pulled off, the elevator stopped frequently when I was sure it had been designed to move directly to the exit without any side trips possible. After a while, I found guards waiting for me each time the elevator opened. Even when they blocked my wandering, I gathered information on their security elements—how many guards they had, what they were equipped with, and how fast they responded to a minor breach of their security protocols.

“What’s it like being a fugitive?” Frank asked. “There are times I’d like to just run away. Shitty job, demanding home life, one boring day after another. Might be good to go renegade.”

“I was built for this kind of survival. I wouldn’t recommend it to a normal person. You’d have fun for a while, but then you would get homesick,” I said.

He nodded animatedly, dropped his cigarette, and twisted it out under his boot before lighting another only seconds later. “Zag City looks like an amazing place, and maybe it is, but it has a dark underbelly.”

“Most cities do,” I said. “You're retired. It's unfair of me to ask so much.”

I really wanted to say more, to express my sincerity, but graciousness and humility weren't something they taught in the Reaper Corps.

Frank locked his eyes on his feet, smoke twirling up from the cigarette he held down at his side. He dug at a groove in the concrete with the toe of one work boot.

“I feel like shit for not keeping better track of Elise,” he said, tensing up. I observed he was fit but very lean. His life hadn't been easy. I was sure that if I asked him he would tell me that his training in the Union military prepared him for other trials. I thought it probably hadn't hurt but that he had been tough before he enlisted.

He was a good man who sold himself short.

I waited, aware he was about to make some type of admission.

“I followed her to school a couple of times, during the brief time she stayed with us and also afterward. Every now and then, I'd surprise her at work. Thought I'd be embarrassing her, but she rolled with the punches. Her boss was suspicious, somewhat protective, but never gave me a hard time. I thought that was enough. I mean, what was really going to happen?”

“You know where she works now?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said. “She waits tables at a diner if you’re hungry.”

“I never turn down a meal,” I said.

We headed through the revitalized downtown district of Zag City. It was different during the daytime, clean or somehow more organized. Excessive vehicle and pedestrian traffic made it louder than it had been at night, if that was possible. Frank moved easily through the crowd, never stepping out of anybody's way but never requiring others to swerve around him. That made me think he planned his steps in advance.

The diner where Elise worked was on a concrete island surrounded by wide sidewalks and major streets. It had an old look and feel to it, with classic music playing from the public address system. There were tables and benches outside.

“They usually have quite a waiting list over the lunch hour,” Frank said. “Looks busy, but we shouldn't have a hard time finding a place to sit today.”

“Let’s find a booth or something. I want to see her before she sees me. Might just leave if she looks okay.” I waited until he wouldn't take my words as a criticism. “Why did you stop following her to school and checking on her at work?”

He shrugged. “She's hard to follow. It got to be a lot of effort and didn't seem worth it. So far as I could tell, she was doing way better on her own than she would be with me following her around.”

We took our seats. It didn't take me long to spot her. She had put on weight but was still slim and youthful. “She's taller than I remember.”

Her dark, almost black hair was up in a ponytail. She had grown out the poorly bleached hair I remembered from Dreadmax. It was thick and luxurious now, complementing her smooth skin and youthful vitality.

“Why are you angry?” X-37 asked.

I didn’t answer but adjusted my attitude. She didn’t deserve to be anywhere near my world. I understood why the Union was after her. I knew that her father had used technology from the Lex project to cure her of a childhood disease.

Now she was too valuable for the Union to let go. That didn’t change how unfair her life was about to become. All I saw was a young woman making people happy through hard work and self-sacrifice. The galaxy needed more people like her and fewer people like me.

The first time I saw her, she was in a cage dressed to amuse dangerous men on a doomed prison station.

In a perfect galaxy, I could lurk near her as I was doing right now and protect her. Instead of a killing machine, I could be a guardian angel. Maybe that would make the Deadlands a better place. Maybe that would redeem a few of my sins.

Frank took one of the barstools and leaned his elbows on the counter. “That happened not long after you left her with us. Once she started eating regularly, it was like she had a growth spurt. I don't think she'll get much taller than she is now, but something had stunted her growth.”

She did ten things at once and still looked bored. I never saw her use a ticket when taking an order. The young woman seemed to just remember things. At one point, she carried a huge tray in both hands, lifting them high over her head to avoid another waitress who wasn't paying attention. All the while, she was calling back details to the cook then admonishing the hostess in charge of seating people who wasn't doing her job.

She worked her way toward our end of the counter, but her attention was on all the other customers. From what I gathered through my eavesdropping, someone had not shown up for work and she was covering two sections.

“Thanks again, Elise,” the owner and cook bellowed. “I know the dinner rush appreciates you, even if Mags doesn’t.”

Elise paused in a routine and cast him a delightfully sweet smile. “That's nice, Jimmy. Does that mean you're giving me a raise?”

They both laughed. Some of the regular patrons joined in with their own comments.

“I can see why you didn't think you needed to look after her,” I said. “This place looks safe.”

“She has a way with people,” Frank said. “I've seen her get mean too. But not often, and only with the neighborhood bullies.”

“You should've seen her on Dreadmax,” I said.

Frank became quiet.

“What's on your mind, Frank?” I asked.

“Nothing. I was just thinking about back in the day. Stuff better left in the past,” he said.

He was lying. I knew he was lying.

“He's probably connecting your name to the Union propaganda about the Butcher of Dreadmax,” X-37 offered.

The Union public information machine had put out quite a tale after Dreadmax, I knew. Their official narrative had been that an insane gang leader, a convicted terrorist and enemy of the people, had staged an uprising then detonated a nuclear device, eliminating all evidence of what had happened.

“Someday I'll tell you the truth about Dreadmax,” I said.

Frank grew even more uncomfortable and waved away my promise.

OceanofPDF.com

13

“What can I get you?” Jimmy, the diner owner, asked. “Elise has her hands full.”

The man looked us over, wiping his hand on his counter towel.

“Coffee,” I said, pulling my cigar from my front pocket.

Frank put his hand on my arm to stop me. Jimmy gave me a dark look as he retreated to get our drinks.

We paid in advance and I left a good tip. I wasn't sure how Elise would respond to my return and wanted to get a feel for her mood.

Two cups of coffee later, the crowd was thinning out and Elise was in the back room taking her break.

“There’s a rhythm to the sound of a diner I’ve always liked,” Frank said.

His words took me back. I think his unique way of looking at things was what had drawn me to him. I’d been a dark, intense youth far away from home—as shady as that home was, I still missed it. We were the same age, but Frank always seemed more mature.

I listened to the sound of people talking and plates clattering from the back where someone was washing them and telling jokes.

The place was full of interesting characters. I paid attention to the people Elise knew well.

One of them was an older man, perhaps in his mid-fifties, with a hard face and salt-and-pepper hair cut short. Most of his grooming efforts had been put into his mustache. He sat with a coffee cup in one hand and his eyes on a public-use data pad, likely checked out from the local library.

I zoomed in and was happy to find it didn’t cause a blinding headache to use that function of my Reaper eye.

“That’s Tom,” Frank said. “Looks like he’s reading Advanced Theories of Aerodynamics as Applied to Union Vessels again.”

“Never heard of it. Sounds boring,” I said.

“He reads a lot. People tease him about his selection. He once read the instruction manual for Jimmy’s coffee machine from start to finish,” Frank said.

“Is that a long book?” I asked.

“Three hundred and ninety-two pages,” Frank said.

“Does he know how to make coffee?” I asked.

“No idea, but Jimmy does. That’s one of the things that makes this the best diner in the neighborhood,” Frank said, lifting a cup Jimmy had set down without explanation.

The place was so busy, the owner/operator came out from time to time to greet people and fill coffee cups. Elise worked hard but was clearly doing the job of more than one waitress.

Tom turned the page, read for a while, then set down his coffee cup. There was a moment where he was looking at the pad, but I didn’t think he was reading. At the end of the pause, he looked down the bar and saw me.

I wasn’t able to read his expression, but I was certain he’d notice my Reaper arm. It seemed unfair he would recognize it for what it was, because I was still wearing a glove and had my coat sleeve pulled down. It took effort to resist adjusting the sleeve.

Tom picked up his coffee cup and went back to reading. Elise grabbed the coffee pot and refilled his cup with a dangerously high pour. Black liquid arced down into the cup as he held it forward like they’d performed the maneuver hundreds of times.

“There you go, Tom,” she said.

“You’re an angel,” he replied.

The smile she answered with was warm and trusting.

She took several orders, recited them back to Jimmy, who was working frantically now, then delivered plates to one of the tables at the other end of the diner.

When two men came in a little while later, everything changed.

The way they moved radiated danger despite their forced nonchalance. “Those two are trying too hard to be inconspicuous,” I said.

Frank nodded, watching them over his coffee cup.

The leader of the pair motioned for Jimmy to approach the counter. “Are you James Callow?”

“Something like that,” Jimmy said, throwing his counter towel over his shoulder and crossing his beefy arms.

The man grabbed a fistful of his apron and the t-shirt underneath it, pulling him forward.

This time, I put my hand on Frank’s arm, warning him to stay put.

“I don’t like bullies,” Frank grumbled.

“Just wait,” I said.

“You got a girl with dark hair working for you?” the man asked. “And think before you answer. We ain’t the type of people you want to mess with.”

The second man took a guard position, watching the crowd and the door for cops or other good Samaritans.

Jimmy tried to break the smaller man’s grip but couldn’t do it.

“Hey, hey, hey!” the man said, giving Jimmy a shake.

I made a note. These guys were more than they seemed. Dressed to blend, I suspected their bland attire concealed weapons, body armor, and physiques trained by hours of hand-to-hand combat training. The easy way the lean man handled someone who was almost twice his size spoke volumes to his capabilities.

“What do you want? I’ve got customers,” Jimmy complained, his face turning red from the strain.

His attacker slowly twisted the t-shirt collar against his neck. “You won’t have any customers if you don’t give me what I want. Where is the girl?”

Frank leaned close to me. “You know these guys?”

“No. But I know why they’re here.” I wanted to run these jerks out of here, but needed information. Brawling might feel good, but it was a poor way to gather useful intelligence.

Jimmy’s attacker drew back one hand and slapped him across the face. “That’s to get your attention. No one has to get hurt, not even the girl. I just need to check on her for someone.”

Elise came out of the back room with a tray held high overhead. She saw what was going on immediately and put the tray on the other end of the counter. She marched past a half-dozen customers and planted her feet in front of the two men who had invaded the diner.

“You let go of him right now!” she said.

The man shoved Jimmy back, then advanced on Elise.

She retreated a step, but only one step and only to solidify her balance.

“We have to do something,” Frank whispered desperately.

“Not yet. Wait. Follow my lead,” I said.

“Listen, sir, we’re trying to work, sir. So get out of Jimmy’s place, sir,” Elise said, hammering the word “sir” each time she said it.

“You’ve got an attitude,” the man drawled, looking her over, probably off balance from her angry beauty. “I thought you’d be some street rat kid who didn’t know what was good for herself. Do you know what’s good for you?” He grabbed his groin.

She shoved him with both hands, driving forward with her legs and torso strength. “Get the hell out of here. Just go. You fucking asshat!”

“Oh, what happened to calling me sir?” the man asked, laughing now.

“Fuck off,” Elise said. “Sorry, Jimmy. I didn’t mean to swear. It just slipped out.” She cast the apology over her shoulder.

“You have to come with us,” the second stranger said.

“All right! That’s enough. The police are on their way. I hit my panic alarm. They come quick when I do that. All the cops on this beat know me,” Jimmy said, shouting the first part.

I twisted the barstool a few inches toward the deescalating confrontation. If the two men refused at this point, they would be under time restrictions and would probably use actual violence to speed things up. The contract was for recovery of a Union asset dead or alive.

The first man backed away, holding up his hands. “It’s all good. We’ll be back. You better not run off, girl. We’ll be watching.”

“Go to hell!” Elise shouted at him. “Sorry, Jimmy,” she apologized again over her shoulder.

“It’s okay, Elise,” Jimmy said, coming around the corner to stand between her and his two least favorite customers.

The men left. Jimmy threw up his hands in frustration, but then laughed, making the gesture a joke. “Sorry about that, everyone. I hope a free round of coffee and ten percent off everyone’s ticket makes up for the drama.”

Several people told him he didn’t have to do that and the scene slowly returned to normal. I kept my eyes on the counter, not wanting Elise to see me yet.

“Jimmy is a good guy. When he’s gone, there won’t be any more places like this,” Frank said. “Shouldn’t we talk to Elise now?”

“No. I want to have a word with those two dumbasses, see who sent them and what they know about the contract,” I said, moving toward the door. To my surprise, Frank followed me. He looked pale but determined.

* * *

Following the men was tricky. They didn’t seem to have military or law enforcement training, but there was a method to their madness. Every quarter block, they separated—one crossing to the other side of the street for a while. They always met up and headed back the way they came for a bit, then continued in toward their actual destination—whatever that might be.

“These guys are skittish,” Frank said.

“They’re checking for a tail. Not doing a bad job, but we’re right at the edge of where they might recognize us. That’s the hard part about following a target—too close and they see you, too far and you lose them.”

Asshole One and Asshole Two turned in to a narrow alley.

“Here we go,” I said. “Hang back. Try not to get involved.”

“Do you want me to set up at the entrance and keep watch?” Frank asked.

I nodded. “That would be outstanding.”

My targets must have made me, because they turned to confront me the moment I reached the point of no return.

“Who do you think you’re following, asshole?” the quieter of the two said.

In the diner, he’d been the lookout and had done a good job focusing his attention on the door instead of the confrontation with Elise. Things had changed. He looked like he was ready for a fight, probably tuned up from all the adrenaline of their little show.

“I’m talking to you,” he repeated.

“Not for long, you aren’t,” I said.

“What?”

I punched him on the tip of his jaw with my natural arm, dropping him like yesterday’s news.

The other man lunged, but then stopped when he saw the blade I’d snapped out of my left fist.

“We’re following the contract perimeters. Whoever gets her first, collects. You’re not supposed to interfere with other contractors,” the remaining man said.

“I know how to read a contract,” I said, backing him toward the wall with my presence. “And you can shove all of that up your ass. I’ve got questions for you and you’re going to answer them.”

The man slipped to one side, clearly trying to escape.

I retracted my blade and grabbed him.

He struggled.

I slammed him against the wall. None of the training that had allowed him to manhandle Jimmy helped him now. Even without my Reaper gear, I had him by years of experience and hard work.

“Shit, you’re strong,” the man gasped as I closed my fist around his throat. He clawed at my hand with both of his.

“And impatient,” I added. “Tell me what I want to know or I’ll pop your head off.”

He grunted, concentrating on getting free more than my words.

I wasn’t sure if I could actually decapitate him, but now didn’t seem a good time to try it. Relaxing my grip slightly, I gave him a little shake, hoping some words would come out.

“I don’t have to help you,” he managed, forcing the words through his clenched teeth and restricted larynx. “Who are you working for? Don’t you know the code?”

I didn’t bother to answer. “Tell me what your contract details are?”

“What? They’re the same for everyone,” he said.

That was a commonly held misconception. The contract always said that the details were the same for all operators, but they never were. I not only fulfilled my share of contracts while working for the Reaper Corps, but I’d written a few as diversions. This guy thought he was a pro, but he was just a rookie assassin in my book.

“Let me explain my code,” I said, leaning into him, lifting him up onto his tiptoes. “I’ll track down your family, your friends, the girl you had a crush on when you were ten, and bury them.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Unless you tell me every godsdamn thing I want to know,” I finished.

“What are you?” he asked, his voice breaking.

“Where were you supposed to take the girl when you kidnapped her? Who is your contact?” I demanded.

“Fuck,” he gasped, the word coming out as a throaty whisper. His eyes lost focus for a second. He fought for survival. “The Union. It’s a Union contract. No one is supposed to know that, but I have a source. We’re taking her to Port 595.”

I dropped him, snatching the gun from his concealed holster as he fell. “Congratulations. You get to live another day. Forget about this contract if you want to continue living.”

He scrambled away from me but stopped to check on his friend.

I held out my hand. Once he realized what I wanted, he tossed me his friend’s pistol and a belt full of knives.

“Thanks. See, that was easy.” I found Frank nervously guarding the entrance to the alley and motioned for him to start walking. We headed quickly away from the scene, taking several corners and then stopping to make sure the men I had abused weren’t trying to follow me.

I didn’t think they were that stupid, but there was no way to predict the behavior of killers who had just had their egos crushed.

“I’m glad you didn’t kill them,” Frank said quietly. “I heard what you said. I don’t think I can take this. I’m not a Reaper. I hope you didn’t mean what you said about killing their families and all that. But it sounded believable. All I wanted to do was run home and check on my wife and kids.”

“Thanks for staying as long as you did. That would’ve been really uncomfortable if a couple of cops had interrupted our little talk,” I said.

Frank didn’t respond. I’d pushed him too far.

OceanofPDF.com

14

“Go home, Frank,” I said. “Hug your family.”

He nodded without making eye contact and left, lighting up a cigarette but holding it down just as I expected. What I hadn’t anticipated was the way he snuck a metal flask from the inside of his jacket and took a sip. Whiskey was what he needed to calm his nerves after a few hours with me.

He’d never been a drinker. I hoped he didn’t go on a bender and do something stupid. I had treated him like a chess piece in a deadly game. But he was a person with a life. He’d been one of my only friends.

Including him in this mission had probably been the end of that.

The moment I lost sight of my old friend, I turned back toward the assassins I had handled so roughly. It took me longer than I’d hoped to locate them. They were moving quickly, clearly shaken by our encounter.

The first part of my information gathering was the “interview” and the second was surveillance. I wanted to see if what they told me matched up with what they actually did.

I also thought, on further reflection, that allowing them to live had been a mistake. They were too dangerous to have lurking around in the shadows with a score to settle. “X, have you been able to learn anything about my new friends?”

“Certainly, Reaper Cain. The first individual is Britton Michaels. Goes by Brit. He attempted several times to get into the Constables but was rejected for unlisted reasons. He dropped out of the public education system and ran with gangs for a time, then disappeared for two years. When he returned to Greendale, he partnered with the second individual, Roger Olathe,” X-37 said.

“What’s his story?” I asked.

“Very similar, but without the two-year disappearing act. He ran with the 22nd Street gang for a time and developed quite a reputation as an enforcer. There’s a note from local law enforcement intelligence briefs that say he’s still on good terms with the 22nds.” X-37 faded out for a minute and returned in the middle of a sentence. “… Agree with your decision to eliminate them.”

“I missed some of that. That connection,” I said.

“Do you want me to start from the beginning?” X-37 asked incredulously.

“No. File it for later. I think I got the general idea,” I said, checking my back trail for any surprises. Nothing that X-37 had told me, or that I had witnessed, suggested there was a third conspirator, but it never hurt to be careful.

My caution was rewarded when I spotted Briggs and Crank in plainclothes. They moved through the crowd with less finesse than covert operatives would. It wasn’t their appearance or even the way they moved that made them stand out, but the hard look in their eyes. Neither of them spoke unless absolutely necessary. These were men looking to do violence.

“My recommendation is to avoid them,” X-37 said.

“Agreed. I’ll do another sweep of the area. Tell me if you pick up any other spec ops personnel. They wouldn’t come down here without the rest of the squad,” I said.

“Your analysis is correct,” X-37 agreed. “However, I’m unable to detect other Union soldiers in this crowd. Thank you for providing the visual import.”

“Zag City is a big place. They may have split up to cover more territory,” I said.

“I think they’re looking for us,” X-37 warned. “I defeated a sensor scan that was calibrated for my specific bandwidth. It’s a simple technique, but often effective. I’m actually impressed.”

Evading two of the best Union soldiers I’d ever encountered while tracking two dangerous assassins was a challenge. I kept Michaels and Olathe in view for a while, but they continued with their herky-jerky counter surveillance pattern, splitting to opposite sides of the street and constantly moving back the way they’d come. Briggs and Crank methodically swept the public areas in the type of grid pattern that left nothing to chance.

“You will have to make a decision soon,” X-37 said. “Trying to do two things at once will result in failure.”

“You’re not wrong, X,” I said. My encounter with the local assassins bothered me more the more I thought about it, but I knew Briggs and Crank. They were the bigger threat. I focused on evading their methodical search and kept an eye out for other spec ops personnel I suspected were also in the area.

It wasn’t long before I lost sight of Michaels and Olathe.

“I don’t think Briggs knows where Elise is,” I said. “There’s a chance he’s only here for me, but I think the Union wants her more than they want me eliminated.”

“Your analysis is sound,” X-37 said. “They dedicated several spec ops teams, a fleet battle group, and brought in a Reaper from retirement to try and recover her the first time on Dreadmax. She’s definitely a high-value target for them.”

“I’m going to increase my distance from Briggs and Crank, then start for the diner. If Elise is still there, I’ll make contact and return to the ship. If not, I’ll have to reevaluate. Frank didn’t know where she was living and you already confirmed the address in the contract intelligence brief didn’t actually exist,” I said, stepping back into a doorway to watch my enemies from a distance.

A short time later, I rounded a corner and spotted Frank reuniting with his family. His kids played in one of the corner parks just off the street and he stood hugging his wife, his face buried in her shoulder.

The scene really made me think. So far, my time on Greendale had been a routine mission—not especially challenging aside from some of the technological difficulties with X-37 and a generous helping of pain. We tracked down Elise, did close surveillance without compromising our position or alerting the target, and gathered intelligence from two adversaries.

I thought about the scene and Frank’s reaction to it. He’d been pale as a sheet when I came out of the alley, but he had stood guard. The man was loyal to a fault—and brave. The things I’d said about killing the families of Michaels and Olathe had really affected him. He was a family man. The life of a Union soldier was years in his past.

I heard a voice that prompted me to step into a doorway before even looking over my shoulder.

Briggs and Crank were so close that I’d overheard their crosstalk, even though they weren’t raising their voices and there was the noise of other pedestrian traffic interfering.

They passed by me, almost close enough to touch.

Frank shouted, taking back my attention. “I’m not part of that. Get the fuck away from her!” His chest was pressed forward and hands balled into fists. Behind him, his wife was edging toward the kids like she might grab them and make a run for it.

X-37 beeped me, using the soft tone he had adapted from Jelly’s routine to warn me he was jumping into a conversation—a particularly useful habit when I had a lot of other stimuli.

“This behavior is consistent with the dossiers of Michaels and Olathe. The first is a bully who lashes out, and the second is just sadistic,” X-37 said. “Your friend is in real danger.”

I’m not sure I heard everything X-37 said, because I had already made my own decision.

Commander Briggs and Sergeant Crank moved closer, slowing down, sweeping their eyes over the crowd, hands under their long coats—gripping weapons, probably Union-issued short-barreled HDK (Highly Destructive Kinetic) carbines with silencers.

They were between me and Frank’s dilemma.

Lowering my chin, I flipped up the collar of my trench coat and stepped out onto the sidewalk, walking quickly, moving dangerously close to the Union soldiers on my way to make another bad decision. I saw Briggs perk up like he sensed something.

“This is going to be bad,” I murmured to X-37 once I was past them.

“Leave my family alone. I’ll call the fucking police,” Frank shouted as he moved laterally to keep Michaels from grabbing his wife, who was doing the same thing to block their advance on the now terrified children.

People darted away from the scene, crossing against the light, reversing directions, or even going into random buildings.

“You fucking know why we’re here,” Michaels grunted.

“I don’t know where he is, and if I did, I’d still tell you to go to hell,” Frank said, pointing aggressively at Michaels.

I was almost there but could feel eyes—probably Briggs and Crank—watching me.

X-37 beeped. “I highly recommend to turn away from this fight.”

“It’s too late,” I said under my breath, picking up my pace to a near run, ready to burst across the final four or five meters to reach the Greendale contract killers.

OceanofPDF.com

15

Static exploded on the left side of my vision, spilling into my right and feeling like it was sizzling down my spine. The pain drove me to one knee.

“Not now!” I grunted, then cursed.

Michaels turned.

I rushed him, tackling him as I screamed at the unfair fucking universe. We hit the ground so hard, we bounced. I used the momentum to get to my feet. With no loss of movement, I slammed into Olathe. He flew backward into the street and was nearly hit by a car.

Horns honked. “Watch where you're falling, you dumb ass!” a driver shouted, shaking his fist out of a window.

“That’s Cain!” Crank shouted from nearby.

Briggs roared something else that I didn’t quite make out because I was already moving into my next action.

Fights like this happened in a matter of seconds. It felt like we had been at it for minutes, or even hours. Michaels and Olathe came to their feet and rushed me, impressing me with their teamwork. I had to leap sideways to get clear of them, kicking Michaels in the knee.

He twisted to minimize the damage, but I saw the mixture of anger and pain on his face.

Olathe rushed around him. “Try punching me out when I’m ready for it, you son-of-a-bitch!”

Twisting in place, I drove a back kick into his sternum, sending him into the street again. There were no cars to almost hit him this time.

I barely saw the Greendale contract killers because I had bigger problems.

On the upside, Frank was dragging his family into a public bus and screamed for the driver to get the hell out of there.

On the downside, Crank was about to rock my world if I didn’t do something. The man was one of the best individual fighters I’d encountered in the Union military, and that was saying a lot.

The Greendale contract killers also rallied and made a fresh assault. They lacked the training of professional soldiers but seemed ready to fight dirty.

“Now would be a good time to get the fuck out of Dodge,” X-37 snapped.

“What, no warning beep? How rude,” I said as I sprinted into traffic, causing cars to hit their brakes and swerve.

Crank out-ran the others, closing the gap between us.

I reached the opposite sidewalk, stepping onto a bus stop bench and bounding over it rather than weave between pedestrians waiting there. A couple shouted at me and others laughed, apparently oblivious to the fight that had happened just across the street.

“You know I’ll catch you!” Crank shouted, sounding out of breath but determined.

“Don’t slow down, Reaper Cain,” X-37 warned. “He’s still gaining on you.”

I dashed into an alleyway and poured on the speed. This was a dangerous choice. If I came to a dead end or if he proved to be faster than I anticipated, I’d wind up fighting him until his partner caught up.

And I doubted his partner was far behind, maybe a few seconds at best.

A chain-link fence materialized in the gloom. Trash littered the area near it, but nothing solid enough to serve as a ladder. Leaping into the air, I grabbed the cheap barrier halfway to the top and scrambled higher.

Crank hit the fence about the time I was swinging over the top and tumbling to the other side. After tucking and rolling, I came to my feet and ran toward an intersection. The walls were so close together here that I could almost touch them and there wasn’t much light. A murky yellow ambiance glowed from one window where a man and woman argued.

A shuttle streaked high above the buildings, engines reversing to slow for some nearby spaceport. Crank cursed. Behind him, Briggs shouted at me to stop or face the consequences.

I turned the next corner, searching desperately for a way out of the alley maze. These buildings had been designed as a self-contained neighborhood with walkways between them and tiny courtyards seemingly placed at random. What I saw was trash piled up in corners and laundry hanging out of windows. And hungry dogs. And the occasional homeless person scooting deeper into temporary shelters that smelled like piss and alcohol.

“How about a little help, X?” I grunted, getting winded and wondering if Crank was ever going to give up. He sounded like he was dying but just kept coming. His labored breathing was animal rage personified.

“Relax, Reaper Cain,” X-37 advised.

“Relax!” I turned another corner, not entirely sure I wasn’t moving in a circle.

“You will come to a street after the next left turn,” X-37 promised.

“Fucking thanks for the last-minute tip,” I gasped. “I was about to turn right.”

The alley opened onto a busy street with cars parked seemingly chaotically. There had been a minor accident. The drivers stood near cops filling out accident forms on beat-up tablets.

I climbed into the first car I came to, tapping at a palm reader. X-37 could give me a bypass code if we had time. Fortunately, the driver had been too lazy to disable the security protocols. It started immediately, electric motors coming to life.

“X, how do I turn off the auto-drive?” I asked.

“There is no auto drive on this vehicle. You made an excellent choice for an escape vehicle,” X-37 said, continuing with some other details I ignored.

I steered into the street and raced through an intersection, narrowly avoiding cross traffic. The rearview screen showed Crank stealing his own ride—some kind of delivery vehicle that looked like it had been involved in the fender bender.

Cranking the wheel, I drove through on-coming traffic for half a block, then moved onto a one-way street heading the direction I needed to go. Ideally, I would abandon the car near the diner, then go after Elise.

A booming crash sounded behind me. I checked the screen and saw that Crank had slammed a vehicle out of his way, causing it to spin through an intersection.

“I think he chose an even better vehicle. That thing looks rugged,” I said.

“It has the weight and mass to push smaller vehicles aside. You have three ways to defeat his pursuit: raw speed, cutting through narrow alleys, or staying ahead until he accumulates enough damage to disable the van,” X-37 said.

“Are you enjoying this?” I asked.

“I’m a limited AI without emotion,” X-37 pointed out.

“You sound like you’re enjoying it,” I said, swerving as a car came close to hitting me in an intersection. Moments later, I found the traffic ahead of me stalled.

I pushed the nose of the small vehicle between lanes and accelerated, scraping the cars on both sides of mine. Horns honked. Men and women cursed and shook their fists at me.

I took out a cigar and stuck it in the corner of my mouth. “Piss off, you non-driving fucks.”

“Road rage is one of the major causes of accidents in Zag City,” X-37 warned.

“No shit?” I bumped one more vehicle hard enough to move it sideways, then raced into the clear street ahead of the traffic jam.

Behind me, Crank was taking a different approach, slamming vehicles ahead of him until there were too many to push through. He turned onto the sidewalk, sending a park bench into the air and causing pedestrians to dive for cover.

The sound of police sirens converged on the area. I caught a glimpse of them on the next street over.

“Their dispatch system is old,” X-37 informed me. “They are several seconds behind events. That won’t last. You should have a plan to deal with local law enforcement in the near future.”

“Not something I’m looking forward to,” I said, sliding around a corner and looking for a place Crank wouldn’t be able to drive his larger vehicle.

Behind me, the scene was chaos. Horns blared. People got out of their cars and yelled at each other. Smoke filled the air as hover police cars and an ambulance siren added to the confusion.

I drove on hoping I looked inconspicuous.

OceanofPDF.com

16

Turning the wrong way on a one-way street, I met a very large bus. “Well, shit!”

Swerving onto the sidewalk, I learned my vehicle didn’t have the weight and mass to smash aside a bench that was bolted to the street. I hadn’t strapped in, so when the obstacle stopped my economy vehicle cold, the impact threw me at the dash, then the window.

The automatic safety foam deployed. Warnings sounded. The car advised me it was calling for an ambulance unless I advised I wasn’t hurt.

I opened the door and fell out, blood streaming from my nose and lips. Stars filled my vision that for once had nothing to do with my problematic Reaper nerve-ware, but sure as shit, that came down like a hammer as well. Static bloomed in my vision, twitches disabled my left hand, and pain went everywhere.

“Your biometrics are all over the place, Reaper Cain,” X-37 warned.

I staggered away from the vehicle, too hurt to get angry—which was a bad sign.

“You may be going into shock, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said, voice breaking up.

The magnification feature of my cybernetic eye zoomed in and out. Night vision flashed with the brightness of daytime, stabbing into my brain like a knife. When that was gone a second later, everything became a surreal blur of infrared and static pulses.

“Fuck.” I really needed to catch a break. “Please give me some good news, X.”

“I'll do what I can, but I would not expect any in the near future,” X-37 advised.

Crank’s van looked like a stepped-on beer can when it careened around the corner. Paint from at least three vehicle collisions stripped the side. One of its fenders dragged on the ground throwing up sparks. Smoke poured from under the hood.

I was too messed up to move. Facing death wasn’t new. Knowing I was going to fail Elise was what really sucked. Sure she was pissed at me for abandoning her on Greendale, but I still had an obligation to look after her.

Another hover van, this one black and orange, flashed through the intersection, striking Crank’s vehicle at a ninety-degree angle. Both vans smashed through a micro-park near a coffee bar. Tables, pedestrians, and decorative landscape items flew into the air.

Citizens ran screaming from the violent collision. Some only made it a few steps before falling down from injury or overwhelming psychological trauma. A crowd of onlookers gathered, taking pictures and chatting excitedly. It didn't seem like any of them were pointing at me, however.

I pulled up my coat collar and limped into the larger crowd, stalling for time, searching for options. Some of the citizens watched at me. One offered help. I waved him away and kept moving.

Crank kicked out his windshield and tried to climb over the hood but was tangled in his seatbelt. Stunned by the violent collision, it took him several seconds to realize why he couldn’t pull himself free of the wreck.

Michaels and Olathe emerged from the black and orange vehicle.

I paused, ready to shoot them both but hoping they wouldn’t do something stupid.

“You’re a fucking menace to society. You know that, right?” Michaels asked.

“What do you want?” I asked, wondering if I should just open fire right here to prevent further threats against Frank’s family.

“The girl is ours, but we’ll give you a cut of the reward—ten percent, and that’s generous, so don’t try asking for more. We’ll leave your friend alone unless you do something stupid,” Olathe said.

“You’re the one who gave us the idea of killing his entire family,” Michaels said. “Thanks for the tip.”

“I could have killed both of you sorry motherfuckers,” I said, wishing I had put a bullet in each of their foreheads.

“I know,” Olathe said. “We recognize professional courtesy when we see it. So we owe you for that. But now we’re even. So get the hell out of here and stay away from the girl, or if you catch her, you better remember to pay us ninety percent of the contract.”

I maintained a healthy distance from the local killers and observed that Crank was almost free of the destroyed service van. Sirens approached from three directions. People pointed at us. Smoke from the white van and the black and orange van billowed into the air, making our confrontation even more obvious to responding law enforcement units.

“If you go near any of them, I’ll hunt you down like a Reaper and rip you limb from limb,” I said. “I’ll teach you the meaning of hell. Fear the Reaper. Respect your limitations. Live to carry on with your small-time extortion and stay away from the big leagues.”

“We are the big league,” Michaels said, but Olathe jerked his hand horizontally near his neck, indicating his friend should shut up right now.

“Don’t push me. It’s been a long time since I killed for fun.”

Realization of who they were dealing with hit Michaels and his partner at the same time. They backed away, hands on weapons.

This didn't mean I’d won. Michaels and Olathe were dangerous and I knew I’d do well to remember the fact.

“Just don't forget what we said, ” Michaels emphasized. “Maybe you can kill one of us, but the other will go after Frank and his family. So check yourself, Reaper.”

“Do you really want to go to war with me?” I asked.

Michaels and Olathe declined to answer, choosing instead to retreat.

Another vehicle raced toward us, parked in the middle of the street, and produced Commander Briggs. He stepped out, aimed his HDK, and fired a stream of bullets at the position I’d vacated the moment I saw him.

Shell casings streamed from the ejection port of his weapon. The muzzle flashed continuously as bullets peppered a parked car near me. I squatted low, then rapidly duckwalked to a better position.

A short distance away, Crank had finally struggled free of his wrecked van. He bent at the waist, elbows on his knees as he puked between his feet.

“You can’t hide from me, Cain!” Briggs shouted.

“What does he think I’m doing now?” I asked.

“Perhaps he believes you’re using some Reaper tradecraft to come up behind him and cut his throat,” X-37 said.

“I like that idea,” I said.

“Cain!” Briggs roared. “I’m going to hunt you to the end of the galaxy! Forget about the girl. She’s Union property and you are interfering with things you don’t understand.”

I waited until he fired another stream of HDK bullets toward the front of the parked car, then ran from the back. Staying low and hoping the smoke and noise of the scene would give a few seconds, I looked for Crank and the local assassins while running toward a side street.

Almost too late, I saw Crank dropping behind a vending shack on the corner and changed course. All that was left was an alley, and despite my recent bad experiences, I dove for it.

This was a better part of Zag City, I hoped. Maybe the nooks and crannies would be cleaner.

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17

Time lost meaning as I stumbled down the alley, trying to remember when I’d been in a similar place. A little voice told me to get my shit together, practically shouting at me that I’d spent a lot of time in Zag City alleys.

“Help me out, X,” I said, trying to clear my thoughts. I couldn’t even remember my own name. Apparently, there was someone or something I called X. The ridiculous moniker made me laugh, which hurt my head, so I stopped.

The world seemed to spin and the ground tipped up, forcing me to walk with my hands stretched wide for balance.

Details came back slowly, starting with the fact that I was a broken down Reaper on the run. Static ran through my vision, confusing me until I remembered that I had a malfunctioning enhancement in my left eye—a completely cybernetic monocular. It looked normal most of the time, but never withstood close scrutiny.

Flexing my left fist, I remembered other things about my condition. Images from my time in prison returned, followed by the mission to Dreadmax. I thought of Elise, then of the local contract killers, and finally Briggs and Crank. The Union spec ops soldiers hadn’t hesitated to open fire on a public street. That was a bad sign.

The sooner I rescued Elise and made my way to Roxo III for some real repairs, the better. I knew the tech was there and had been told there were qualified technicians. Hard experience with “experts” warned me not to hope too much.

A fresh attack of laughter sent pain through my head and caused tears to run from the corners of both eyes. “This really sucks, X. Stop messing around and tell me where I am. How far away is Briggs? Crank?”

No answer.

I tried again to contact him, and even sent an inquiry to the Jellybird in case I was near the smuggler’s spaceport we had landed on. All I got for my trouble was a slight fluctuation in the static filling my internal earpiece. X-37 had told me there was a lot more computer warfare happening on the planet than he had anticipated, and that maintaining his own presence took most of his processing power. There also seemed to be something constantly interfering with our signal.

Unlike Jelly, the AI of the Jellybird, X-37 physically existed in my nerve-ware. That made his inability to contact me an ominous warning. I couldn’t count on getting help anytime soon.

“Why can’t anything be simple,” I said to no one. “Fuck, that hurts.”

Thinking about my Reaper nerve-ware brought back memories of my training. I remembered crawling through mud, ducking under razor wire, and keeping my mouth slightly open to reduce the risk of overpressure as explosives exploded mud nearby. There’d been a lot of getting yelled at by angry noncommissioned officers and even more running. Looking back, it seemed like our trainers had believed we’d constantly be running with huge loads on our backs when we finally deployed as Reapers.

I found a quiet space where the sound of pedestrians and vehicles wasn’t too loud and no one bothered me. I sat against the wall, head in hands, and tried to breathe. There was a reason I was on Greendale and it was more than just to suffer confusion and pain.

“I have to get past this, X,” I said.

No one answered my pleas for the misery to end. More time passed and I was able to lever myself upright and continue.

Late afternoon turned into evening. The dark, neon-filled nights of Zag City followed. I still felt disoriented, which was probably the result of a concussion.

My vision tried to convince me I was on a drug trip as I walked beneath hundreds of neon signs flickering to life.

Twice more, I had to lean on a wall, drawing the attention of two beat cops. They sauntered toward me with their hands on their stun batons. Cops were cops, no matter the planet. We were in the Deadlands, but these men looked like they’d seen military service somewhere, probably with the Union. They lacked the heavy accents of Sarkonians.

I kept my head down, avoiding eye contact. “I’m okay. Sorry, officers. Haven’t had no Glad-sil for a while. I’m jonesing like crazy.”

To complete the act, I reached down the front of my pants.

“Knock that shit off and get moving,” one of them said. “Freak.”

I shuffled away from them with my eyes downcast. They watched me for a while but didn’t follow.

My vision finally cleared. I controlled my breathing and walked as normally as possible for several blocks. Recovery was slow and incomplete, but I was moving in the right direction.

Jimmy’s diner was busy. I loitered near a dance club across the street, waiting in line as though I wanted in. What I was really doing was watching the diner, the street, even the skies. By the time the line moved me to the door of the club, I was confident there wasn’t anyone else keeping surveillance on the diner.

“Hey, you gonna pay or what?” the doorman to the dance club demanded.

“There’s a cover charge?” I asked. “Screw that. I’m out of here.”

He shook his head. Other Zag City club goers pushed forward to take my place in line. I crossed the street to Jimmy’s place.

A few of the patrons looked wary. I recognized them from the last incident. It said good things about the food and the service if they were willing to come back after the owner was attacked in public.

I took a seat near the back, selecting a booth that allowed me to watch the door and the big side window facing the street. Two other waitresses worked tables while Jimmy handled both the counter and the kitchen, going back and forth between the two jobs.

I nursed a cup of coffee, ordering food without considering the menu. The service was prompt. Everything tasted delicious in my ravenous state. “I would definitely frequent this place if I was going to stay on Greendale,” I said, waiting for X-37 to comment.

A slight disturbance of my hearing suggested the Reaper LAI might have heard me and attempted to respond, but if he had I couldn’t make it out.

Music thumped from across the street, competing with the comforting noises of the busy diner. Spotlights swept the sky in time with the music. Neon signs flashed as far as I could see in any direction. There were more than just eateries and dance halls. Tattoo shops, game arcades, and massage parlors were also doing a lot of business.

The waiting area of the diner filled up.

Through the window, I saw two men in trench coats casing the place. With their faces down and their collars up, I couldn’t confirm who they were, but I had my suspicions.

I took out a cigar, considered it, and bit onto it as I retrieved my lighter.

“Hey, mister. No smoking in here,” Jimmy warned.

On any other world, during any other time in my life, I would have laughed and told him to blow me as I puffed away on the Gronic Fats—but I respected this man for the way he looked after Elise.

He stared at me, his manner firm but business-like. I shrugged and put the cigar in the front pocket of my coat. Maybe he’d come by my table when it wasn’t so busy and I could ask where to find Elise.

“Keep an eye on that one, Tom,” Jimmy said.

The textbook reader swept his finger across the pad, swiping a page, and he glanced up at me as he answered, “I am. Marked him as trouble the first time he was here.”

He adjusted a pair of reading glasses and returned to his pad.

I could tell it was newer but had no idea what it was about.

“That is most likely a library pad,” X-37 provided. “How are my signals?”

“Reading you just fine, X,” I murmured softly, not wanting to draw unnecessary attention.

Something about Tom made me think he was a more important part of the diner crowd than I'd first guessed. Call it instinct.

The man wore a jumpsuit, a machine shop uniform that looked like something he had worn often, probably every day.

It wasn’t long before the two men in trench coats made their approach. I recognized the way they moved. Britton Michaels and Roger Olathe held down their long coats—probably to conceal weapons—as they pushed through the people on the waiting list.

They wore heavier body armor this time—visible through the edges of their faux leather trench coats. Michaels adjusted his lapel and I saw part of a load-bearing harnesses normally used to carry extra ammunition, gas-mask-like helmets, and other dangerous tools. If the police came and cornered them, they were ready to fight it out no matter how much gas was deployed.

Jimmy also saw them. “I don’t want any trouble,” he said warily, placing himself between the men and as many of his patrons as possible. He was a big, burly man but didn’t seem overly confident right now. Their last encounter had taught him caution.

I waited for an incapacitating headache, but it didn’t come. Or maybe it was there and I was just used to it. I wanted to get up, but uncertainty made me pause. What happened if I took action and was suddenly driven to my knees?

When the pair stepped clear of the people in the foyer I knew there would be trouble, and just sitting here was no longer an option, debilitating headaches or not. Each of them held full-faced tactical helmets in their non-gun hands.

“X, this is going to be ugly,” I said.

“The ugliest,” X-37 agreed.

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18

“Where’s the girl?” Michaels asked.

“Had to fire her. She was stealing from petty cash,” Jimmy said, stuttering an otherwise convincing lie.

“Bullshit!” Michaels shoved Jimmy with his free hand.

Olathe slipped on his helmet and raised his shotgun, facing the crowd and shouting a warning. The digitized helmet speakers made his tone ominous. “Stay back. The first person who calls the police gets a slug in their face.”

Michaels put on his helmet then opened his trench coat to reveal a belt-fed machine gun. The ammunition boxes explained some of the added bulk I had noticed earlier. Battered ballistic armor explained the rest.

“Everyone, get on the ground!” Olathe shouted, striking one man in the face with the butt of his weapon. His victim staggered backward and fell hard.

Olathe aimed his shotgun at another man’s face, bumping him with the barrel aggressively. “Get off that fucking comm, asshole!”

Fire filled my veins as I started to move. Pain radiated from my eye. I could still see, but the lights were too bright—every shadow was harsh and disorienting.

I really should have gone to Roxo III. Shoulda, woulda, coulda…there was nothing to be done about it now and I never really had a choice. Elise would have been gone by the time I got my gear fixed and found passage to Greendale.

My legs felt like lead and I struggled not to drag my feet across the tiled floor. Cramps seized my arms, shoulders, and chest. I fell on the ground amongst the other patrons.

“What the hell is happening to me? X, where the fuck are you?” I grunted, holding one of the booths for balance.

No answer.

And then it hit me. There was another Reaper on Greendale and he was jamming my systems. No one else would even know it was possible. There had been contingencies for rogue operators. What the Union had feared most was a bunch of Reapers banding together and forcing their own agenda on legitimate governments and corporations.

Silencing that part of the program was the only time we had all worked together against our Union masters. After we were done, the only people left alive who knew about the Reaper off switch, or the ROS as we had called it, were other Reapers.

Which was just two of us so far as I knew.

Until recently, I’d firmly believed I was the last of us.

“Get the girl. I’m losing my patience,” Michaels said, causing the barrels of his belt-fed machine gun to spin.

Patrons squealed in fear, some unable to resist crawling for the door. The sound of the belt-fed slug thrower cycling up sent a shiver down my spine.

“Bring us the girl, you stupid son-of-a-bitch!” Olathe yelled, firing a round from his shotgun.

Jimmy waved his hands for them to stop and babbled desperately. “No, no, no. I can’t. She’s just a girl. Don’t shoot anymore. You’ll ruin my business. Someone’s going to get hurt.”

“I can pretty much guarantee that, you big oaf,” Michaels shouted.

Sweat ran down my back. I had to get up.

Olathe slammed his shotgun into Jimmy’s gut, then head-butted him with his helmet.

Jimmy staggered, one hand holding the counter and one hand holding his bleeding face. “Just leave her alone. She never did anything to you.”

“People are going to start dying,” Michaels said. “A lot of people. How do you think that will affect your business? Give me the Super Egg Special and a side order of Mass Murder!” he shouted, forcing a laugh. “Are you trying to get everyone killed?”

“I couldn’t give her to you, even if I wanted to. Please just leave,” Jimmy begged.

“He has a fucking safe room,” Olathe said in disgust. “Otherwise, she’d already be ours.”

“We planned for that contingency. Just calm the fuck down and let’s do this,” Michaels said.

I crawled to my feet. “Hey, assholes. Did you plan for this contingency?”

Both men aimed their weapons at me.

“What the fuck?” Olathe exclaimed.

“Did you plan for this contingency?” I repeated, pretending confidence I didn’t have in my condition. “Leave now, and I’ll forget this happened.”

“We were even,” Michaels said. “I ain’t afraid of you, no matter what you are.”

“No fear, man. No fear at all because we have the guns and the armor,” Olathe added, his digitized voice thinner than it had been a moment ago when his victims were helpless civilians.

“I warned you before. And you really should have some fear, punk, because I’m not just going to kill you—”

He fired twice, hitting me with gel rounds, slamming me off my feet and sending me in and out of darkness.

If I was lucky, someone heard all the gunshots and the police were on the way. Staring down the barrel of the shotgun had been a calculated risk. As much as I disliked these two losers, they were smarter than a lot of others like them and probably understood getting caught for mass murder wouldn’t be worth the reward for Elise.

Aggravated assault wasn’t a life sentence. On some worlds, a conviction barely carried any time at all. Most of the smarter criminals had started taking a page from law enforcement, adding less lethal munitions to their options. At close range, even a gel or bag round could be lethal. I knew better than to get hit again.

I writhed on the ground, fighting my malfunctioning technology and new injuries.

There was an explosion as smoke and dust blasted from the back room, coating the dining area in seconds.

The blast disoriented me, a high pitched wheezing sound in my ear as the pressure settled. My optics jerked and danced, distorting my vision. I shook my head, trying to clear some of the fogginess, and heard Elsie screaming curses at them as they dragged her out.

“Give her the needles!” Michaels ordered. “The police are on the way. It’s all over the scanners.”

“Get that away from me, you ball-less—” Elise yelled right before I heard a pop similar to an electronic stun device.

From my position on the floor I couldn’t see a damn thing. The interference between my Reaper LAI and my nerve-ware diminished, but I didn’t know why.

Did that mean the other Reaper was too close to keep the ROS active?

Olathe dragged Elise through the smoke.

She staggered like a zombie and plastic darts stuck out of her side. The Zag City contractors were using an Olson Device. Easily attachable under the barrel of most firearms, the OD launched electric stun darts that also delivered a payload of compliance drugs.

Olson Devices had fallen out of favor after Union agents used them incorrectly, reportedly firing their weapons with the intent to use the non-lethal darts, but accidentally firing their primary weapon instead, killing a man they had wanted to detain on minor charges.

It was a terrible design and it amazed me that they still existed.

“Stop pushing me,” Elise complained groggily.

“You want us to push you,” Michael said.

“Okay, you’re right,” she said, passively resisting until they pushed her out the door. “Just… don’t push so not nicely.”

I pushed to my feet, frustrated at my own sluggishness. Everything seemed impossible. With the powerful drugs flowing through her system there was little chance Elise would be able to escape. Even a full-grown man would have a hard time resisting a dose that size.

Other patrons of the diner had started to stand and were getting in my way. I wanted to scream, because I lacked the strength to shove them aside. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been this weak. The unfamiliar feelings of helplessness surged through me and I wanted to rage against the galaxy.

“Will you please respond, Reaper Cain?” X-37 said so loudly that I yelped. The actual physical sensation of my nerve-ware’s communication mechanism remained a bit of a mystery to me. I knew how it worked, but didn’t dwell on it much.

“It’s about fucking time you showed up,” I growled, pin-balling my way through the crowd. Men and women stared at me like I was some kind of psychotic cybernetic freak show.

I laughed, feeling for my cigar, thinking they weren’t wrong. Time only seemed to slow. When I stepped out of the diner, Michaels and Olathe were still trying to force Elise into their transport.

She writhed against them, twisting her bound arms and kicking at them when she could.

I heard police sirens and it occurred to me that there was never a cop around when you needed one, although even if they showed up, it would probably have only made things worse.

“Let go of me, you squishy jerk!” Elise squealed, sounding about ten years younger than she was. The drugs were making her goofy and gave her profanity a silly quality.

“How much did you give her?” Michaels demanded, struggling to control her.

“I gave her the maximum dose,” Olathe said. “Just push harder. We need to get the hell out of here.”

“I don’t say this to you often,” X-37 said direly, “but you must hide. There is another Reaper launching an attack and you are in no condition to fight him.”

“Really? What makes you think that?” I snorted, resisting the need to vomit from the stress put on my nerve-ware.

“The unknown Reaper is using a shutdown box,” X-37 said. “My records indicated they were all destroyed.”

The shade of Byron Thane crossed my vision, seeming to move slowly as he pulled a knife from the back of his belt and struck twice. Quick as a snake but hard as a jackhammer, he stabbed Michaels in the back of the neck, right below the edge of his helmet—then did the same to Olathe.

Both men fell flat on their faces without a twitch.

The precision of the attack was impressive. The blade had gone between the bottom of the helmet and the top of their body armor and struck between the first and second cervical vertebrae—more effective than a sniper round in the T-zone.

It had also been fast enough he could have done it in a crowd with no one realizing exactly what had happened.

He was fast, deadly, and determined to have Elise.

But he wasn’t Reaper fast. Something was wrong here. I had the very distinct impression any well-trained soldier could do the same thing.

“You are three meters from the ROS. Disable it if you can,” X-37 advised helpfully—because I wouldn’t have thought of that on my own.

The Reaper yanked Elise backward by her hair, then hesitated as though surprised.

Odd. No true Reaper who survived training would have paused like that. Not for any reason.

I visually searched the man’s gear for the ROS box but couldn’t see it. He had a sort of flat backpack on the outside of his long coat that might’ve contained the device but could also be nothing more than an ammunition bumper or a bundle of stealth netting.

He was wearing armor, probably better than what the locals had used, but I couldn’t see the exact model. My nerves tingled with dread.

Byron snapped plastic restraints on her wrists and ankles. Every action was smooth and had the look of a professionally trained martial artist. After restraining her, he tossed Elise over one shoulder in a single, graceful motion.

He turned slightly, hesitating when he saw me as if deciding whether to kill me or not. Byron then strode away as police cars slowed to a stop. One officer just gawked silently at the sight of dead bodies and the crowd swarming out of the diner.

Music boomed from the dance club across the street. Some were farther away, a celebration launched fireworks. Sirens blared, car horns honked, and people who had arrived after the incident babbled stories about whatever.

It was almost as overwhelming as having nerve-ware problems.

I followed the Reaper but couldn’t keep up.

“You are improving,” X-37 said from what seemed like a million miles away. “Your rate of movement has increased point zero zero three five percent since you left the diner.”

I grunted. “I’m glad you’re back. Sort of.”

“I am no longer detecting interference from the ROS. All of your current problems are caused by your neglected health and malfunctioning equipment,” X-37 said.

“You mean the cybernetic attachments I couldn’t get rid of if I wanted to?” I said as Byron’s van sped out of an alleyway and onto the main road.

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19

“We’re fucked, X,” I said.

“Agreed,” the limited AI said too quickly.

The non-Reaper’s getaway vehicle was a copy of the one Michaels and Olathe had used before their untimely deaths. It slowed to a normal speed and merged with traffic.

I ran after it, pushing myself to go faster and fighting through waves of pain and sickness. Glancing back at the diner, I saw more and more cops arriving along with ambulance crews. Before long, half the force would be tied up on the complicated investigation and crowd control.

I wondered if that had been intentional. My rival could've taken Elise himself but had watched and waited as the two locals made a botch of the job. Local law-enforcement and other emergency services were already overloaded, but now they wouldn’t be able to respond to anything else, and I had doubts this clusterfuck was anywhere near complete.

Byron raced through a twelve-lane intersection, electric engine humming, gears shifting aggressively. There was no way I could catch it on foot or even keep it in sight for much longer. My lungs felt like they were on fire and my heart pounded so forcefully, I could feel it. Spots danced in my vision that had nothing to do with malfunctioning nerve-ware.

A trash truck twice the size of the van slammed into it, driving it against a traffic light. Debris flew into the air, the effect compounded by trash spilling from the truck. The sound of the racket was truly amazing, drawing the attention of anyone who hadn't seen it happen.

“All of these vehicle collisions are going to ruin their traffic safety statistics,” X-37 observed.

Laughing hurt. I gasped for air. “True. What a tragedy. Two of their best local assassins also died today. What’s the galaxy coming to?”

Briggs and Crank bailed out of the trash truck, guns blazing as they advanced on the strange Reaper’s van. Briggs and Crank were both precision shooters with a method to their madness. In seconds, the engine block was destroyed, and smoke rose from the cab.

A figure that I assumed to be Byron rolled out of the back, sheathed in KFA, Killing Frenzy Armor. HDK slugs from Briggs and Crank whizzed over his head and punched holes in the van as he ducked down and moved quickly.

The KFA gear looked state-of-the-art despite being designed long before I was sentenced to death row and all of the other Reapers were eliminated. Pressure sensitive spikes and razors flicked in and out of wrist, elbow, and shoulder joints, discouraging anyone from grabbing the wearer.

The sight was intimidating as fuck, even for someone like me. No one in their right—or wrong, for that matter—mind would want to face a metal death demon from hell that couldn’t wait to kill every living thing it could touch. The face mask was a metal skull with glowing eyes and a bright light emitter where a third eye might be. Rumors of this last piece of war-fighting technology implied it could do incredible things, far more than read the environment. It made my single enhanced optic look like a child’s toy.

Briggs and Crank visibly hesitated at the sight of the sleek armor and chain gun the stranger carried. The Union spec ops commandos were elite soldiers who had seen it all and done it twice.

Or so they thought until about two seconds ago. They had come to eliminate a damaged and out-of-date Reaper, and now faced one that had newly constructed, perfectly functioning gear that was state-of-the-art. Their clear advantage in this gun battle had just vanished.

I had trained in the KFA and the MMG, mass murder gun, but never used them. The mask was new, something I’d never actually seen in action.

The MMG had been a running joke in the Reaper Corps mission briefings. One of us would bring up using it, and our handlers would always kill the suggestion. They’d never wanted to use what they called the nuclear option. Simulated terrorist attacks aside, gunning down crowds of people wasn't included in the Reaper SOP.

Slugs ricocheted off the KFA, barely leaving a scratch. The amazing thing about the armor was the extreme efficiency of the design. Lightweight and nearly indestructible, it could be used on long missions. Simple, elegant, and made with the best materials available to the Union, the KFA made the wearer slug-proof for a time—even at close range. There were internal force dampers that reduced the force transfer of bullets that didn’t penetrate.

“Warning, Reaper Cain. The rogue Reaper has two belt-fed MMG auto-cannons,” X-37 said. “You will be pleased to know he can’t operate the ROS and the KFA at the same time.”

“That’s fucking ridiculous. No one needs a two belt MMG,” I said, looking for a hole to crawl into. This shit was about to go south real fast.

No one moved as we regarded each other and the scene took on a surreal edge, calm despite the carnage around us. Then everything happened at once. Briggs, Crank, and the strange Reaper opened fire at the same moment. I moved ninety degrees from the ensuing gun battle to avoid getting shot dead by accident.

HDK rounds peppered the Reaper, the van, and everything near it. Rounds ricocheted off vehicles and buildings, whistling in all directions. Clouds of debris flew into the air, showering the street in shards of glass, pieces of street signs, and dust from the concrete buildings nearby.

At one point, I even saw a pink bobblehead doll through the air, remarkably untouched but still flung sideways by the turbulence of the passing slug.

At the same time, the MMG annihilated the trash truck as Briggs and Crank rushed away from it in search of better cover.

A round took Briggs in the chest, hurling him backward and probably ruining his body armor if it didn’t kill him outright. Seconds later, Crank took another round on his helmet that caused him to do a back flip and land prone, unable or unwilling to move.

Police, likely from the diner a few blocks away, arrived next, adding to the chaos.

The Reaper, Byron Thane, or whoever the fuck was in the KFA, opened fire on the cops. I couldn’t see what happened next because I was too busy taking my own cover, but it didn’t look good for the inadequately armed law enforcement.

The shooting stopped then and I peeked out just in time to see a gas grenade go flying in the air in the direction of the cops.

It exploded, filling the intersection with smoke and tear inducing gas.

I was already running for the van, coughing from the expanding cloud of smoke that helped carry the chemical agents. I’d seen a short window of opportunity. The gunfire stopped after Briggs and Crank went down and wouldn’t resume until more police arrived in a few seconds.

Yanking open the only functioning door of the van, I saw Elise staring back at me. Wide-eyed and tied up, she was speechless for once.

“I won’t let him take you,” I promised, climbing in.

She shook her head violently, squirming against her bonds to warn me my word was about to be tested.

I knew it. Of course I wouldn’t get this lucky.

OceanofPDF.com

20

Impossibly strong hands grabbed the back of my coat, yanking me backward. I knew the KFA armor enhanced strength through the efficient use of tension and leverage points in the subnormal layers. It didn’t make a wearer superhuman. That came from the cybernetics limb replacements each of us had volunteered to accept.

I twisted free then dodged sideways, looking for a way to counterattack. The auto-shotguns were clamped next to the ammunition canister on his back to keep his hands free. If I stayed close to him, he probably wouldn't be able to use them on me.

The resurrected version of Byron Thane, if that was who this was, growled at me from inside the distinctive helmet mask that resembled the demon graffiti he used to draw on everything.

Years ago, he had started painting a skull across his visor with one-way paint he could see through. The terrifying visage was well known in the Reaper community. Our helmets had been fully interfaced with hundreds of micro cameras instead of looking through a face-shield.

Unable to continue the tradition with the mask, he’d painted something similar on his chest plate—a serrated ribcage instead of a skull.

Something wasn’t right. My gut told me this had been done specifically for me, because to anyone else, it would just look like scary battle art. Only another Reaper would know the significance of what this was—and I was the last Reaper. Or so I’d thought.

The paint was too fresh and the design a little too crisp. Byron Thane had been a sloppy artist, throwing his creativity on whatever “canvas” he chose with reckless abandon.

“I thought you were dead. How did you get off that rooftop?” I asked.

The three eyes flashed but he didn’t answer and instead tried to grab me, keeping his right hand back so he could draw one of his weapons or deliver a powerful thrust punch.

I parried the strike and moved out of his line of attack. Aiming a roundhouse kick at his knee, I stopped the last second, realizing I would miss because he was already moving in anticipation of the blow.

“Who the hell are you?” I demanded as we circled each other.

His answer was a digitized voice that sounded a lot like the man I remembered. He’d chosen settings to make himself scarier, when I knew the helmet mask was capable of transmitting his voice with crystal clear clarity.

“You know me,” he growled ominously.

I backed up a step to give myself room. If I went much farther, I’d have no chance of reaching the van and trying to save Elise. She was banging around in there, probably trying to wiggle free of her restraints or throw herself bodily out of the cargo door.

The girl didn't know how to quit. Even when she had been alone on a moon-sized prison station surrounded by murderers and rapists, she’d resisted with courage and a powerful rage to rival any soldier.

The Reaper tensed for another attack, but I beat him to it, hitting him with words more powerful than his MMG.

“You shouldn’t have engaged that sniper,” I said.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

I knew he wasn’t the same man I’d trained with, but I also didn’t know the truth of him. I continued the lie, pretending he was the person he claimed to be. “We were a team, but you did your own thing. Got yourself killed,” I said.

“Do I look dead to you?” he blurted, the mask distorting his voice.

“We all knew you were the best marksman in the Corps, but you were standing and firing from the shoulder while the enemy sniper engaged you from a prone position with known range markers,” I elaborated.

Every detail I shared caused another pause. My conclusion about this stranger grew firmer the more we talked. I was also stalling, hoping for an opportunity to win. And that meant grabbing Elise and getting out of here with both of us alive.

I wasn’t sure how to make that happen. The police were surrounding us. Citizens were clearing away from the area. My situation wasn’t exactly improving, but since it couldn’t get any worse, I was keen to keep playing the game.

And I wanted to know who this asshole was. What was his problem? How did he know so much about me?

He rolled his shoulders, sidestepping once again to seek an advantage for his next attack.

I suddenly realized something about his arms.

“I could just blow you in half with this,” he said, gesturing at the MMG.

“You could,” I said, even more certain of what I had seen. Both of his arms were cybernetic, which explained why he’d been able to yank me out of the van so easily. If he had two arms full of hardware, I was betting he had added infrastructure to his spinal column and core to support the extra weight and torque the Reaper arms would exert.

“Put down your weapons, we have you surrounded,” a voice shouted over the intercom. “This is the Zag City Defense Force. Surrender immediately.”

“Don’t you remember anything from our training?” I asked. “Public shootouts never end well.”

The Reaper who was posing as Byron Thane cursed, then spun away, lunging into the van and hauling Elise out by her hair.

“You there, put the girl down!” the Defense Force commander ordered.

Elise, still bound hand and foot, twisted in his grip, screaming through the gag Olathe was biting into her face.

I rushed the Reaper from the side, hoping to catch him distracted, but he turned and kicked me in the gut, hurling me backward and driving the air from my lungs.

I rolled to a stop and struggled to my feet. “Fuck,” I grunted. “You’re gonna pay for that.”

The stranger laughed, backing away from my pathetic attempts to fight back. He hoisted Elise almost gingerly onto his shoulder, his mouth moving as he whispered something to her.

“Did he just apologize to her?” I asked.

“Yes. He was very polite. Almost chivalrous,” X-37 confirmed.

Briggs and Crank came to their feet, then moved forward as a team. The unit’s commander threatened to deploy more gas and call in air support.

Waves of pain and disorientation crippled me once the stranger Reaper sprinted away from me. The imposter had reactivated the ROS. At this range, my teeth vibrated from the powerful signal it sent out.

Byron Thane ran toward the weakest section of the police containment, breaking through easily. Briggs and Crank altered course, heading straight for me. I turned and surrendered to the Defense Force team.

Looking back at the Union commandoes, I gave Briggs and Crank the finger right before the cops handcuffed me. “Fuck off, Briggs.”

“Don’t antagonize them, sir,” the cop said.

“You’re right,” I said. “They can dish it out but can’t take it.”

OceanofPDF.com

21

Briggs stormed forward, assuming his best command presence. “Who’s in charge here?”

I wasn’t in a position to see the conversation, but I heard it despite a trio of cops shoving me into the back of a transport vehicle.

Briggs shouted, “That man’s a Union fugitive. You will surrender him to my custody immediately!”

“After we process him at the booking desk,” a voice drawled. “We have to secure this area first. Stop being a problem or you’ll find yourself in a cell next to him.”

My guards pressed me into a corner, not sure what to do about my cybernetic arm.

Briggs sounded closer to the back door of the police van now, arguing loudly as he made his move. “I’m an officer in the Union military!”

“Then you know it’s a different chain of command, sir!” another officer shouted back. “Stand aside and let us do our job. This is a lawful warning to step back! Do it now!”

The officers restraining me finally decided to cuff me to the wall by my non-augmented wrist and slammed the door in my face. The van pulled away seconds later, nearly throwing me off the narrow plastic bench.

“X, can you hear me?” I asked.

“Barely. The interference is decreasing, but you still need re-calibration of all Reaper systems. The ROS made things worse, I’m afraid. Even if you can permanently disable the device, you’ve sustained unexpected neural damage from this ordeal,” X-37 said.

I nodded, too tired and miserable to form words. My jacket pocket was empty. I’d either lost my cigar or one of the cops had taken what was left of it.

“I’m about done with this shitty day,” I muttered.

“There will be another tomorrow,” X-37 promised.

“Thanks for that little ray of sunshine, X. Real nice. You should go on the motivational speaking circuit,” I said, studying the small window between the prisoner compartment where I was confined and the driver’s area.

Their radio was cranked up to full volume. The driver and his partner were agitated, constantly diverting their attention between the dispatcher’s voice and the chaos around them.

All I could see were little snapshots of Zag City as we headed for the police station.

“Transport Forty-nine Bravo to Dispatch, request alternate route. This section is cluttered with disabled vehicles. If we continue on Gold Street, we’ll get hung up in the crime scene around Jimmy’s place,” the passenger of the van argued with their dispatcher.

I listened.

“There was a report of shots fired,” the dispatcher said. “Are we getting a duplicate call or is there still fighting out there?”

“It’s all over and done with, dispatch,” the passenger said. “One of the street cops told me he thought someone tried to kill Jimmy.”

The driver interjected, “Make sure they have a secure cell ready at the jail. This prisoner’s trouble.”

“Copy that,” the dispatcher said. “I hope Jimmy is okay. He’s good people. Standby. Got a priority call. Suspect pursuit in the area. There were shots fired. What the hell are you people doing out there?”

“What channel are they operating on?” the passenger asked.

“Tac 2. Tac 1 is being used for the car chase, gun battle/shooting incident,” the dispatcher advised.

“Switch over,” the driver said.

“On it.” The passenger leaned toward the controls and made adjustments.

I twisted against my restraints, gently at first, looking for the breaking point. If they’d put this cuff on my other hand, it would’ve been easy. As it was, they had still grossly underestimated me.

The commander had been rushing them, I thought. Or they just didn’t care about their jobs.

“All units, be advised, suspect is armed and dangerous. Firearms, knives, and confirmed reports of cybernetic arms,” another dispatcher said. “Be advised, suspect still has a hostage. Last seen wearing a metal skull mask.”

“Get us some help at 1st and Silver Street, we have officers down, critical injuries,” a police officer’s voice shouted into his radio.

“Hold on, we’re sending a medical transport,” the dispatcher said. Moments later, he was diverting other units to engage the fleeing suspect.

I was keenly interested to know how this would play out. There hadn’t been any deaths besides Michaels and Olathe that I’d heard, but if they thought they could take down the stranger by force, there was going to be some blood.

Whoever this guy was and despite all of his enhancements, he struck me as amateur. Sure he got the drop on me and two spec ops soldiers, but one thing they hammered into our heads was never to create a public spectacle unless it was a last resort. Just because he could shank two assassins on a public street didn't make him anything special. I've seen kills with more finesse in prison.

Look what happened to Michaels and Olathe.

I worked the fingers of my left hand into the handcuff mechanism and exerted pressure, finding the balance between what my un-augmented wrist could withstand and the breaking point of the metal. It hurt like hell, but I was able to break the restraints.

Sitting there as though I was still chained to the wall, I waited for a reaction from my guards. The passenger looked back two or three times, but never for long. I showed him what he expected to see and he didn’t question my silence. The man had probably done hundreds of transports without an escape.

I scooted closer to the back door, paused, then repeated the process. The guard in the front passenger seat looked back through the window, saw how close I was to the door, and frowned.

“The door is locked, buddy. Don’t get any ideas,” he said, narrowing his eyes at me.

I looked down, not wanting to engage in conversation long enough for him to realize I was not only in the wrong place but that there was a set of broken handcuffs hanging from the wall near his window. The angle was bad, but if he shifted a few inches, he would see them.

The van hit a curb. The passenger yelled at the driver to watch what he was doing. I wedged the fingers of my Reaper hand into the seam of the double door and twisted. A jolt of energy surged through the cybernetic arm. My fingers punched through the lock, metal squealing like a dying violin.

I flinched in pain, wishing I’d never agreed to the arm. Or the Reapers. Or the mission to Dreadmax. Regret wasn’t my style, but I was tired and angry that I had failed Elise again.

The van came to a stop. Both men were leaning toward the radio, listening with rapt attention. Through the small barred window, I saw they were at a traffic light.

I nudged the door open and rolled out as quietly as possible. When the van started to pull away, I gently shut the door. “Bye,” I said sarcastically.

A homeless man pushing a shopping cart stared at me. He looked like I felt, broken down and old.

The other thing the transport officers hadn’t done well was pat me down. I fished a credit token out of my pocket and tossed it to the man. He held it up to his greasy beard, sniffing it with a nose that had been broken several times.

He pulled a Starbrand cigar out of a greasy pocket and offered it to me. “Got a gold band. Has to be real.”

“No thanks, it’s a fake,” I said.

He frowned indignantly, backing away from me like I had just offended him. “Well, fuck you. I don’t need your charity. That’s a damn good cigar. I never share my good ones like that.”

Knowing that I was too tired and miserable to smoke a cigar was a low point for me. “It’s a fake,” I repeated, unapologetic. “And I have shit to do.”

“Whatever, freak,” he said to my back.

The smell of cigar smoke drifted over me as I staggered into the shadows. With the clubs closing and the late night dinner crowd seated in various restaurants, the streets were quiet in this neighborhood. Maybe they would have a gun battle to liven things up.

Anything could happen in Zag City.

“X, can you help me find Frank’s place?” I asked.

“I can, Reaper Cain. He won’t be happy to see you,” X-37 warned.

I needed a place to rest and fix my arm. It twitched and spasmed. The last time it had malfunctioned, I’d been lucky. Ripping open a lock was a neat side effect of a power surge. Sooner or later, I was going to hurt myself or kill someone at random.

“You need to find a place to rest,” X-37 said. “Everything is controlled through your nerve-ware. Your fatigue is aggravating the hardware problems.”

I slipped down a side street and leaned against a wall, holding my mechanical arm with my natural arm. Squatting, I loosened an external panel and flipped up. Inside, there were controls that needed tools to be properly adjusted.

“Someone is following you,” X-37 warned.

I froze, aware that movement drew attention. It was ridiculous, but freezing like a rabbit was the best I could do in the current circumstance. If I kept allowing enemies to sneak up on me like this, I wouldn’t last much longer.

“Hello? Are you there?” a man asked.

He sounded familiar and the moment I saw his profile in the poor lighting, I realized who he was. It was Tom from the diner, the man who read technical manuals for fun.

“I see you and assume you see me. I’m not coming any closer until you tell me I should. Getting killed isn’t really what I had planned for my evening,” he said.

“Who the hell are you?” I asked, standing up.

“Friends call me Tom. Elise told me about you. Seems like you’re having a rough time. I was trying to follow the men who took her and saw what happened to you.” He laughed shortly. “Still can't believe you just gave up to the cops.”

“It was a strategic decision,” I said dismissively.

“It makes sense now. Creative thinking isn’t really my strong point. I fix things, and from what I’ve seen, you need my help,” he said.

“It’s a little too coincidental that you show up right when I need you,” I said.

“Actually,” X-37 said, “I’ve been reviewing images from the diner and what he has said so far. I’m actually surprised it took him this long to approach you. My records indicate he spotted your arm the first time you went into the diner and probably knew something was wrong with it then.”

“How do I know you’re not the one causing my arm to malfunction?” I asked.

He shrugged and took a step closer. “I can’t see how I would do anything to your arm without some sort of control device. Do you mind if I step in from the street? If a cop sees me, they’d be likely to come investigate what I’m doing here this time of night. Might be different if I was dressed for the town, but all I got is this.” He pulled on his jumpsuit top near his name tag.

“Suit yourself, Tom. Do you have some tools?” I asked, eyeing a bag he kept slung over his shoulder.

“Just my work stuff. Real basic,” he said, looking embarrassed.

“If you really want to help me, let’s go back to your shop and see what we can do,” I said, hoping his fondness for Elise would translate into helping me save her.

“I don’t have a shop,” he said.

“You have an apartment or some type of domicile?” I asked, expecting him to say where it was.

He shook his head. “No, I mostly just stay at work or the diner then try to sleep someplace out of sight. I fix gear for some of the cops on my beat and they don’t hassle me too much.”

My assessment of the older man changed. He wasn’t as elderly as I had assumed. Living on the street had given him a harder edge. He was probably in his mid-fifties but just looked significantly older. When I really paid attention, I saw the signs of wear on his clothing and realized his tool bag probably had a change of clothes and maybe some basic grooming supplies.

“Let me take a look at what you have there,” he offered, nodding at my arm.

I thought about it for a second, then motioned for him to follow me toward a trash dumpster that we used as a makeshift bench. I stretched my arm across it, and he took a look, whistling softly.

“I won’t be able to do much. My expertise is in mechanical things, not computerized systems or a complicated nerve-ware nexus,” he said. “I think I can tighten up some things that have been banged around. Maybe solder this connection point here. How long has this been damaged?”

“Why are you helping me?” I asked, ignoring the inquiry.

“Can you answer my question first?”

“That happened before I came to Greendale,” I said, nodding at the section of my Reaper arm he was examining.

I waited for him to answer my question.

“Elise has helped me out several times. Makes me a bundle of food she pretends Jimmy doesn’t know about,” he said.

“Do you fix things for Jimmy?” I asked.

“Sure. All the time. He offered me a job, which I took for a while, but there wasn’t enough work. Mostly I was his janitor. Where I work now pays real money,” he said.

“If you have money, why don’t you have a place to live?” I asked.

“I’ve been saving up for something,” he said. “I’ve got some debt I have to repay, then I’m getting a ticket off Greendale, which ain’t cheap neither.”

For a mechanical engineering genius, he spoke slowly and often reverted to uneducated street language.

He worked quietly on my arm for several minutes and I was surprised to find immediate relief.

“How’s that?” he asked.

Tension I hadn’t realized was there slipped away from my shoulder where the arm attached. “Feels great,” I admitted.

“It won’t help with the power surges you seem to be experiencing. I saw you go down when those two assholes attacked Jimmy’s place. I know you were trying to stand up, but something was shocking the shit out of you,” he said. “What I fixed was something else. Your servos were seriously out of alignment. Very inefficient. The muscles in your shoulder and upper back and probably your chest were having to compensate.”

“You’re a doctor now? And a physical therapist?” I asked, instantly regretting my tone.

He laughed it off. “I read a lot.”

“You’re helping me because you want me to help Elise,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

“That’s about it,” he said. “I’ve got mixed feelings about it, though. You’re probably going to take her away and I won’t like that much.”

“Maybe we can work something out,” I said. “But right now, I need to find a place to rest and give my neural interface a break. You don’t have an apartment and I’m not interested in sleeping under a park bench.”

If he took offense, he didn’t say anything. I had hoped that he had someplace I could sleep for a few hours instead of imposing on Frank and his family. But I needed to check on them anyway.

“Take care of yourself, Tom,” I said.

“Are you going to get her back from that monster who grabbed her?” Tom asked.

“Yep.”

“How are you going to do that?” he asked.

“Most of my plans involve killing a lot of people,” I said.

He went pale and backed away. “Just take care of her. Greendale isn’t a good place for her. You can’t understand how hard she works to stay independent. Mister Gold tried to make her part of his harem before she roughed up the men who came to take her.”

“You saw that happen and didn’t do anything?” I asked.

“I’m not a fighter. I was getting ready to tackle one of them, maybe buy her some time to run away, but she just kicked one in the balls and punched the other guy. Broke his fingers. Threatened to rip his face off like a Reaper,” Tom recalled.

“Interesting,” X-37 murmured.

I told him the location of the spaceport where the Jellybird was parked. “Look for me there. If I can help you, I will. You tell anyone about my ship, however, and I’ll pop your head off with this.”

I opened and closed my left fist.

His eyes went wide, then he laughed nervously. “Sure glad I tuned it up.”

He glanced at his feet nervously. He was still looking down when I slipped away.

* * *

I thought about Tom and the things he had said as I moved into Frank's neighborhood. He clearly had a rough life but seemed focused on what was essential. The man obviously cared for Elise, respected Jimmy, and desired to learn new things. I'd seen his type before, the perpetual problem solver.

There was a good chance he had received his training from the Union military, probably the Corps of Engineers on some minor planet. If I had things to do over, I might've found someone like him to look after Elise in the first place. Maybe he wasn’t a fighter, but he was smart and had his heart in the right place. At the very least, I could have helped Frank and Jimmy.

It didn't matter. Greendale was too hot. There was a contract out on Elise and the Union knew where she was. I had to take her someplace else.

Whether she wanted to go or not.

The lobby of Frank’s building was empty. I wondered where the attendant was, but decided it was simpler this way. The door was still wedged open so that anyone could have free rein of the building.

That didn't make me feel good, knowing Michaels and Olathe could have come here and killed them all.

I knew I should feel better now that the two assassins were dead. But I didn't. “X, I'm about done with the city and this planet.”

“Then perhaps you should expedite your trip to see Frank and get yourself put back together,” X-37 said.

OceanofPDF.com

22

X-37 was right. Frank was more than mad, he was downright furious. It wasn’t every day I saw a man trembling with righteous anger, actually shaking with the effort not to lash out. His inability to control his emotions made me uncomfortable and I wondered if he thought I was embarrassed.

“I’m sorry about Elise,” he said through gritted teeth. “But after hearing the threat you made to those men—who the news said were dead, by the way—and watching you turn downtown Zag City inside out, I can’t have you around my family. You promised to stay away.”

Frank’s voice trembled and I could hear the fear in it. Despite his fear he didn’t back down and his eyes glinted with anger as he faced me. The fact that he knew what I was, what I was capable of, and what he believed I had done today but still stood up to me earned him my respect.

I held up my hands in a gesture of peace.

“I just need an hour to put myself back together and some privacy,” I promised. “I wouldn't have come here if I had any other choice. And I didn’t do any of what you saw on the news. You know there’s a contract on Elise and it’s attracting a lot of attention.”

My words didn’t seem to have any effect on Frank and he didn’t move from the doorway. “Are you not hearing me? Get the fuck out of my building.” He jabbed an angry finger down the hall.

Behind him, his wife was just as angry. I had only paid fleeting attention to her before, noting that she was average height, with dark hair and eyes. She stood with her arms crossed and her jaw locked, but I felt a twinge of hope when her eyes seemed to soften at my sorry state.

“I told you not to get involved with this guy. But look at him. We can’t turn him out. That’ll draw more attention than just letting him do what he needs to do and leave.”

I didn’t say anything.

Frank glared at me as he thought it over. “Give me your word that as soon as you have Elise you’ll leave and never come back.”

“You have it,” I said, nodding curtly.

After a long moment he stood aside enough to let me inside.

What followed was an awkward exchange of time during which I sat across the living room from his kids, each of them watching me with wide eyes while Frank and his wife cooked food and argued in the kitchen.

After an uncomfortably silent dinner I slept in the video room in Frank's good chair and fell into an exhausted sleep.

* * *

When I opened my eyes the next day, I didn’t exactly feel like a million credits, but definitely better.

Seeing Frank’s family in their tiny apartment had put things in perspective. He didn't have time to take care of Elise. He certainly didn’t have the ability to fight off contract killers and Union spec ops soldiers. Or rogue Reapers. We’d been friends a long time ago when we both thought hard work paid off and nothing mattered more than honor. Knowing I’d been responsible for putting them in danger affected me deeply and I left Frank's apartment building with unusual carelessness.

I ran through the events since I first saw Byron Thane. I was sure the stranger wasn't my old semi-rival. None of us had been forced to give up both arms.

In my battered state, with all of my internal gear in revolt, I wasn't making good decisions or thinking clearly. I invented a dozen scenarios where Thane survived and dragged himself to safety to rebuild himself and plot revenge.

Laughing crazily, I wasn't sure why I found any of this funny. I used a wall for balance, moving slowly and wishing I had let Tom show me a good bridge to sleep under.

The neon lights and fireworks of the Zag City entertainment district had annoyed me, but this neighborhood was far more intimidating. There was only one streetlight on the corner. It flickered and hummed loudly.

I heard voices arguing from a window but couldn't determine the direction. A trash truck accelerated and decelerated down alleyways. The sound of drunken laughter and bottles clinking drifted on the night air.

“Are you with me, X?” I asked.

“I am here, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said, the connection strong, steady, and reassuring.

“I'm in a bind here, buddy,” I said.

X-37 chuckled, which I had almost forgotten he could do. “You haven't called me that since our early days. Your personality has shifted since then.”

“What do you know about personality?” I asked, sensing something dangerous I couldn't see.

“The rhythm and inflection of your voice tells me a great deal about your mood. Also, your word choice matters. I eventually realized there is a natural drift in the vocabulary that you utilize. It was very alarming at first.”

“What do you mean?” I was curious, but only half listening now.

“My algorithms were not adequate to handle the shift away from our early conversation style. I was not sure if you were the same person and had to consult with other limited AIs during an upgrade session at headquarters,” X-37 said.

I backed into a doorway, the alarm at what he was saying pushing aside anything I might encounter on this dark street. “What are you talking about, X? Reaper limited AIs can't talk to each other. This was made extremely clear during my training. And why is this the first time I’ve heard about the upgrading sessions at headquarters?”

“I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you,” X-37 said.

The phrase had the quality of a prerecorded message and I wasn't even sure if X-37 was aware he had said it. “Say again?”

“I was explaining that my upgrading sessions at headquarters assisted me with analyzing your personality biometrics,” X-37 said.

“Why didn't I know about these sessions before?” I asked, testing a theory.

There was a long silence followed by several clicks. “I'm sorry, Reaper Cain, did you ask a question?”

Loud voices approached and I didn’t respond. I pressed deeper into the doorway, hoping the shadows were enough to conceal me.

Bones and his two favorite henchmen led the way, better armed and more serious than the last time I saw them. They were searching for someone.

“Don't move,” X-37 said.

I wanted to laugh at the advice, and since they were passing my doorway by only a few meters, the chance of being caught if I made a sound was high.

Which of course made me want to laugh even more.

I'd had so many Reaper AI-induced headaches and body spasms at this point that I wasn't sure they ever went away entirely. My body ached from the fatigue of dealing with the pain. My stomach was in constant rebellion, trying to eat itself or empty itself, depending on which way the night breeze blew.

Bones and his crew were drinking something that smelled like rocket fuel. I felt bad for whoever they ran into. They were in a violent mood, ready to fight anyone, including each other. Crude bandages and a splint suggested they hadn’t received adequate medical attention after our last altercation.

They stopped just out of view and went disturbingly quiet. I thought they were popping some stim tabs or maybe shooting up with needles. It was hard to be certain just by the sound. All I knew was that they weren't laughing and joking and bragging about all the people they were gonna beat up and women they're going to get with.

“And remember, you stinking fuck holes, we see that freak, we rush in hard. No mercy,” Bones jeered drunkenly.

His crew cheered.

When they were about one hundred meters beyond my position and carrying on like a bunch of drunken and doped-up assholes, I slipped quietly from my hiding place and went the other direction.

“I don't like the way this feels,” I muttered to X-37.

“Tactical retreat is a perfectly valid option in many circumstances,” X-37 said. “Shall I refrain from calling you a gutless punk for not committing suicide?”

“I could still take them. It wouldn’t be a suicide mission,” I asserted, despising my defensive tone even as the words left my mouth.

“My analysis suggests it would be a mistake to test that theory,” X-37 said.

Breaking contact with an enemy was something taught during basic infantry training. Bones and his crew moved further away, never looking back. Despite their fierceness, they'd never do well against soldiers. I couldn't tell if they watched their flanks, but they did nothing to protect their rearguard.

I moved slowly, careful not to draw their attention. A dog barked when I passed but slunk away when I looked at it. The single streetlight on the corner flickered. I disappeared into the shadows.

It took me nearly an hour to work my way back to the spaceport. The place was even more austere than I remembered. There weren't guards, service crews, or civilians loitering near the gate.

X-37 opened it for me.

“How is it that the Union doesn't monitor this spaceport?” I asked.

“Someone has paid substantial bribes to make this a smugglers’ hub,” X-37 answered. “Our encounters with Bones and those like him misrepresent the sophistication of the criminal element on Greendale. The assassins’ guild is a better representation, but not the total picture.”

“Well, I learn something every day,” I said with a bit more sarcasm than was strictly necessary.

“Zag City is as complex as any place in the Union or the Deadlands. We could spend a lifetime here and only learn a fraction of what it has to offer,” X-37 lectured.

“Where are you pulling your data from, X, a travel brochure?” I asked, moving across the tarmac to my ship. The ramp lowered and I boarded, feeling a sense of relief I hadn't experienced for a long time.

In general, Reapers didn't have their own ships. They needed to travel light and be able to drop everything for the sake of a mission.

But I wasn't a Reaper anymore. I was something else, a rogue or outlaw perhaps. But even those definitions seemed inaccurate. What I was, was a man with a score to settle and all of the tools I needed to do it violently.

“Welcome aboard, Captain,” Jelly said brightly. “How was your trip to the city?”

“Do you want to answer that, X?” I asked, working my way to the locker room to strip out of my dirty clothing and take a shower. I rummaged through my pockets but didn't find what I was looking for. Then I remembered the cops had taken my cigars.

That was a shame, because I was starting to grow attached to the cheap Gronic Fats. I doubted they were sold off-world and I didn't plan to return to that gloomy place.

As much as I wanted to take a long, luxurious shower, I went through the basics like I was getting called to drill by an angry sergeant. I dressed, thankful that I had no more attacks from my Reaper hardware. “I've got a question, X,” I said.

“I can't wait to answer it,” X-37 said.

“Can you block the ROS with Jelly’s help?”

X-37 sounded pleased when he gave me the answer. “Yes, we certainly can. With our combined power and the shielding of the ship, I can block the ROS.”

I relaxed and went to the bridge. The hallways were narrow, the ceiling short, and it was already feeling like home. The door to the bridge opened. I entered and lowered myself carefully into the pilot seat.

“Okay, Jelly, I’ve got a job for you,” I said.

“What can I do for you, Captain?” she asked.

“I'd like you to check with spaceports and see if Elise or this unknown Reaper have left the planet,” I said.

“My design allows me better manipulation of ship logs and travel manifests,” Jelly said. “Tracking individuals is more of a job for X-37.”

“Work together,” I suggested. “I'll do what I can on my workstation just in case your combined computing power overlooks something a little human random guessing might put together.”

Some time passed. I shifted in my seat, already tightening up from my recent efforts. The workout I had performed before going to Zag City was also hitting me.

“Are you ready for an update, Captain?” Jelly asked.

“Hit me,” I said.

“Captain?” Jelly seemed confused and a bit alarmed.

“He means give him the answer,” X-37 provided.

“We believe we have confirmed that Elise has not left Greendale. However, for us to conclusively predict and foil any future attempts would take all of our combined processing power.”

“Do what you can,” I said.

“You may have to live without us for a time, Captain,” Jelly said. “It's a big job and Greendale has a surprising level of black-market access to the Gal-net. That, in combination with the ROS you encountered, makes it difficult for us to interact with you in real time when you're on the planet, even on the ship to a certain extent.”

“Fine. I could use some personal space anyway,” I said, not really meaning it. Now that I was faced with the prospect of going it alone, I wished X and Jelly could be my constant companions.

OceanofPDF.com

23

“I have a further recommendation, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“I’m sure you do.” I rummaged through my locker until I found my backup repair kit, checked to be sure I still had Glandarian silicon beads, and tucked the slim case into my new-to-me jacket.

I strode toward the deployment ramp, wishing I had armor like the mysterious Reaper. All I had at this point was the handgun Frank had given me. It was a large caliber weapon, .45 inches, one of the more archaic measurement systems nobody really understood, and held seven rounds—eight if I added one in the chamber after racking up the first time and flipping on the safety.

“What’s your recommendation, and don't tell me to get some sleep,” I said.

“Please disregard, then,” X-37 said.

The jacket only reached my mid thighs, leaving less options for weapons concealment. It also had a stale odor from being in storage. I didn't know who the prior owner had been, but we had the same love of cigars.

I fished in the pockets and was pleased to find a prize in the front. The tobacco inside the dark brown paper was dry, crumbly, and falling apart. Rolling it between my palms compacted it a bit. I examined my work and shrugged. The paper smoked too much—actually throwing sparks for a second—when I finally lit it, but it was something.

Without a proper holster, I had limited options for carrying the .45. The weapon was a bit flashy, the chrome slide covered in scrollwork. Pearl inlays decorated the grips.

It was a show gun, a family heirloom most likely. But it had its good points. There was a distinct grip that fit well with my hand and the sights were beefed up to make it easier to acquire a target in a close fight. The trigger had also been worked on and felt smooth.

I tucked it through my belt, then slid it to my back. Before I left the ship, I practiced sweeping open the jacket and drawing it a few times.

For this type of weapon, I preferred to use my right hand. Sensitivity was greater with my organic parts and I wanted to make every shot count if I had to fight.

Was I prepared to face a strange Reaper wearing KFA?

Not even close, but I'd make it work.

“Do you have updates on Elise or her captor?” I said aloud, sitting on a bench despite wanting to rush back into the city and begin searching.

“We are still monitoring police radios and media releases,” X-37 said. “It seems they have no leads. Their public information office is also promising a thorough investigation and inevitable apprehension of the suspect, but my analysis suggests this is just meant to appease the public.”

“What about the Union?” I asked.

“They have one lightly armed transport freighter in the system,” Jelly said. “X-37 has informed me that this is a standard operating procedure for special missions. I've done a larger analysis of the system, however, and found no military support craft should they fall victim to pirates or renegades. We've agreed that this means their mission is more secretive than normal.”

“Could be useful information when we leave the system,” I acknowledged.

“As for locating Elise, we have no further clues except for one. There is a dead zone near section 32 of the First Intergalactic Spaceport Corporation. The FISC handles all industrial transportation. While not the ideal departure point from Greendale, it is possible that someone tried to avoid Union scrutiny and attempted to stowaway on one of the larger vessels.”

“If I were Briggs, the FISC hub would probably be my base of operations on Greendale,” I said. “Have you identified the unidentified soldier?”

“Based on compressed photo archives from your own Reaper nerve-ware, that is Byron Thane—believed to have been killed in action five years ago,” X-37 said.

I hadn't expected there to be an identification database for the Reapers. Until recently, I thought my nerve-ware was the sole remaining record that existed. Identification matrixes, however, had been very important to the Reaper Corps. A significant amount of my data storage was taken up by compressed mugshots.

“That confirms what I saw, but is there other evidence?” I asked.

“It will take several weeks for a detailed analysis, but my initial opinion of the way this individual moves and operates is that this is not Byron Thane. He could be a close relation, most likely a son, or a clone,” X-37 explained.

“Reapers don't have kids. The background checks were extensive and I never met any member of the RC who thought bringing more kids into this galaxy was a good idea,” I said.

“That suggests a clone is more likely, despite no known cloning facility in operation,” X-37 said.

“I'm heading to the FISC. Keep me updated,” I said, then left the Jellybird.

* * *

Fighting through the galaxy as the last surviving Reaper with the entire Union and most of humanity out to get me wasn't all exciting close quarter combat and gun battles. Most of it was tedious legwork, like keeping surveillance on an industrial launch pad and hoping for a lead. If this didn't work, I was going to have to start over and that meant violating my promise to Frank and his family.

My position was good but not perfect. I'd chosen to remain at street level to avoid being silhouetted against the city lights. Like the residential area Frank lived in, this part of Zag City had the minimum amount of illumination. If I went across the rooftops, I could be seen silhouetted against the sparkling downtown in the distance.

I was getting used to the big city nights, even if I could never participate in the festivities. Partying had never been my style. I didn't miss it. For now, I was content to watch other people live normal lives if that was what they were doing, drinking and drugging themselves to death while in search of high-risk sexual partners.

Maintaining the high ground did have advantages in many situations. Before long, I felt someone watching me and understood my nemesis had also chosen that option. Though I wasn't sure how he could carry Elise and navigate the upper levels of the city, which would sometimes require him to jump from building to building.

“Perhaps you should have overcome your fear of heights, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

A memory of crossing one of the maintenance trenches on Dreadmax caused me to shudder. “I'm not afraid of heights, I'm just smart.”

“Was that sarcasm or denial?” X-37 asked.

“Whatever,” I said, distracted. I could feel eyes on me and cast a casual glance around looking for whoever was watching me. I'd known the mysterious Reaper, especially if he was Byron Thane, would take the high ground because Byron knew of my aversion to high places. So I'd been watching for just such a tactic.

Surprising me, even in this environment, should've been impossible. “What's the chance this guy has switched out his KFA for one of the stealth armor prototypes?”

I saw the blur of his silhouette on a fire escape above me as the words left my mouth.

“It's about time you saw me,” the Reaper said, his voice more natural but still muffled by his gear. “I was told you always did have your head in the clouds, Cain.”

“Where is Elise?” I asked.

“She's okay,” the man said. “I wouldn’t do anything to her.”

I noticed something about his voice, the rhythm of his words. Talking about the young woman made him uncomfortable.

“Why shouldn't I have engaged that sniper? I was always the best marksman in the Reaper Corps,” he said.

His voice was low and probing with an intensity that suggested he really wanted to know my opinion. That wasn't like the Byron Thane I remembered. The man had been the most arrogant person I knew and that was saying a lot.

A thought occurred to me. X-37 and Jelly believed the imposter could be an illegitimate son posing to be the father or a clone, but I had a different theory. Elise’s father, Doctor Hastings, had been conducting Lex-tech experiments.

Byron Thane might've been healed and had his second arm replaced by combining Reaper technology and Lex-tech. There were several gaps in the theory, but I didn't know the research and discovery timeline or what they had found before the girl went missing.

“I told you why. It was an obvious trap. The sniper had likely been there for days, with perfect shots lined up for every contingency. You were reacting out of instinct and only drew fire,” I said, watching him carefully.

The stealth cloak made it tricky to evaluate his nonverbal language. The pauses between questions were informative. Whoever this imposter was, he was thinking deeply and was troubled by what he was discovering.

“Where is the girl?” I asked. “You know they'll never pay the bounty, right? The minute you turn her over, they will kill you or throw you in prison.”

“You're lying, but don't worry. I’ve decided not to give her to the Union,” he said. “I heard Fratley Oxanos pays well and is reasonably trustworthy, so far as it goes with his kind.”

“I heard he’s an asshole,” I said.

“He is, but he pays well,” the stranger said. “Better yet, Oxanos says he just needs information from her. I can keep her for myself when he’s done, if she’s still alive.”

His words caused my Reaper nerve-ware to tingle.

“That doesn't work for me,” I said.

“I don't care if it works for you!” he growled at me almost petulantly. With visible effort, he calmed himself, the blurred outline of his image shifting from foot to foot where he squatted on the ledge above me. “You don't want to fight me. I've got fully functioning gear and better armor. I've been training the entire time you were in prison. Come after me, and you'll die. This is your only warning.”

With that, he was gone.

“It would've been useful for you to inquire where he was keeping Elise hidden,” X-37 said.

“Piss off, X,” I muttered, then carefully left the area. “He thinks he has the upper hand.”

“I see,” X-37 said. “He probably assumes that because he is un-injured, possesses better armor and weapons, and knows everything about you while you know nothing about him, it gives him the advantage.”

“Sometimes I hate you, X,” I said.

“You've said this many times, but I don't believe you,” X-37 said.

OceanofPDF.com

24

I attempted to follow the Thane imposter, knowing my chances for success were slim. He had the advantage of elevation and technology.

“Can you help me out?” I asked X-37.

“I've already provided a three-dimensional map of this area including building schematics in wire frame form,” X-37 said. “The images will have to bleed into your regular vision to acquire enough screen space, as it were.”

Nearly transparent images of streets and buildings filled my vision. It wasn't my favorite technique that X-37 used, but it would do for now. I could see through the display.

“That'll work, X. Now mark it with streetlights, neon billboards, or other light sources,” I said.

Several dots appeared on the image of the scene. I moved through a narrow street, predicting where I thought a Reaper traveling the rooftops would need to move. If I was lucky, I’d be able to see the blur of his stealth armor against the bright lights. It wouldn’t be a true silhouette, but it would be visible for someone who knew what to look for—and I did.

“There we go,” I said, edging forward to watch my prey climbing down from a balcony. Once he dropped below the light, I lost track of him but was able to estimate his progress from the speed I had observed. When he reached the bottom of the fire escape, he hopped to the ground and was revealed by a light on a service door.

But only for a second. Tracking a Reaper this way was dangerous and required all of my attention.

“I'm actually impressed,” X-37 said. “This is a novel and interesting tactic. Should I make a note of it for future reference?”

“I'll remember,” I promised, creeping closer to the Thane imposter.

He moved cautiously, but without fear. We entered a dark area that was like a maze. Occasionally, random illumination disoriented me. In one alley, I was moving toward a street when a car turned on the main thoroughfare, briefly flooding the street with light and then plunging it back into total darkness. On another occasion, someone opened a window, creating a light beam above.

Thane had chosen a devious route, and it seemed he had predicted my own strategy of using lights to foil the use of stealth armor. That wasn't something the real Thane would have imagined. Whoever I was following was a worthy adversary with a better imagination than the raw killing machine I had trained with.

Thoughts of illegal cloning and enhanced cognitive and physical features ran through my mind like a daydream. Clones weren't a thing. I didn't know much about the Lex-tech project, but I was reasonably certain even that couldn't produce clones.

“X, can you recalibrate my optical enhancements to defeat the stealth armor?” I asked.

“This is possible,” X-37 answered. “But I advise against it. The process would take too long and could aggravate some of the problems you have been experiencing with your Reaper gear.”

“That's what I thought you'd say.” I abandoned the search for my nemesis, knowing that he had turned a weakness into a dangerous advantage. Discretion really was the best part of valor. The only real surprise was that he hadn't struck while I was vulnerable.

Maybe he was losing his edge.

“Shall I advise Jelly we are returning?” X-37 asked.

“I really thought I was the last Reaper,” I said, moving farther away from the dark maze my nemesis had chosen to hide within. A tingle went up my spine that wasn't a malfunction. It was hard to explain. Sometimes I just knew I was at a turning point, that something important was happening.

“Would you like my analysis?” X-37 asked.

I nodded, moving behind a parked vehicle and then checking my back trail to make sure I wasn't being pursued.

“This person cannot possibly be Byron Thane. I took the time to decompress several files in my archive. I'm able to watch video in a condensed format that is unavailable to you. In essence, that is my memory. Data points among data points. There is no possible way that Byron Thane survived the sniper duel. And if he had, no one was sent back to him for extraction. In a hostile environment such as that particular mission, it would be a death sentence.”

“I'm with you so far,” I said.

“Our top-secret clearance before being dishonorably discharged from the Union was at a very high level. The information I am working with is old, but by extrapolating those data points, I must conclude there is no clone program. And if there was, it would not be able to produce a warrior of Reaper quality,” X-37 said.

“So we're dealing with a bastard, a child that was missed during the background checks?” I asked.

“Possible, but very unlikely.” X-37 made a clicking sound. I wasn't sure what that meant, but I generally associated it with him processing a large amount of any information. “The real problem, however, is that if he had a son posing as him, he would not have access to the equipment or the training to be the person we are dealing with now.”

“That's basically what I was thinking, but thanks for the detailed lecture,” I said, moving into a more crowded area of the city, blending with the night crowd.

“Let's shift gears,” I said. “Instead of worrying about who or what he is, let's just find him and Elise. Most importantly, let's just find Elise and get the hell off this planet,” I said.

“Where would you like to begin?” X-37 said.

“I've been thinking,” I said, wondering if I was about to make a huge mistake. “There's only one place he could be hiding. With the Union and all of the other bounties on him, he must've made a deal with the assassins’ guild on Greendale.”

“Infiltrating their headquarters will be extremely difficult,” X-37 said.

“You're absolutely right, X. And it won't really be an infiltration, but a raid. I'm going to need help.” The idea of contacting Briggs and Crank did not excite me. It was nearly as risky as confronting the Reaper.

But desperate measures called for desperate times and all that.

“What are you planning?” X-37 asked.

“I think the Union owes me a favor,” I said.

“Even without the details, I feel I should recommend against this course of action,” X-37 said.

I laughed, not sure why, but it felt good. “Where do you think they landed? If they are following spec ops standard procedure, they won't rely on the public spaceports unless they have to. Especially after that debacle on Layton 5.”

“I assume they would be using one of the industrial spaceports that is technically only for material deployment, the FISC most likely,” X-37 said. “My check of available flight logs suggests it's a well-known fact that travelers from various organizations also move passengers this way.”

“You're talking about smugglers. Is there a slave trade on this planet?” I asked.

X-37 made several clicks, fully processing his information, knowing I didn’t want a fast answer on this one. “I do not believe so, or if this is happening it is no greater than other planets. Human trafficking continues to be a problem throughout the galaxy. In this case, however, it just seems to be people who don't want to be associated with the Union.”

“Ironic,” I said. The most elite members of the Union military used the services of people who hated the Union the most with the greatest intensity. I was never able to decide if this was brilliant or suicidal. “Give me some maps and try to narrow it down. In an ideal scenario, you would show me the exact room in the exact building in the exact facility they are basing their operations out of. But I’d also like to know if there are going to be surprises. How many Union spec ops soldiers are on the planet?”

“I'll do my best, Reaper Cain,” X-37 promised.

* * *

I edged around the loading ramp, keeping to the shadows. The security lights for the industrial quarter were powerful, extremely bright with harsh edges. If I was caught in the open, this would reveal me completely. But where there were shadows, they were deep and dark.

What I needed to worry about, however, was their infrared scanners or other advanced optics. X-37 had been unable to provide me an up-to-date list of their technology. Most of what I understood about their current level of operation was speculation from what I knew from my days working with them.

So I went slow. I paused a lot. I tried to see them before they saw me. The optics in my Reaper eye were good, even if what they had now was more advanced. I didn't like to rely on the technology too much, fearing it would spark another blinding headache.

The thing about infiltration and counter-infiltration tactics was that the human element could cause success or failure. Even with all of my training and experience, I would sometimes see an image on my infrared band that wasn't moving. Then I had to decide if it was what it looked like or just some unexplained heat or cold source.

Having great technology didn't solve every problem. And it was never easy. At times, having advanced optics was almost a nuisance.

What I had to do was use this understanding against my opponent.

So I moved slower than a normal human would, especially if I thought there was any chance someone could be watching my progress. I paused at tactical locations to see and hear and smell everything I could.

And then I found Sergeant Crank standing guard. He was near the front of a warehouse that I assumed concealed their shuttle. It took me twenty minutes to sneak up behind him, at which time I gently pressed the barrel of my .45 to the temple of his helmet.

Spec ops helmets were good, but a contact shot from a .45 caliber handgun would transfer a lot of force in a very short period of time. Especially since spec ops wore less robust armor than a regular soldier.

The idea was to be too fast and good to stand there and slug it out with the enemy.

“Good morning, Crank,” I whispered

“You motherfucker,” he grumbled under his breath without flinching.

We waited in non-companionable silence for a few minutes until Briggs came to check on him.

“He got the drop on me, boss,” Crank said.

Briggs flinched, drawing his sidearm. A second later, he relaxed, realizing this wasn't a hostage scenario he could win without sacrificing the hostage.

“I see that,” he said, holstering his pistol with a sigh.

“I have a proposition for you,” I said. “If your primary mission is what I think it is, you really don't have any choice but to accept my offer.”

He worked his jaw, but he said nothing.

“I had an interesting conversation with Callus,” I began.

“Before you murdered him,” Briggs interrupted.

I shrugged slightly, pressing the barrel of my .45 harder against the side of Crank’s helmet. “I'm a glass is half-full kind of guy. It was a win-win.”

“What the hell are you talking about, win-win?” Briggs growled.

“I needed to live and he needed to die. It really was inevitable,” I said with a dispassionate shrug. He thought he knew what everything was, so I played along, knowing it would set him off balance.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“You’re after Elise. I can't let you have her, but I can't let Byron Thane have her either,” I said.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Crank asked, shifting his weight.

I squeezed his neck tighter with my enhanced left arm and reminded him I had a gun to his head. “You thought I was the only Reaper on Greendale? Who the hell did you think that was who took Elise?”

“Our analysis says that's your confederate, an apprentice or some sort of collaborator,” Briggs said.

“And you believed that shit?” I asked. “Help me stop Thane. Then we can fight it out for Elise.”

Crank laughed, but Briggs went pale. I thought the spec ops commander had a better gauge of my abilities and a more thorough understanding of what I was prepared to do to win.

“You really think it's Thane, a confirmed KIA Reaper?” Briggs asked.

“I saw him up close,” I said. “He's got her locked up in the assassins’ guild hideout. I can't get her out of there on my own.”

“Are you sure that’s where he has her?” Briggs asked.

“It's one of my better hunches,” I promised.

OceanofPDF.com

25

“You're a disgrace, Cain,” Briggs said. “No matter what happens here, you're going to pay for all the lives lost on Dreadmax.”

“Lives? Are you talking about Union troops or the tens of thousands of prisoners that were in Union custody who you didn't bother to evacuate despite having plenty of ships standing by?” I asked.

“You expected us to take ten thousand convicted murderers and insane cannibals and put them on our ships?” Briggs looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “That's asinine, even for you.”

“Your failure to plan isn’t my problem. You could have brought some of your famous prison ships and dealt with that situation. How long did you know it was going to happen?” I asked pointedly.

Briggs didn't answer.

“I know more about the dark side of the Union than you do,” I said.

His features looked pinched, as though this disturbed him.

I could see he wanted to respond but didn't have the words. “They're not after Elise for her well-being,” I said.

He interrupted me. “Everyone has to make sacrifices for the common good.”

“You think what they did to me was bad?” I said, holding up my cybernetic left arm as exhibit A. “They're going to take her apart and put her back together, and that's if they're being nice. You return her to the Union, and you might as well torture her yourself.”

Crank yanked away from me. Instead of resisting, I pushed him toward Briggs and stepped back, aiming my weapon at them. “Watch yourself, Crank. We can't have a rematch if you’re dead,”

Crank spat on the ground. I pretended to ignore him. His boss was more dangerous.

I saw something in Briggs I hadn't expected. He was actually thinking about what I’d said.

“Let's put a stop to Byron Thane II and find Elise. After that, we'll figure something out,” I said.

“Unlike you, Cain, I have to follow rules. I have to bring you in dead or alive,” Briggs said, but his words lacked conviction and I could tell he was coming around to my idea.

“You could take me in, or you could successfully complete your mission,” I said.

“You're such an asshole,” Crank grumbled.

“I have information you need. It might even prove that your handlers are playing you false,” I said.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Briggs demanded.

“I think they sent you to scare her out of her routine so their Reaper could capture or kill her,” I said, testing them. If the Union had a new Reaper program and Briggs knew it, I would see the truth in his eyes.

“Fuck you, Cain,” Briggs said. “The Union is done with Reapers. They proved too dangerous and unreliable. Dying breed. Just another discontinued model they shut down as obsolete.”

“What do you think, X?” I asked.

“He does not believe there is a new Reaper program,” X-37 said. “I am inclined to believe he is correct. Evidence suggests the Union regretted the Reaper program.”

“So where did the Thane imposter come from?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Briggs said. “But I can tell you we will put him down the first chance we get.”

“I would take that as a warning of how they will treat you once they have what they came for,” X-37 said.

Crank was watching me, probably guessing what X had just said.

“What are you looking at, Crank?” I asked, using a tone meant to provoke him.

“Don’t push your luck, asshole,” Crank said, stepping forward.

Briggs signaled him to be silent, advancing so that we were almost conversing as equals.

I lowered my gun slightly and pulled it into a tight low-ready position. I could fire it without raising the barrel and still hit him, then aim at Crank to take him out. They knew my skills and weren't stupid.

“Fine, let's work together. Best-case scenario, we recover the girl and take you into custody without anyone else getting killed,” Briggs decided.

“I have one condition,” I said, knowing this scheme was risky. Maybe it would be better to just walk away. If Elise was handed off to the Union or Oxanos, why make things worse? Why not move on to a fight I could win?

“I can’t promise much,” Briggs said.

“Talk to her before you take her,” I said, just to cover my bases. I had no intention of losing to these jerkoffs. “See if you still want to work for the Union after that.”

Crank snorted.

Briggs nodded slowly. “I’ll listen to her story. It won’t change anything.”

I slipped the .45 into my belt.

“What do you know about the assassins' guild?” Briggs asked.

“I've been inside their headquarters,” I explained. “Met with Gold, the man who controls the guild on Greendale. But he's more than his title implies. I think he's got a finger in a lot of criminal enterprises, and most likely in government as well. His headquarters is heavily guarded and fortified. There's one room that, if Elise is inside of it, we won't be able to breach. It has a blast door that’d make a battleship proud.”

“I can handle that,” Crank said, sounding less petulant and more competent this time.

“Sergeant Crank is the best breacher in the Union,” Briggs said. “Show us their hideout. We'll start surveillance and work up a plan.”

OceanofPDF.com

26

“One last thing,” I said. “Where is the rest of your team?”

He didn't answer.

We both knew he wouldn't be here without at least a squad to back him up. There wasn't a mission secret enough to violate that standard operating procedure. If I confirmed that it was only Briggs and Crank, then this was something completely different, a personal vendetta done off the books. They might even be AWOL.

The question was, did this make things better or worse? How desperate would these two bad-asses be if pushed into a corner? What incentive would cause them to go renegade when they had everything they could want in the Union military?

I almost hoped they were part of a larger strike force.

Briggs didn't seem like the type of man who would betray the people he saw as his rightful masters. Crank lacked the imagination to go rogue. So that brought me back to my original conclusion. He had a team tucked away somewhere and they were all Union lackeys.

“We both know you have a squad,” I said. “Keeping them in reserve is smart. Especially if you have them positioned for a coup de grace. But now is the time to call them in. We are assaulting a fortified building with well-armed and highly motivated guards.”

“You're saying that because you can't do this alone. You need our help,” Briggs said. “If you had your way, you would've already stolen the girl and disappeared.“

“All true,” I said, holding up one finger for him to stand by while I talked to someone else. “Start working on the location of their squad mates, X,” I said.

Briggs went pale. Crank made a sound of disgust and muttered swear words under his breath. They reacted differently to my being a Reaper. Crank was more dangerous in the short term. I hadn't forgot our sparring session before Dreadmax. He'd come at me with everything he had. I'd smashed him and damaged his ego. A lot of men would carry a grudge after that.

Briggs was the real danger, however.

He'd hunt me long after this was over for reasons I couldn't explain.

“Do you want to win or play games?” I asked.

Briggs turned away abruptly, consulting someone on his bone-mic radio. “Do you still have eyes on our position?” he asked.

I didn't hear everything he said, but I smiled. It was good to be right.

“Can you tap into their conversation?” I asked X-37.

“Unfortunately, no,” X-37 said. “They're using sixteen-digit encryption.”

“Can you determine if they are relying on line of sight or using remote surveillance?” I asked.

A few strides away, Crank glared at me. “Stop talking to your AI.”

“Limited AI,” I said reflexively, echoing all the times X-37 had chastised me on this point.

“Whatever,” Crank said.

“I believe the support team is very close,” X-37 said. “But not stationary. Possibly in a fast ground vehicle or dropship.”

I slipped around a parked vehicle to a better position, hoping to avoid any embarrassing sniper incident. I thought I was making progress with Commander Briggs, but that didn't mean he wouldn't order my death.

“While you're waiting, Reaper Cain, I've done some analysis on the work Tom the mechanic did on your arm,” X-37 said.

“Discover anything worthwhile?”

“Certainly, Reaper Cain. Tom's re-calibration of your micro servos have improved efficiency of your arm three percent. I am exceedingly curious to know where he learned his trade,” X-37 said. “It may not solve your most recent problems, but a small amount of relief should reduce the load on your neural network, and by proximity, your nerve-ware.”

Briggs finished his covert conversation and stepped back. “I'm bringing in the team. Don't get any ideas. I will consider your opinions and evaluate your observations of the assassins' guild headquarters, but these are my people. Keep your hands off of them. My team, my plan.”

“No problem,” I said. “What’s their ETA? I don’t have all night.”

“My ground element—“

“You mean your sniper team,” I interrupted.

“My ground element will hold an overwatch position until the freighter lands. We will meet them on the tarmac. There is a hangar where we can plan the mission,” Briggs said.

Crank led the way to the landing pad, casually pulling aside a section of fence to gain access to the facility. The place was a step up from the smugglers’ spaceport where I kept the Jellybird, but not by much. Apparently, the FISC planners had wanted to keep their overhead down. There wasn't a security guard or even a fake security sensor array.

“How do they keep people out of this place, X?” I asked.

“They have a very strong company charter,” X-37 said.

“What the hell does that mean?” It felt like the right answer. I assumed the main problem was commercial competitors and that they were better handled with contracts in court proceedings. It was a mystery for another day why common criminals didn't break in and rob the place.

The more I saw, the more I realized there was nothing someone could steal without a huge infrastructure and distribution network of their own. It was a great place for the Union to put down spies because there were no customs agents or other regulatory systems.

Briggs motioned for me to go next. I kept an eye on him and his partner. Ambushing me at this point would be pointless—unless there was more to the situation than I realized. In my experience, every situation had a hidden layer—a chance for everything to go horribly wrong.

I didn't think I was paranoid, just prepared to kill everyone I met.

Was that wrong? I didn't think so.

Once we were all inside the perimeter, we moved quietly across the tarmac and waited. A nondescript freighter made a tediously slow descent and touched down. The rest of Briggs's team filed down the ramp.

There were five men and one woman. Two of the men made up the heavy weapons team, one was the primary gunner and a second was a back-up and ammo mule. I wasn't sure what the woman sergeant’s job was, but suspected she was cross-trained as a rifleman and medic.

They looked me over but didn't speak. It was obvious they had encrypted radio comms I didn't have access to. Yet.

“I don't see your sniper team,” I said.

“You’ll never see my sniper or his partner,” Briggs said.

“Never’s a long time.” I respected snipers. Of all the types of enemies I could face, they were the most dangerous. Memories of what happened to Byron Thane proved my point.

Briggs ordered his team to set up a table inside the hangar. The building was simple, a large open space in the middle with two levels around the edges that contained workshops, offices, and windows to view the outside areas.

Crank pulled the door down and slid a crossbar through the latch.

“David, Holmes, set up security. No one in or out,” Briggs said.

The two soldiers went to opposite corners and stationed themselves on upper levels near windows with a commanding view of the tarmac and the access road to the building.

Briggs faced me, leaning on the table as though ready to get down to business. “Corporal David and Lance Corporal Holmes are good men. Your Reaper friend won't be able to get by us if that's what you're worried about.”

“He doesn't have a reason to attack us here,” I said. “So I'm not worried about it.”

“Good,” Briggs said, waving his team closer to the table. He moved a collection of tools around to represent buildings, intersections, and vehicles. “Gunnery Sergeant Samantha Bane is my second in command, an order from her can be considered an order for me. If I go down, she's in charge regardless of rank.”

“Zero fucks given,” I said, causing Crank to swear.

X-37 whispered in my ear, “This is actually very relevant information. I had assumed Sergeant Crank was his second.”

I didn't want to respond verbally, but I had assumed differently. Crank wasn't leadership material, he was a heavy—a bone breaker and enforcer, someone who could force open doors with various tools.

“You can drop the act here,” Briggs said. “We're professionals. If I tell my team to work with you despite your past, then they will.”

I looked over each member of his squad. “I believe you.”

For a second, I thought the man would throw my ‘zero fucks given’ comment back at me. He restrained himself and continued the briefing.

He lined up a series of wrenches to indicate his personnel. “Bane, Crank, Orlando, Jonji, Galen, David, and Holmes. Orlando and Jonji are my heavy gun team. Orlando carries the squad automatic weapon.”

“And I'm his ammo bitch,” Jonji said.

No one laughed, but I liked the guy already. If he was intimidated by my Reaper hardware, it didn't show.

“What about your sniper team, who are they?”

“You can call them sniper one and sniper two,” Briggs said. “Now we construct what you know about the assassins’ guild headquarters so we can plan this mission.”

“Are you also trained as a medic?” I asked Gunnery Sergeant Samantha Bane.

She narrowed her gaze. “How did you know that? My file is as secret as everyone else's on this unit. Your limited Reaper AI shouldn't be able to touch it.”

“Just a guess,” I said. “Your tactical first-aid kit is better positioned for quick use on your gear. Take Crank, for example. I'm sure he can reach his medical gear, but I'd bet money it's been a while since he actually did.”

“I told you to keep your hands off my team,” Briggs said. “Let's get started.”

I nodded, then stepped forward and scanned the planning board we treated more carefully. X-37 copied it and placed a wireframe version in my HUD where he manipulated elements such as personnel movements and expected defenses.

While Briggs and his team were pushing around tools and machine parts as map icons, I was getting detailed variations on the scene in three dimensions with annotated timelines we could expect.

X-37 and I kept it on the down low, with me talking to the limited AI as little as possible.

Briggs touched his ear, then adjusted the receiver box on his armor. “Hold on, I'm putting you on speaker. Okay, go.”

“I've got one pedestrian approaching from the south. Looks civilian. No weapon seen. Unknown intent. Subject looks to be in his 50s or 60s and dressed like a factory worker. I'm no fashion expert, but I'd say that jumpsuit he's wearing is his only outfit,” said the voice of Corporal Holmes.

“Anyone you know?” Briggs asked me.

“Can he send video?”

Briggs removed a panel from his armor and put it on the table. He touched the screen and a grainy image popped into view.

Tom walked hurriedly toward the industrial quarter. If I didn't know better, I'd almost assume he was a maintenance man for FISC.

“Well?”

My instinct was to offer complete denial and feign ignorance, but I had to admit there was a chance Briggs’ sniper team had seen more of my movements than I realized. Getting caught in a lie when I needed these people to trust me wouldn't be helpful.

“I've seen him a few times. I think he's a homeless machinist or something,” I admitted like it didn't matter.

“What's he doing here?” Briggs asked.

I shrugged. “Going to work? Union taxes ain't free. Someone's got to pay your salary.”

“Bane, Crank, check him out while our Reaper finishes explaining the layout of the target building,” Briggs said.

I complied, watching this scene unfold through video surveillance of Corporal Holmes. Gunny Bane and Sergeant Crank intercepted Tom, rousted him for information after a search for weapons, and sent him on his way.

I moved one of the wrenches closer to the box that represented the building we would be assaulting. “The approach shouldn't be a problem. We can have an overwatch here and here, covering the opposing corners. I'd like to take everyone inside but keeping a perimeter could be important if they tried to move the principal.”

“David and Holmes will handle that. They’re my most junior operators and they're good at that sort of thing,” Briggs said without sounding arrogant or condescending when he assigned them in their minor role. “I'll fill them in after the briefing.”

OceanofPDF.com

27

I allowed Briggs and his team to clear the area without my help. X-37 kept track of their movements and how long it took them to secure the zone around the entrance to the assassins' guild headquarters.

“Fifteen minutes, twenty-seven seconds,” X-37 said.

“Not bad for an entire city block,” I said, keeping my eye on Briggs and Crank, who had a position slightly offset from my own.

“Agreed,” X-37 said. “However, he did not clear the interior of many of the buildings.”

“Shouldn't be a problem,” I said. “The issue is going to be getting inside, then finding Elise.”

“Commander Briggs has an excellent team of commandos. I find their records disturbingly hard to penetrate, but direct observational data suggests they know what they're doing. Your real problem, in addition to those you've listed, will be Reaper Thane.”

“You're not wrong,” I muttered, my eyes focused on the narrow building between two larger buildings.

“When have I ever been wrong?” X-37 asked.

“We're going to play that game?” I was distracted with an idea that seemed almost too obvious.

“It is not a game,” X-37 said. “I have, in fact, never been wrong, only misinformed. Had sufficient data been supplied during the rare instances I made a mistake, I would have functioned adequately.”

“That's basically the same excuse I use,” I told him.

“Truthfully?” X-37 asked. “I will add that to my data collection for future analysis.”

“It wasn't actually a compliment,” I said. “How thick are the walls between our target building and its neighbors?”

“Excellent question, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “Your perception of the exterior of our target is false. The two neighboring buildings are part of the assassins’ guild fortress. The narrow ‘building front’ is merely a façade.”

“Well, things just got a lot easier,” I said, motioning Briggs to approach for a conference.

“Not necessarily,” X-37 said. “While they may be accessed through one of the neighboring buildings, there will be heavy resistance. Those buildings have large open spaces with mechanical stairways and deep balconies. The effect is aesthetically pleasing; however, it is also purpose built as a battlefield.”

“Keep talking,” I said to X-37 while holding up a hand for Briggs to hold on a moment.

He waited on the knife edge of patience and annoyance.

“Much of what I am sending you on your HUD is an extrapolation of what I believe the interior to look like. I was able, for example, to locate work receipts from the original construction site. The manifest suggests there is a series of mechanical stairways, or escalators, and also some fountains. But I cannot tell you their exact position,” X-37 said.

“What do you think about the neighboring buildings?” I asked Briggs.

He looked across the wide boulevard at our target. “I think there's a decent chance they're owned by the assassins' guild. Can your Reaper AI determine how thick the walls are between the structures?”

“Limited AI,” I corrected.

“Of course. I stand corrected,” Briggs said sarcastically.

“That entire city block is owned or controlled by the assassins’ guild. The foyers of the neighboring buildings seem to have been designed with aesthetics and defense in mind.” I studied the outcroppings and street-facing sections of the larger buildings. “From what X tells me, the flanking buildings have overlapping fields of fire on the front door I was taken through initially. It's not a public entrance, but anyone seeking a contract will eventually learn where it is and approach this way. Which means it has to be defensible.”

Briggs waited, not interrupting me. I saw this as a mark of a good leader. He was still an asshole in my book, but it could be worse.

“If we try to go in the same way I went the first time, we will probably be mowed down by gun turrets,” I said.

“I don't see anything like that,” Briggs said.

I pointed toward glass walls angled toward the smaller building between them. The owners of the smaller, older building had refused to be redeveloped, forcing the new structures to grow around them.

“They’re behind those walls, probably disguised as some sort of decorative feature. When they open fire, the blown-out glass will cut anybody making an assault on the guild to pieces,” I said.

Briggs nodded. “It's obvious once you look at it the right way.”

“There isn't a good alternative, given our time limitations. You can still use our plan with a few small adjustments. Order your team to advance on the east building, enter as though they are regular citizens, but stay ready to fight because there won't be much finesse in this assault.”

“I'll make some adjustments to the plan,” Briggs agreed, then rejoined Crank near their observation post. They stood near a park bench pretending to smoke, which I thought was the first amateur thing they’d done. It was clear neither of them knew one end of a cigarette from the other.

Some time passed.

“I would really like to hear their communications,” I said to X-37.

“It's not my fault that Commander Briggs refused this option. Given sufficient time, and with the right systems, we could break their encryption.”

“Looks like the mission is a go,” I said, watching Briggs nod at his team members converging on the east building front door.

They wore trench coats and other types of civilian clothes designed to conceal their weapons and armor. It wasn't a ruse that would hold for a long time, but we only needed a minute to begin the assault.

I stepped off the curb and walked toward the east building.

The Union spec ops team slowly converged, not walking together exactly, but close enough they could transform into a fighting unit in seconds.

Crank went through the front door, followed by the others. He immediately veered off. Much of this foyer was glass, allowing a partial view from the street. The morning sun turned much of the building into an orange mirror, but when I got close, I could see what was happening.

The interior walls, I guessed, were concrete-reinforced steel made to look like cheap office building walls.

I saw three escalators twisting up to the second level, where there was a balcony type concourse. I also spotted an elevator bank with two well-armed guards. They wore tactical armor and carried short rifles, which was apparently acceptable to the patrons of the complex.

“I wonder how many of the bystanders know they are working in the hub of the Zag City criminal underground,” I said, suddenly curious.

“I would guess less than ten percent,” X-37 said.

“This is going to be messy as fuck,” I predicted, walking in after Briggs's team, but before the snipers who had come in from their posts with close-quarters weapons instead of long rifles. I still didn't know their names, but they looked serious and experienced.

X-37 realized where I was looking and explained, “Commander Briggs left junior members of the team on the perimeter. The sniper's primary mission is long-range target acquisition and neutralization, but I suspect their long experience with this unit has also given them substantial room-clearing skills. I think Briggs made a good decision by including them in the assault.”

I agreed but didn't say anything. I'd only taken one glance at the men but marked them as people I didn't want to tangle with unless necessary.

We spread out into a wedge formation, moving through the lobby without much subtlety. The heavily armed guards at the elevator immediately perked up, stepping back inside bunkers and opening gun ports. Several doors opened on the second level and security teams filed out much faster than I had expected.

“Here goes nothing,” I said.

Crank led the charge up the leftmost escalator, eliminating the need to protect that flank. He swept his weapon up, brushing back his long coat. For a coldhearted brute, he showed surprising restraint.

An alarm sounded, warning everyone there was a terrorist incident in progress. Many of the bystanders threw themselves to the ground and covered their heads. Others stood confused. Some ran for the front doors.

The rest of the team charged up the escalator behind Crank. Orlando and Jonji assembled the squad automatic weapon near a fountain and started laying down suppressive fire on the balcony.

I sprinted up the rightmost escalator, gaining the second-floor concourse long before the Union soldiers finished the first part of this assault.

Doors slammed shut. Warnings announced that the escalators and elevators were shutting down for security reasons. A voice declared that this was not a drill. It then went on to explain that police teams were on the way.

A pair of guards in business suits tried to stop me. I pulled my .45 and dropped them with head shots from thirty meters, which was at least five meters outside normal combat effectiveness of a handgun.

Another man stepped out of a door closer to my position. I kicked him hard enough that he flew back into the room he'd come out of. I hesitated a second too long and the door closed, the lock snapping shut loudly on some sort of magnetic switch.

“I didn't want to go that way anyway,” I muttered.

Glass exploded. Alarms blared. Security doors slammed shut. The elevator guards opened fire to their gun ports, but they'd already lost the angle when Briggs took his team to the second level. It was the only good thing that had happened in our favor.

I'd expected this to be one hell of a fight, but this was like going up against seasoned ship Marines defending against boarders.

“I wish I'd made Briggs give me some body armor and an HDK,” I said as I moved along the wall, seeking a better position of cover. The only thing that was keeping me alive was that most of the fire was directed at the spec ops team, who appeared to be the main threat in the situation.

They didn't really know me.

“He would've refused,” X-37 said.

His voice always sounded off when I was in the middle of a fight. He didn't get winded or change his rate of speech when things got complicated. It helped me stay calm and detached, but could be distracting.

Briggs and his team assaulted the elevator nexus on the second level. I watched, slightly annoyed with their choice. We were trying to get into the elevator or go to a different level. The entire reason for being in this building was to get to the center building and gain access to the interior of the assassins’ guild complex.

I made my way to Crank and snatched one of his breaching charges from his vest. He looked at me strangely while he was reloading, probably suspecting he'd been robbed but not having time to check his inventory.

“Just stay behind me, Reaper. I'm wearing armor. You're not,” he said.

I didn't want to link up with him, but he headed into a room and it was bad form to leave a teammate hanging. Following close behind him, I immediately turned right and cleared everything in my sector. We met in the middle.

“Clear,” he said.

“Nothing seen,” I answered, feeling nostalgia for my time before Dark Ops in the Reaper Corps.

We moved on, encountering some resistance, but driving most of the guards back rather than killing them. There was bloodshed, but less than I expected after the initial assault.

Briggs pulled the teams back together when he could and abandoned his attempt to take control of the elevator and stairways.

“That was a feint, in case you were wondering,” he told me as we fell in beside each other.

“Sure,” I said. “It got us this far.”

We made our way to several hallways before I realized we had moved from one building to the next. “We are inside their headquarters.”

Briggs looked at me, simultaneously signaling Crank and one of the other soldiers forward to deal with the next intersection. “How do you know? More Reaper AI stuff?”

“Limited AI,” I corrected again. “And it's the emergency lighting. I remember that from my visit.”

He nodded and adjusted his team’s movements, still refusing to allow me into the radio comms.

“You realize they are keeping their comms away from you because they plan to betray you in the future,” X-37 said.

“Thanks for the pep talk. I couldn't figure that out myself. But maybe it's just standard operating procedure not to let an enemy agent on your secured network,” I said, keeping my voice low to avoid drawing attention from my temporary teammates.

The next section was clearly defensive. I thought we were underground now, with several stairways and ladders required to get to their current location.

The hallway we had to traverse was wide and inclined to a broad double door that looked blast-proof. There were several landings on the incline without much in the way of decoration. I counted three escalators going up and three escalators going down, but they were all turned off.

“Team, move,” Briggs said. “Let's double-time. I don't like this. Spread out into fire teams. Bounding overwatch.”

Crank bounded first, not taking a partner. Up until now, he'd been attached to Briggs. They'd been searching for me while the rest of the team remained hidden. I assumed this was because the two men could identify me more easily than the others. Our time together on the Dreadmax mission had been memorable to say the least.

The team was halfway to the double doors when the gun ports snapped open.

“Orlando, suppressive fire!” Briggs ordered.

Orlando and Jonji set up the squad automatic weapon on one of the escalator railings and opened fire, spraying the gun ports with bullets. Jonji fed the ammunition belt into the weapon, reaching back for the next belt without having to look for it. His backpack seemed to be growing lighter with each encounter.

The spec ops team rushed the big center doors, bounding over each other and shooting at the gun ports, hoping for a lucky shot, but knowing this was a bad spot to be in.

David went down. Holmes helped him up. They staggered to a wall that put them at a better angle to avoid being shot but kept them from proceeding forward.

Gunny Bane and Corporal Galen moved to the other side of the multiple staircases. Ricocheting bullets screamed in random directions, proving the walls were reinforced and bulletproof. Shell casings spilled down the stairs like a miniature brass avalanche.

“They’re concentrating fire on the SAW!” Crank warned from his higher vantage point. He was pinned down but had a good view of the action.

Jonji took a bullet through his left arm, his armor absorbing some of the force but failing to stop it from penetrating. The impact flipped him sideways and he tumbled into the open. The stairwells around the escalators were surprisingly good cover, but once he was out on one of the landings, his chance of survival evaporated.

I dove at him, grabbing his armor with my Reaper hand and dragging myself toward cover with my natural right hand.

X-37 suggested I move to cover with no change in his voice. It was times like these when I thought my only friend was a computer program with no soul.

Like I had one after all the things I'd done.

Working quickly, I pulled a tourniquet from his med pack. Seconds later, I tightened the strap and clamped the lever down to hold the life-saving device in place.

Gunny Bane stared at me from her own position, unable to cross the open area to reach us.

“He’ll be okay but will need some attention soon. The tourniquet can’t stay on forever,” I shouted.

She nodded as though she understood. A moment of silence came after an intensive exchange of gunfire.

“That was risky,” she said. “You didn't have to take that kind of risk. You’re not even part of our unit.”

I didn't answer.

Another exchange of gunfire provided an opportunity to move and I took it, noticing that Bane replaced me at Jonji’s side.

“Good news,” X-37 said. “I have hacked into their comms.”

I reached one of the access doors and knelt beside it, pressing my body as flat as I could to avoid exposing myself to further attacks. Meanwhile, I listened in.

“I don't care if he saved Jonji; we still can't trust him,” Briggs said to no one I could hear.

Whoever he was talking to either chose not to answer or was unable to answer.

“We can't keep this up,” Gunny Bane said, her voice hard. From what I could see of her, she was sheltering Jonji with her body armor while she adjusted the tourniquet and spoke on her radio. “We only have so much ammunition.”

“I'm at the main blast doors,” Crank said. He didn't sound tired or concerned about the violence around him. It was a side of the man I didn't know well. “I don't have the breaching charges needed to force the door. I'm missing one somehow. But I can blow the control panel and that may get us in.”

“Do you see Cain?” Briggs asked.

“No,” Crank said. “I'm telling you we can trust him for now.”

That surprised me. I wouldn’t have guessed Crank would support me even for a second. Maybe he'd seen my desperate rescue of Jonji. Or maybe he just understood I wasn't about to sneak off during a fight.

“Thanks for hacking their comms, X,” I said. “Can I also communicate with them?”

“Yes, but I would advise caution. Being able to listen in covertly may provide a tactical advantage for you in the future,” X-37 advised.

“Understood. I think it's worth the risk.” I moved to the next access door without drawing fire. It was a good sign. The Union spec ops team was low on ammunition, but maybe the guards were as well. They were exceedingly well prepared but probably never thought they'd actually have to do their jobs.

“Cain for Briggs, how copy?” I said.

A few seconds of silence followed.

“You're not authorized to use this channel,” Briggs said.

“Technically, I'm not authorized to be alive, but I'm a glass is half full kind of guy,” I said. “I have Crank’s missing breaching charge. If you can cover me, I can make it to his position and help him blow the door.”

“You stole explosives from a Union soldier?” Briggs demanded.

“I was looking for cigars,” I said, imagining that he suddenly realized who had taken his stash during our first meeting. “Don't worry about it. Crank and I can get through and continue the mission. That should be enough of a distraction that you and the rest of the team could follow afterward.“

Briggs growled something I didn't understand. “I'm not crazy about it, but I agree with your assessment. I'll direct the team to lay down heavy suppressive fire. That will be your cue to move.”

“Thanks,” I snapped, preparing myself to sprint for the main doors.

“You're a real son-of-a-bitch, Cain,” he said. “Did you rob Jonji when you saved him? I told you to keep your hands off my team.”

“I had to do something to keep you honest,” I said. “If I hadn't taken those breaching charges, you would've left me here without a second thought.”

“We'll talk about this later,” he said. “Let's get this done. I'm sick of this place.”

Moments later, Briggs and the rest of the team created a massive diversion. I rushed across the remaining distance to Crank’s location.

OceanofPDF.com

28

I handed over the breaching charge to Sergeant Crank. He glared at me, taking the pre-wired bundle without looking at it.

“You're welcome,” I said.

He snorted and went to work. Moments later, he had three explosive packages expertly placed to not only blow the control panel, but force a gap in the door that could be expanded with a mechanical tool.

We stepped back, ignoring the gunfight until he set off the charges with a remote detonator. Stepping through the smoke, I saw his work had been done to near perfection. My image of the man changed.

Until now I thought he was just a hotheaded bully who liked to choke people out on the jujitsu mat. Now I understood he was more complex, as most people were when you got to know them. Crank knew his job and was proud of his work.

Maybe that was why he hated Reapers. He had probably been taught we were a bunch of murderous rogues who needed to be put down like rabid dogs. To someone like Crank, all that mattered was his training. He believed what he was told and executed his missions with bravery and tenacity.

I still didn't like him.

“We need to hold here and wait for the team,” Crank said. “Standard procedure, or have you forgotten?”

“No time for that,” I said.

“If we go now, we would just be rushing to failure. Better to rally the team,” he said.

“True, but I'm still going right now. You can come with me or you can stay, your choice,” I said.

“You need to stay,” he said, implying that he might restrain me if he could.

We both knew how that would end.

“I'm going after Elise,” I said.

“Then get the fuck going,” he snarled, then turned back to the fight that was still raging in the hallway.

I heard him taking shots, covering Briggs and the others as they bounded forward dragging their wounded teammates.

It wasn't long before I found a familiar hallway. I made my way to the library-like cathedral where Mr. Gold ran his criminal enterprise.

He probably could've locked me out and kept his best guards to fight me off, but I sensed he wanted a conversation. There were only three people in the room when I entered: Gold, Thane, and Elise.

“I apologize for my lack of hospitality, but it seems most of my people are repelling invaders at the gate,” Gold said without standing up from the huge chair that he had pushed back slightly from his desk. On his left, Elise sat patiently. Near her, Thane stood silently. He still had his mask on. He held a gun that would make Orlando and Jonji’s squad automatic weapon look tame.

I focused on Gold, assuming he was in charge of this interview. What I didn't understand was Elise. She hadn't been this timid, even with the compliance control drugs Michaels and Olathe had used on her.

“I'd offer you refreshments, but your friends in the Union are becoming quite a nuisance,” Gold said. “They'll never make it this far, you know that.”

“Then what's the rush?” I asked, moving closer to the desk and removing two cigars from a tray.

“I don't take chances. That's why I'm running the place,” Gold said.

There still wasn't a reaction from Thane. He watched my every move but said nothing. Elise closed her eyes. I wasn't sure if she was sleeping, passed out, or suffering from some sort of chemical restraint.

“You really should call back your guards,” I said. It wasn't the smartest thing for me to do but would give Briggs and his crew a chance to survive. With luck, they might even help me. I nodded toward Thane. “I hope you're not expecting him to help you.”

“He's more on my side than he is on yours,” Gold said. “Would you like to know why?”

I had a theory but wanted to hear him say it. “I'm listening.”

“Because I can protect the girl. I think your Reaper friend has a crush on her,” Gold said.

Thane shifted and I thought I saw him clench his fists angrily. He never looked away from me, however.

“No one stands against the Union,” I said.

“Except Reapers who are supposed to be dead,” Gold said.

“He might have you there, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

My vision flickered, causing me to wonder why I hadn't had any hardware or nerve-ware attacks during the assault on the assassins' guild headquarters. Thane stood a few strides away, yet I was functioning nearly as well as before I came to Greendale.

X-37 had told me he couldn't activate the ROS device while engaging me in close combat, which made sense in this room, but what about in the hallway or on the stairs?

“What are you doing, Thane?” I asked.

“Playing the long game,” he said.

“Don't talk to him,” Gold interrupted. It was the first time I'd heard him raise his voice and it sounded strange.

I stepped closer to the crime lord, turning my back partially on Thane. Every instinct warned me not to do this. It was like standing with your back to a firing squad.

“What do you want from me, Gold? No one needs two Reapers. If you hadn't stacked the deck against me, I might've taken this one out for you, if that's what you need. But I'm standing here with a half-empty pistol and no armor. He's got all the advantages,” I said.

“You think you're smart,” Gold said. “But you don't understand leverage and assets and how to manage the Union. All I have to do is hide what they want most, and then negotiate. And negotiate. And negotiate some more. And only give them what is to my advantage to give them.”

“Yeah, I'm not sure you are working with the same Union I'm talking about,” I said. “The team breaking down your door now might not get the job done, but there's a lot more where that came from.”

“You’re just a vigilante,” Gold said. “I know what you did on Boyer 5. Now you're here and think you could pull off the same thing. Well, you're going to respect me and do what I say. Just like your Reaper friend. How did he get two mechanical arms when you just got one?”

I ignored his question. “You can't control him.”

“But I can,” he said, then pressed a button. Elise screamed and tumbled out of the chair, weeping in pain.

“I said don't hurt her!” Thane lunged forward, punching Gold out of his chair.

“I'm not sure Mr. Gold's actions had the desired effect,” X-37 said.

“Agreed,” I said.

Gold scrambled backward, holding his bloodied lip. He watched Thane with wild eyes but constantly jerked his attention toward me, because he had probably just realized I was the more rational mass murderer.

“Don't talk to your Reaper AI,” he demanded, struggling to his feet but continuing to back away.

“Limited AI,” X-37 and I said at the same time.

I had a feeling there was a safe room or something he wanted to get to.

Thane seemed to have forgotten me or didn't care I was here. He grabbed Mr. Gold and lifted him off his feet, slamming him against the wall. “I told you not to hurt her. You promised she would go with me and that you would get answers from Cain.”

Four AG guards in heavy armor appeared through a door that had previously been a section of tasteless wall paneling. They aimed HDK rifles with extended magazines at Thane.

“Put him down, now!” the leader shouted.

Thane shifted so that he held Gold between himself and the guards. He grabbed Elise by her hair and dragged her closer to him. She tried to get up, but another shock drove her back to the ground.

Gold breathed heavily, his pride starting to show through. “You're just a kid, Thane. Can't even control your hormones.” He laughed. “You're sweet on her. Which is cute. But it won't be cute when you take her to Fratley. He'll sell her, but not to you.”

Thane grabbed both sides of Gold's head and screamed as he twisted his head around backward. “You're a liar! You're a liar like everyone else!”

I dove toward Elise before the guards opened fire. X-37 was shouting at me. Thane was beating Gold’s corpse. The assassins’ guild guards were advancing, firing until their magazines ran dry and reloading on the move. The sound of their weapons echoed from the high ceiling.

Falling over another person seemed like a simple maneuver, but was surprisingly difficult. Elise twisted and turned, but I noticed something.

She wasn't squealing and crying in pain as she had been when Gold zapped her. It was more like she was trying to break free of my weight.

“Can you get off me!” she hissed between her teeth. “You’re ruining everything.”

“I'm saving your life,” I said.

Thane leapt over us, extending a blade from each of his augmented Reaper fists. Blood spurted across the room as he stabbed the first two guards where their throat plates were weakest.

“You're not rescuing me, you're ruining my escape. Do you have any idea what it was like to get dragged all over the city by that idiot,” she said, then attempted to knee me in the groin.

I heard shouts from the doorway, then saw stun grenades bouncing near us. I rolled off Elise and held up my left arm to protect my eyes. At the same time, I opened my mouth and leaned forward to prevent the overpressure of the explosions from damaging my lungs. These were probably less lethal, but knowing the Union, they were also probably overcharged.

I heard Briggs and Crank yelling orders. I saw more assassins’ guild guards entering from one of their secret doorways.

Elise scrambled toward a floor grate, clearly too confused to execute her escape plan because the grate had solid bolts holding it in place. A heartbeat later, she pushed the entire mechanism aside and dropped into the ventilation system like she'd planned this or something.

I came to my feet but stayed low to avoid getting my face shot off. “X-37, you're fired.”

“I'm not sure what you mean,” X-37 said.

“You should've seen this coming,” I said as I ran, dove, and rolled out of the middle of the gun battle.

“As a limited AI, I did calculate 17,235 possible scenario endings. Would you like me to begin at the beginning or help you with what you're facing now?” X-37 said.

I would've told him to fuck off if I had the time and thought it would do any good.

“I feel it is a good time for me to point out that you are too big to follow Elise,” X-37 said.

I slipped into one of the doorways and drew my .45. I had four rounds left.

“Thanks,” I said. “I figured that out already.”

“I’m hit!” Bane shouted.

Crank rushed toward her, clutching as several bullets hit him. His momentum carried him to the place she was taking cover, but he was clearly hurt badly.

Several things occurred to me in only a few seconds. I wasn't sure what Gunny Bane had been doing, but her medical kit was gone.

I leaned out, fired a round at one of the guards, then darted to Crank’s side.

“Use my tourniquet on her,” Crank demanded.

It was a stupid time and place to argue, so I did what he said, possibly condemning him to death.

It didn't take long to render aid. I'd hoped one of them had some quick clotting powder or patches I could use on Crank, but didn't find any in either of their medical pouches.

“See if you can figure out where Elise will come out of that vent, X,” I said.

Not far from us, there were several downed guards and at least one other Union soldier. I wasn’t sure who it was. I low-crawled to each body until I found an unused medical kit, an HDK carbine, and a cheap lighter, then returned to Bane and Crank.

“I can’t sit here and put this on you, but between the two of you, you should be able to figure it out,” I said.

Crank gazed at me strangely.

“I have to go after Elise,” I said. “Good luck.”

His expression was worried and confused, more emotional than I’d ever seen one of Brigg’s troops. “Why would you help us? We would have died.”

“You’ll still die.” I stared at the thick-necked ruffian. “Don’t overthink it. I’ve saved lots of people I didn’t really like that much. You’re not special.”

He laughed gruffly. “Yeah. That’s no shit. Thanks, Cain. I’ve got your back after this. We’ve bled together.”

“Yeah, great. See you later,” I said, heading for one of the small side doors the guards liked so much.

“I’m coming with you,” Crank said. “I owe you.”

“What about her?” I asked, checking the tourniquet on the gunnery sergeant.

She gave me the middle finger with her good hand.

“Mission first,” Crank said.

“Fine. Don’t get in my way.”

He presented his fist for me to bump. “We’ve bled together. That means something in spec ops, or have you forgotten?”

I bumped his fist with my metal hand, careful not to extend the blade into his knuckles. “Sure. Whatever.”

“Technically, you’re not bleeding,” X-37 said.

“Details,” I responded, leaving the scene behind me. “Tell me something important like where Thane went.”

“It was very confusing when everyone started shooting,” X said.

“Tell me about it.” I fished in my pocket for one of the cigars I’d taken from Gold’s desk.

They were both fakes. “Cheap bastard.”

OceanofPDF.com

29

“What’s the holdup?” I asked. “How complicated can the ventilation system be?”

X-37 beeped. “Do you want me to answer that question?”

“No. Just give me an answer to this: where is she going in that vent?” I said.

Crank followed closer than I liked. “Why don’t we just head for the exit? She’s got to go outside sooner or later.”

He wasn’t that stupid. Something about his eagerness rubbed me the wrong way. I really wished he’d stayed behind to help Bane. If she were here, that might be different. Or Jonji or even Briggs.

Crank had an ax to grind. His sudden goodwill creeped me out.

“There are a lot of exits,” I said dryly.

“But she’s a kid. I bet she heads for the main entrance. It’s a place for us to start at least.”

“Well, that’s an interesting theory, Sergeant Crank,” I said, turning to face him in the middle of a small room under some exposed ventilation ducts. “But she’s a lot smarter than either of us and probably has a plan.”

“You don’t have to be a dick, just because we’re friends now,” he said, fists clenched.

“Are we friends, Crank?” I asked, expecting him to punch me.

His expression softened. “Sorry. That wasn’t cool. Old habits are hard to break. Let’s go find the girl. It’s for her own good.”

“I don’t like his tone,” X-37 said. “Something is wrong.”

I backed Crank up a step. “Who the hell are you?”

“You saved my life, and Gunny’s life. We’ve been through some shit together. I see it now. We have to watch each other’s back, settle our differences later,” he said.

“On the mat maybe, like when we first met?” I asked.

He blushed, shrugging awkwardly. “I was a jerk back then. We trained for the Dreadmax mission and you stole it from us. All Grady talked about was what a badass you were. Sorry, sir.”

“Dishonesty detected,” X-37 said.

“Yeah, I get it,” I said, acknowledging both Crank and X-37. “Don’t get sentimental on me. Do your job.”

Crank’s old personality reasserted itself. “Where to now, sir?”

“We follow the ventilation system as much as we can and look for clues. Try to learn where she is going, if she has confederates, an escape vehicle, a safe hold. Access to money. Weapons. All the things a person on the run needs,” I said.

“I’ll take point so you can think about that stuff,” Crank said. “I know my strengths and weaknesses.”

Pain flashed through my head and static pumped my vision full of disorienting signals. I ignored the misery, refusing to let Crank see my weakness.

“I think Thane Junior, or whoever, is on the move,” I said.

Crank hesitated. “Maybe you should lead. I’ll follow and watch our six.”

“You do have Reaper tech,” X-37 pointed out. “To be honest, I wish we’d left him behind or picked up one of the other soldiers.”

“Can’t argue with you, X. Now give me a minute,” I said, moving toward a door at the end of a service hallway.

“Are you suffering an ROS attack?” X-37 asked.

“Maybe. Something is different.” I shook my head to clear my vision.

“You are aware that Reaper Thane did not activate the ROS while you were assaulting Gold’s stronghold,” X-37 said. His analytical voice took the edge off the looming ROS incident. “Your nemesis is quite clever, actually. He pitted all of his enemies together but miscalculated when he found himself too deep in the assassins’ guild stronghold. You thought you were rescuing Elise, but you were actually facilitating Thane’s escape.”

“Then why did he come here in the first place?” Pain amplified the frustration in my voice.

“To deal with the Union, and you. His enemies are dead or in disarray. The only flaw in his plan is that he didn’t anticipate Elise’s escape plan,” X-37 said.

“Wrong,” I said.

“Of course, Reaper Cain. How could I forget the most critical element of his failure,” X-37 said, his voice conspiratorial now. “His worst mistake was that he didn’t kill you.”

I missed the days when I felt like talking shit to X, but I was wrecked right now and needed to kill some shit and find a place to recover.

Crank’s footsteps were too close. I looked back over my shoulder. “Don’t bunch up. Didn’t they teach you how to maintain tactical spacing in spec ops?”

“There isn’t a lot of room to work with,” he said, slowing down as I continued toward the heavy door.

“Warning,” X-37 said.

Crank rushed me, probably attempting to be stealthy and almost getting away with it because the pounding in my head was loud as a bass drum. What felt like lactic acid filled my body, which really slowed me down.

The blade of his combat knife was a foot long. He lunged for my throat, slicing a shallow groove through the skin of my jaw as I simultaneously pulled back and twisted away.

My Reaper blade snapped out from the top of my left fist, nearly striking his throat.

He punched, kicked, and then slashed with the knife in a rapid combination that might have taken a full second.

I retreated closer to the door, watching his style, making sure I remembered his preferred combinations and timing. We’d only fought during that one session before the Dreadmax mission. He was good and more than capable of surprising me.

Which would get me killed if it happened.

He drew his pistol.

I lunged, no longer able to control the pace. He had a lot more bullets than I did. A gun fight would go to the guy with the most ammunition and better armor.

Slapping the gun down with my normal hand, I stabbed with my Reaper blade, slicing through his ear when he juked sideways.

I followed the lunging stab with an elbow strike, still using my left arm. Instead of pulling my arm back after the stab, I just rushed forward while bending my arm. The effect was zero loss of momentum or time as my elbow and forearm smashed him in the face. In effect, the lunging stab had aimed and my elbow strike had been the real attack.

He staggered, aiming his pistol randomly.

The great thing about the blade thrust to elbow strike combination was that it naturally cocked my left arm for a follow-up slash. Unfolding my arm a microsecond after I elbowed him, I slashed the blade across his face. Blood sprayed across the hallway. One of his eyes bounced off the wall.

I never kept driving my attacks forward. Pain exploded in my brain like fireworks. Static turned my vision black and white. X-37 screamed warnings that I could barely hear, even if I wanted to listen.

Crank threw himself backward, sacrificing his footing as he fell on his back. Bleeding, missing an eye, he aimed between his feet and fired.

Instinct saved me from dying, but not from getting hit. The bullet slashed across my face, bisecting the bottom half of the scar under my left eye.

I pushed off the wall, converting my desperate dodge into a final attack. My foot came down hard on his pelvis.

Crank emptied his pistol, striking my augmented arm several times. It twitched and jerked.

I fell on my adversary, seizing him by the throat with my right hand, then leaning my weight into the attack. We struggled. He attempted to dislodge me, but it was hard to do with a broken hip and his oxygen being cut off.

The feel of his throat made me sick. I hadn’t killed a man with my bare hands since getting the Reaper gear.

That probably meant something. X-37 nattered at me to focus on the fight. My conscience screamed and cursed from a place I couldn’t see or hear well.

“Your adversary is now deceased, completely devoid of respiration or a pulse. I suggest you get moving,” X-37 said, sounding strange. “You should have anticipated his betrayal.”

“I always anticipate betrayal, X,” I said. “The timing was bad. I’m under-equipped and constantly assaulted by the ROS device.”

“Reaper Thane cannot be far from your current location,” X-37 said.

“Why can’t you give me good news just one fucking time?” I asked.

“You still have one of Gold’s cigars in your front pocket. It was undamaged by gun fire. And while we’re on the subject of health and wellness, it would be a good idea to treat your injuries.”

“I’ll put it on my to-do list.” I rummaged through Crank’s gear, taking his pistol and several magazines. His HDK Dominator was out of ammunition, so I left it. His medical pouch was empty. What he had, however, was water.

I ripped the hydration system off him and rinsed the nasty graze wounds from his bullets. The tear across my face burned more than the rest. Washing it out didn’t exactly feel fantastic.

By the time I was done cleaning wounds and drinking, the water was gone, so I chucked the pack onto Crank’s corpse.

“You were a real dick, Sergeant Crank. It probably wasn’t entirely your fault, but I’m not going to miss you,” I said, then walked away.

“Remorse is illogical. If you are going to feel bad about killing a person, then you shouldn’t kill them,” X-37 said.

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

OceanofPDF.com

30

By the time I left the assassins’ guild building, I was in bad shape. It took some work weaving my way through the massive police response. The boys in blue weren’t about to go in, despite evidence the worst of the fighting was over, but they were geared up for war and had at least three teams organizing for what came next.

“You there, stop. I need to check you,” an officer said.

“I’m wounded. Need to get to a hospital,” I said without lowering my coat collar or slowing down.

He followed, giving me orders to stop, but it was clear he was having second thoughts. The scene was chaotic and I was doing my best to look like another victim.

“I pissed myself, officer. Can you help me?” I asked, barely looking at him as I held on to a light post for balance.

“Uh, just get to an ambulance or go to a hospital by private vehicle. We’ve got a lot of people here hurt worse than you,” he said.

“Okay, okay. Oh damn, I think I’m going to shit myself! Why won’t you help me?” I demanded.

The officer ordered me to leave and retreated to the command center.

“That was undignified,” X-37 said.

“What I need from you is less judgment and more fixing my busted-ass Reaper shit,” I said, staggering forward and leaning to one side like a drunk. “This shit really fucking hurts and my optics are jacked up.”

“I will do what I can,” X-37 said. “Find shelter and stay out of sight.”

I nodded, took a calming breath, and pressed onward.

“Cain, is that you?” a familiar voice asked. “It’s Tom. Do you have Elise?”

“No, Tom. I don’t have shit. Maybe some new scars. How’s your day? Sleep under any good bridges?” I asked, sounding like a dick even to myself.

“It’s okay,” he said, drawing me into an alley as several cop cars and an ambulance rushed toward the assassins’ guild building. “We weren’t supposed to meet here anyway. I just hoped you had her so I would know she’s safe.”

“Who the hell are you, Tom?” My arm twitched. The sad part about the situation was that I’d grown so accustomed to my arm and other gear being on the fritz that I barely noticed.

“I used to be a ship engineer, junior grade, but that was a long time ago before I made a lot of bad decisions. I’ve been trying to make amends since then.”

“Who is Elise to you?” I asked.

“A friend. She helped me out of some rough spots. Convinced me I still have a chance to do something good,” he said. “Not many people look at me like I’m a real person. At the factory, I’m Worker 6133, the guy who never calls in sick and does solid work. Everywhere else, I’m the homeless working man with two jumpsuits and a tool kit to his name.”

“Fascinating. Where’s Elise right now?”

“We saved up and chartered a ship. That’s another reason I can’t afford rent. Getting off this planet isn’t cheap,” he said.

“Take me to the ship,” I said.

He nodded. “Let me look at your gear first.”

I leaned against the wall, not wanting to sit down. Once I stopped moving, I’d never get started again.

“I can’t access much of your operating system, but some things are mechanically universal with Union technology. I can put this in stand-by mode and rig a sling. It might give your body a chance to rest.”

“That is an excellent idea,” X-37 said.

“Do it,” I said. “And thanks, Tom.”

He nodded awkwardly and fixed me up best he could.

“Take me to the ship you chartered,” I said.

We’d gone about five blocks when a shadow stepped from a doorway.

“Are you okay, Tom?” Elise asked.

“He’s fine. Don’t you want to ask how I’m doing?”

“I don’t care about you,” she said. “Or have you forgotten the day you left me here?”

“I came back,” I said.

“Probably because you had to. Or someone paid you. Are you going to sell me to the Union now that the bounty is a hundred thousand credits?” she asked.

I groaned inwardly. Her attitude hadn’t changed a bit.

“We should go,” Tom said. “The ship won’t wait for us. We paid in advance and they have other passengers and cargo.”

“What’s the name of the ship?” I asked just in case they tried to ditch me and I had to catch up with them.

“It’s the Renegade Star. Captained by one of the sleazier characters in the business,” Tom said.

“I talked to him,” Elise said. “He’s not bad.”

“Lead the way,” I said.

“We’re not taking you,” Elise said.

Tom intervened. “I’m sure Mr. Cain can gain passage to the ship. And it might be good to have a Reaper looking out for us.”

“No way. We’re done here. Leave him and let’s go,” Elise said.

“He rescued you from Dreadmax,” Tom said in a slightly lower voice.

“Then left me here.” Her voice cracked. “Everyone abandons me eventually.”

“I came back. Let’s get this done. The Union is still after us, Thane isn’t far off, and now we’ve pissed off the entire criminal underground of Greendale,” I said.

“Please, Elise. If you don’t want to forgive him, at least do it for me. We will need him sooner or later,” Tom said.

She stormed down the street without answering.

“I think that’s a yes,” Tom said.

* * *

“Thanks for nothing, Cain,” Elise said, watching the landing pad where the Renegade Star was parked.

Union soldiers guarded the area, checking everyone booking passage off the planet. Briggs and the remnants of his team moved among them, giving orders to the regular troops.

They had also made amends with the Greendale law enforcement organizations. A dozen regular cops helped the spaceport security officers and Union soldiers. An assault team stood near their armored car.

“This is less than ideal,” X-37 informed me.

Elise argued with Tom in a low voice she probably assumed I couldn’t hear well enough to understand. Most of her tirade was a repeat of earlier arguments. I listened but didn’t listen.

“What do you see, X?” I asked quietly.

“Commander Briggs staring at us?” X-37 said.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Why isn’t he sounding the alarm?” I asked.

“Unknown, Reaper Cain.” X-37’s voice faded but was stronger than it had been for much of my time on the planet.

“The only good thing about this scene is that Thane isn’t nearby to punish me with the ROS device,” I said.

“That would also be my assessment. We should destroy the ROS at our first opportunity,” X-37 said.

“Agreed.” I held eye contact with Briggs, doubting he could see me as well as I could see him. Even with the random static in my optics, I had better range than the naked eye.

He probably saw my general shape, while I could see him well enough to read his confusing as hell body language.

“The only solid fact I have is that he hasn’t sounded the alarm. That could mean he is waiting until he has us surrounded, but if that were the case, he would pretend not to see me,” I said.

“You saved the lives of several members of his team at great risk to your own life. He must know that. Perhaps he is grateful,” X-37 offered.

“Yeah, I’m sure he wants to buy me a steak dinner and introduce me to his sister,” I muttered.

“Regardless, Reaper Cain, the fact remains that he has not sounded the alarm. The only rational explanation is that he has doubts about his mission,” X-37 said.

“Don’t you have the Jellybird?” Elise asked.

“Now you want my help?” I asked.

She clenched her teeth, clearly holding back some choice words.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “I heard the Renegade Star is a bucket of bolts anyway.”

“On the contrary,” X-37 chirped in my ear. “The ship has a near legendary reputation.”

“Whatever,” I said, leading the way back to the smugglers’ landing field where the Jellybird was parked.

* * *

We approached the nearly abandoned spaceport, stopping well short of the chain-link fence and the security gate that could be opened with a passcode. There was nothing fancy about the place. A casual observer might wonder if it was even active. The Jellybird was the only ship parked on a landing strip that could accommodate seven other vehicles.

Harsh lights shone from poles at each corner of the small facility. There was an eerie silence that allowed me to hear the hum of the electric boxes for the lights.

“Jelly, do you read me?” I asked, and got no response. “X, can you reach her?”

“I am unable to make contact,” X-37 said.

Holding up a hand for Elise and Tom to stop, I pointed back into the neighborhood that surrounded the spaceport. “Find someplace to hide. Thane is here. There’s going to be trouble.”

“Are you sure?” Tom asked.

“There’s no place else that makes sense,” Elise said. “This son-of-a-bitch you brought down on us knows how limited our options are.”

“I didn’t bring him,” I said. “He came for you, kid. Don’t forget that.”

“I’m no more a kid than you’re a model citizen,” she said.

“Do you want to fight a Reaper?” I asked.

She shook her head. Tom took her by the arm, and they slipped away.

I approached the gate, not sure how I was going to deal with Thane. He had armor, weapons, and a tactical advantage. This was an ambush, and he would see me before I saw him.

There were only two things that might work in my favor. He couldn’t use the Reaper off switch when we were close together, so I was looking forward to momentary relief from all the nerve-ware bullshit that had been plaguing me.

That was all defensive, and probably inconsequential.

My real weapon was information. This wasn’t Byron Thane. X-37 and I had kicked around a lot of theories, but my knowledge of human psychology and experience dealing with… the final moments of a target’s life had taught me a lot.

Everyone wanted answers. They wanted to know why they were here and what they were supposed to be doing.

“X, see if you can make contact with this supposed Reaper on our channel,” I said.

“I can see you, Cain,” a voice said. “Which means I can kill you. So keep that in mind.”

“Why didn’t you contact me before this? Your LAI and my LAI could have hosted a group chat and avoided all this bloodshed and stupidity,” I said, looking for places my enemy might be hunkered down while I edged closer to my ship.

“It’s not as simple as that and you know it,” Thane said. “Even if I trusted you, you would’ve led the Union straight to me or sold me to someone like Gold or Fratley.”

“You took the contract on Elise. You’re going to sell her to the Union,” I said. “Maybe I’m dense, but that seems like a pretty good way for the Union to find you.”

“Stop being a dumbass,” he said. “You know I was using a third-party broker. Gold set everything up and then it got complicated.”

“Why not reach out to me? If we’re both running from the Union, then we should be natural allies,” I said, almost to the Jellybird.

“That’s close enough. I’m not letting you get on that ship. One more step, and I’m sending you an HDK round via Reaper express mail,” he said.

I stopped, turning in a circle to look for his sniper hide but not seeing it.

“Tell me about my father,” Thane said.

“So that’s it,” I said. “You’re a bastard they somehow missed during his security check.”

“They knew about me. He was so much better than the rest of the Reapers that they made allowances. He brokered a deal and had me raised in secret. I wasn’t supposed to get Reaper gear for myself, but he cheated. Which pissed off the Union,” he said.

“He wasn’t that much better than the rest of us,” I muttered.

Thane laughed loud enough that I heard him without the radio link. He was near the control tower, second level, I thought.

“He was, Cain. But if it makes you feel better, he talked about you a lot. Said your moral code would bring you down. I don’t think he respected any of the other Reapers,” Thane said.

“So what’s your question? What do you want from me?” I asked.

“Is he really dead?” Thane Junior asked.

“Yeah, he’s dead as they come,” I said in a low voice. We’d hadn’t been friends and I really hated this kid Reaper, but the moment retained a sense of gravity. Byron Thane had been better than me. We’d both known it and that was why we were always competing for the best kill, craziest mission, funniest story.

And best cigars.

Byron Thane made cigar smoking an art, like they had been invented just for him.

Byron Thane Junior stepped out of his hiding place, striding toward me.

“I think this is going to get awkward,” X-37 said.

X-27, Thane’s LAI, laughed, and I realized there was something wrong with it. Probably it was a copy of the original and had inherent artifacts from the duplication procedure. Basically, X-27 was insane and serving a young man with a murderous vendetta and a lot of questions.

“What is that thing saying?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” X-37 said. “It may be a code between him and his host.”

“We should have a code,” I said as my enemy drew nearer.

“Of course,” X-37 said. “I’ll begin work on it immediately if you survive this encounter.”

Thane tossed aside his HDK, then did the same with his pistols. He left a trail of knives and other deadly implements all the way across the tarmac.

“Very dramatic,” I said dryly.

“I should remind you that he is physically stronger, younger, faster, and has two arm blades while you only have one,” X-37 said.

“Thanks for the pep talk,” I said.

“If you have a plan, now would be the time to tell me so that I might assist,” X-37 said.

“I have two rounds left in the gun Frank gave me,” I said.

“I was wondering why you hung on to it,” X-37 said. “Besides the obvious fact it’s a beautiful weapon.”

Thane stopped two strides away from me, extending both of his arm blades. I held up my own arm blade in a mock salute.

“You know that age and experience always trumps youthful vigor,” I said.

“You think you can draw that shitty old gun fast enough to take me down with, what, one or two bullets that you have left?” Thane asked.

“He has seen through your rather lame plan,” X-37 warned.

I pulled the .45 and fired, sidestepping, turning, and running for the Jellybird the instant after I pulled the trigger. The slide was still rocking back into place when I made my move.

“Jelly! Drop the fucking ramp!” I shouted.

“What seems to be the problem, Captain?” Jelly asked as though she’d only now realized I was at the spaceport.

Thane attacked with both blades.

I abandoned my attempt to get on the ship, rolling away and creating distance to defend against Thane’s assault.

“That was your plan?” X-37 asked incredulously.

I had two plans, actually, but no time to explain to X-37.

Thane tackled me to the ground and mounted me like a mixed martial arts fighter with his legs on each side of my torso, pinning my hips and legs while he attacked my upper body with his blades.

I deflected one with my left arm, but his left blade went straight through my shoulder, pinning me to the ground.

“You should’ve saved him!” Thane screamed, spittle flying from his mouth as his eyes twisted behind the blue light of his Reaper mask.

I wiggled the cigar knife out of my pocket with my right hand.

“You were both Reapers. They set him up. Even if you hated him, even if you were jealous, you should have known they would come for you next.” He spat the words, tears running from behind the mask.

“It’s not too late. We could beat the Union if we work together,” I said, barely able to speak through the pain.

“Warning,” X-37 said. “You require immediate medical attention.”

“You can go to hell,” Thane said. “That’s the only reason I’m here. I already knew you betrayed him. And now that you’ve admitted it, it’s time for you to die. I can handle the Union myself. You’d only slow me down.”

I tried to twist free but couldn’t move him. “I don’t want to hurt you, just saying.”

“Warning,” X-37 repeated mechanically. “You require immediate medical attention.”

Thane laughed maniacally. “You really are an arrogant son of a bitch.” He twisted his double left blade, sending fresh waves of pain through my entire body. Then he quit laughing and drew back his right arm for the killing blow.

I slashed upward with the cigar knife, catching him under the edge of his Reaper mask, slicing his jugular. The five-millimeter blade was more than enough to end his life.

His blood washed over me. His body convulsed even as I shoved him sideways and twisted out from under his weight. It barely hurt when the Reaper blade slid free of my shoulder.

Gasping for air, I staggered away from the young Reaper’s death throes, trying to stop my own wound from bleeding out.

Elise and Tom came running.

“That was your plan, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked. “We need to talk.”

I fell flat on my face and embraced true darkness. Somewhere, I heard Tom talking about taking Thane’s gear.

* * *

It was strange to have people on the Jellybird again. Elise knew her way around. She hadn’t spoken about her father, or about Dreadmax, or to me any more than necessary about anything at all.

X thought she would come around.

Tom was a surprisingly good companion. We sat on the bridge watching the walls of the slip tunnel, smoking cigars and drinking whiskey.

We had made a couple of stops after leaving the Greendale system—for essential supplies and whatnot.

I tried not to think about Byron Thane or my past. It was nice to be free of the ROS, which I destroyed and then jettisoned the pieces into space soon after my showdown with the young Reaper.

Tom began an intensive study of my augmented arm and had already made several simple repairs that provided a surprising amount of relief.

There were still problems with my Reaper gear, but having the basics tuned up took stress off the biological parts of me and allowed me to sleep better.

I rested, ate healthy, and trained just hard enough to stay sharp. It was a strange place to be—almost happy and feeling physically well.

“Shall I remove the smoking restriction from the bridge?” X-37 said over the speaker so Tom could participate in the conversation.

“Make it by invite only. I don’t think this will be a regular thing, just for special occasions,” I said to X-37.

“Very good, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said approvingly.

“We need to talk,” Tom said. “The Union won’t stop hunting Elise. Did she explain her relationship to the Lex project?”

I nodded. “Do you know what that is?”

“Only what she told me. Her father used it to keep her alive, and then basically gave her up to the Union for testing. I wonder if he had a choice, but haven’t brought that possibility up with her. She’s a long ways from forgiving him for abandoning her,” Tom said.

“She’s young and stubborn,” I said, then tried to blow a smoke ring.

“We need to get you squared away. Make improvements if we can,” Tom said.

“Everyone wants to make me a weapon,” I said casually, not really offended by the idea. It was what it was. Who was I to try and change things?

“As much as I hate to say it, we need to head for Roxo III. There is a technician there who can work on my eye, and maybe even handle my nerve-ware,” I said.

Tom shifted uncomfortably. “I’ve heard stories about that place.”

“It’s a shit hole. One of the most dangerous places I’ve ever been, but the fact that I’ve been there and survived improves our odds,” I said.

“You’re not telling me everything,” Tom said. “I get the feeling you have a more personal reason for hating the Union. I know they set you up for murder, Elise told me that. But I’m no kid. I can see when someone is struggling.”

“I have my problems with the Union,” I said. “Let’s just leave it at that.”

* * *

Keep reading for book three, BLADE OF THE REAPER.

For more updates on this series, be sure to join the Facebook Group, “J.N. Chaney’s Renegade Readers.”

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1

“I’ve got absolutely no fucking reason to complain,” I said.

Silence. No response from X-37.

My Reaper limited AI’s purpose was to keep me functioning at maximum capacity. I wasn’t sure how being a huge pain in my ass accomplished that task.

“I’m sorry, Reaper Cain. Does your statement require a response?” X-37 asked.

I ignored him. He was treading dangerously close to mind reading and I wasn’t in the mood for an argument or a lecture. Transcending from limited artificial intelligence to a fully functioning AI could activate his shutdown sequence, a topic that always put his panties in a bunch.

Why would I want to go there?

Life was about as good as it could get for a man on the Union’s ultimate shit list. Not only had my military occupational specialty been phased out, I’d been phased out—framed for seventeen gang murders and sentenced to death plus forty years, whatever the hell that meant.

I was also aiding and abetting a teenage runaway wanted by the Union because she was full of super-secret genetic research derived from the Lex program. And my ship was stolen from the Union fleet. Which I didn’t think should be held against me because it had already been liberated and converted to a smuggler when I found it on Dreadmax.

I said as much to X-37.

“You did, in fact, murder seventeen gang members in Night City,” he reminded me.

“But I wouldn’t have if the Union hadn’t planted evidence blaming them for my father’s death and the disappearance of my mother and sister. Stop being difficult and let me vent.”

“It should have been twenty-three murders, but six survived their injuries—two instances of gunshot wounds, an uncountable number of stab wounds across all six survivors, and one man thrown from a building,” X-37 continued.

“You’re making me sound like a psychopath,” I said, inwardly relaxing as the confrontation continued. This was something I’d learned on Greendale. I thrived on confrontation. It made me feel like me.

I got bored traveling one slip tunnel after another. But life was pretty decent, almost good, sort of. Definitely better than being on death row. Or getting shot in the face. Far more pleasant than being lit on fire and thrown from a moving train like that time on Picardy 19.

Long story. Better to not think about missions I did for the Union before Dreadmax. Point was, today, on my way to Roxo III to find the ocular engineering specialist James Henshaw, I was living the dream.

My Reaper nerve-ware still gave me problems. I had headaches several times a week, often twice a day, but nothing compared to the crippling ordeals I’d endured on Greendale. Just the mention of Zag City was enough to make me nauseous.

The optics in my eye worked, but there had been ghost images assaulting my vision ever since I tried to wear the Reaper mask I’d taken from Byron Thane. I couldn’t afford to see things that weren’t there. To rectify that problem I needed a certified ocular engineer, and the only one X-37 and Jelly, my ship’s computer, had been able to locate was James Henshaw on Roxo III.

My cybernetic arm worked better every time Tom tuned it up. The man was constantly asking questions and trying new things. He’d been homeless with only the clothes on his back when we met. Hardly indicative of someone with the skills to work on my advanced Reaper tech but, then again, I knew better than anyone that appearances didn’t mean shit. In any case, there was nothing to complain about from his performance or his companionship.

But to say my arm was perfect would be an exaggeration. It felt a bit heavy—most of the time. Strong as hell, but slower and less coordinated than I wanted. Or maybe that was just in my head. X-37 promised me it was freakishly fast. It just didn't feel that way to me.

I extended the blade from over my fist as I walked, listening to the satisfying clunk and experiencing the recoil all the way to my shoulder. “It snaps out pretty hard. Didn’t used to bang like that.”

“Was that a complaint? Very recently, you stated you had nothing to complain about. This, however, leads me to believe that you are in need of Tom’s assistance. Shall I contact him and set up a meeting for another round of repairs and re-calibration?” X-37 asked.

“No. I’ll see him later. We’ll have our usual meeting on the view deck,” I said.

“You mean whisky and cigar time?” X-37 asked sarcastically.

“I mean careful consideration of who we are and why we’re here,” I said. “Meaning of life stuff, X.”

“Of course, Reaper Cain. It is obvious you're getting in touch with your feelings,” X-37 said. “Will you be attempting to use the Reaper mask and stealth armor? Because I thought we agreed you needed as much practice as possible with these complicated items—before your life depends on such tools.”

An involuntary shudder rippled through my entire body at the mention of the mask. As though on cue, ghost images wandered into my vision. The device had left an impression on my nerve-ware. It was as though I had endlessly stalked a Union facility I had never seen in reality. The perpetual wandering depicted in the images made me lonely.

Was this what Thane had seen before I killed him and took the mask?

“Why are you harassing me?” I asked, pushing back the unfamiliar emotions evoked by the ghost tour. “We’ve got plenty of time in the slip tunnel for that. It’s better not to rush new things.”

“You’re afraid to try it,” X-37 asserted.

“Whatever,” I muttered. “I need to ask you a serious question, X,” I said.

“How serious?” X-37 asked with mock concern.

I bit back several choice swear words that wouldn’t add to the conversation. “Do you see the ghost images from the mask?”

“I have detected them,” X-37 admitted. “It is surprising that you can see them. They are merely the residue of deleted files. My assumption is that X-27 and Byron Thane scrubbed the mask long before we encountered them in an attempt to hide its origins. These visual artifacts should not exist in your nerve-ware when you’re not using the mask. It is quite vexing.”

“That’s what I thought. Can you identify the location where the images occur?” I asked, feeling dread I couldn’t quite explain.

“I cannot,” X-37 said. “My analysis suggests it was a Union facility completed after your incarceration began. My advice is to forget about it, unless you can somehow get the Union to allow you admittance to their secret laboratories.”

“Can you make the images stop?” I asked, fearing I already knew the answer.

“They have already been deleted. Perhaps James Henshaw can scrub the nexus of your ocular augmentation and nerve-ware,” X-37 said. “Or you could just put on your big boy pants and deal with it. There should be no measurable effect on your performance as a result of these visual artifacts.”

“You’re such a dick, X.” I swaggered down the narrow, curving hallway of the Jellybird, the ship that had saved us from Dreadmax. We didn’t talk about that mission or what happened to all the people below decks, but I couldn’t help thinking about them at times.

There had been murderers and psychopaths dumped on Dreadmax, every one of them with multiple life sentences for crimes too vile to mention. But there had also been political refugees and people who had merely angered the wrong bureaucrat.

There had even been children born and raised during the twenty years the place was operated as a prison. I thought about Bug, the kid who had spoken to me over the public address system and helped me out of some tight spots. I wondered where he was and if he was okay. The last I heard, Bug and his friends were heading for one of the few ships to escape the doomed station.

I thought about my past, but only for a second. Ramming those thoughts back into the darkness where they belonged was second nature. I didn’t need to dwell on them to keep my hatred of the Union burning hot. But if I let those feelings get out of control, I would do something stupid and endanger my mother and sister.

They were out there somewhere. No one had been charged with their murders because their bodies were never found. To me, that meant they were still alive and probably being held hostage by the Union for that moment when they needed to punish me or use me.

“Shall I remove ‘test and evaluate the Reaper mask’ from your to-do list? You haven’t taken action on this item for nine days,” X-37 stated.

“I’ll work on it after you scrub the ghost images,” I said.

The mask was something different for me, a dilemma I’d never faced. I craved using the device yet feared what it might show me. Confidence in my decisions had been one of my earliest definable personality traits, long before I reached adulthood.

I remembered my mother and father laughing at how determined I was over small things. This was one of my earliest memories. To be so conflicted about the Reaper mask and the weird ghost-like aura it sometimes projected was unnerving.

“We have discussed this, Reaper Cain. There is nothing more I can do. Your best course of action is to face your fears and master the device before you are required to use it in a life and death situation,” X-37 said.

“I’ll get to it tomorrow.” The more X-37 harassed me, the more I wanted to kick back with a glass of whisky and a cigar. Tom was better at foraging for supplies than I was. He brought in some decent stuff during our last spaceport call.

“You are equidistant from the training room and the observation deck. I can easily send Tom a message advising of the delay,” X-37 offered.

I hesitated, fumbling the decision. In the middle of a mission or a hard fight, I thought more quickly, and it usually paid off. The lack of violent confrontation and the promise of imminent death was making me sloppy and weak-minded.

I didn’t like it.

The easy life sucked.

There were reasons the mask filled me with indecision. Warnings flashed every time I picked it up. X-37 promised he had neutralized the anti-theft measures inherent to the Reaper mask.

But I wasn’t in the mood to trust my Reaper limited AI completely.

The thought of putting on the mask and triggering an anti-tampering response where it leaked acid into my face and gassed me to death didn’t exactly motivate me to use the device. My soul craved a challenge, not a face-melting incident with Reaper gear designed after my “decommissioning.”

Still, the mystery of the mask was calling me and I knew I couldn't resist forever. But I could give fate the finger, because I was a jerk that way.

It might be better just to leave that one locked in the vault—no more threats of a torturous death, no more ghost images of Thane’s lonely isolation.

I headed for the training room, weighing the pros and cons of putting the Reaper mask in permanent storage. I’d spent a lot of time in prison thinking deep thoughts. I knew myself well.

“I will alert Tom to your change of heart,” X said, sounding smug.

“Whatever, X,” I muttered, wishing I had just ignored him again.

Yes, I was avoiding a confrontation with Elise and learning to use the Reaper mask. The two activities seemed to go hand-in-hand. Even if she wasn’t in the training room, once I started playing with the mask, she would show up as though called.

She either wouldn’t or couldn’t explain how she did that. I secretly wondered if it had something to do with the Lex-tech, but there was no way to tell.

The other really unpleasant task on my to-do list was the complete interrogation of Tom. I’d come to enjoy sipping whisky and telling stories over cigars with the other man. Putting my Reaper interrogation skills to use wouldn’t be good for our friendship.

There were also some funeral arrangements I needed to make.

“I had really hoped Tom’s secrets would have leaked out during our recreation,” I said.

“You have learned a great deal about each other,” X-37 said. “However, it is unlikely that a really deep or important secret would be discovered this way. You will need to get physical.”

Irritated, I snapped my response. “How about I try words first?”

“You are the expert,” X-37 said. “I was only trying to help. As I always do.”

* * *

A single light illuminated the training room. When I stepped inside, I looked at the beam shining down on the Reaper mask. I’d placed it on a security pedestal and covered it with an impact-resistant glass dome.

“We’re not alone,” X-37 said, enhancing a shadow image near the back of the room that was probably Elise. I tapped my thumb and middle finger together to acknowledge I also saw her. She thought she could spy on me, and I was inclined to allow her the illusion for now.

The only sounds were the occasional creak of the ship, inaudible to normal hearing, and the constant work of ventilation and climate control systems. The humidity and temperature in the room was slightly drier and cooler than the rest of the ship.

“It’s about time you showed up,” Elise said from the shadows.

“Jelly, turn on the lights in the training room,” I said.

“I scared you, didn’t I?” Elise asked.

“You can’t scare a Reaper,” I said, crossing my arms and looking her over. She’d come a long way since I pulled her out of the cage on Dreadmax. Her time on Greendale had been hard, but it taught her to be even more self-sufficient. She’d gone from a pissed-off runaway to a capable teenager who wouldn’t need a Reaper if the Union wasn’t trying to track her down and return her to captivity and scientific study.

"You're finally going to try again?” Elise asked. “Your face didn’t burn off the first time, so I’m not sure why you’re so skittish.”

I ignored the question and her commentary, walking past her to examine the Reaper mask in its display case. The device had been designed to be both intimidating and functional. I loved and hated the look of it. Understanding exactly what it did was becoming an obsession. Which I hated—because obsession led to bad decisions.

"Do you know why the Union started the Reaper Corps?" I asked Elise.

"Probably to create a bunch of self-important assholes with fake arms and bad attitudes," Elise said.

"That is a surprisingly insightful observation," X-37 said privately.

"Get serious, Elise," I said, ignoring X-37. "You know better than that. What happened to the street-smart kid I met on Dreadmax?"

The teenager rolled her eyes. Her lips twitched as if wanting to say something mean, but she elected to cross her arms and just give me attitude.

"The Union never had a monopoly on assassinations," I said. "We pulled our skill set from several specialties. What made us different was that we weren’t just assassins. We were intended to send a message."

Elise stared me down. “You want me to be impressed?”

“Are you?”

She shrugged, but I saw her pulse beating in her neck.

I removed the tech-glass case from the mask, then lifted the skull-like device. "We were scouts, spies, shock troopers, and interrogators. Any job that was nasty or repulsive to the human psyche was reserved for us.”

She softened, something like concern coming into her eyes, but didn't say anything.

I activated the device, studying the three blue circles—two eyes and one sensor in the middle of the forehead.

"I just came to watch that thing eat your face," she said, regaining a little bit of her normal attitude.

"Nothing ventured, nothing gained," I said, slipping the device into place. “Activate full Reaper mask functionality.”

X-37 was right, the ghost images were minimal and should be easily ignored. As for the possibility of death by Reaper mask…

Sensations flooded into my brain, barely filtered by X-37. The only satisfying part of the ordeal was that my limited AI was just as overwhelmed as I was.

That was what he got for being a dick.

Staggering sideways and then forward with my hands out, I ran into a wall. If Elise was still in the room, I couldn't see or hear her. My vision was a wall of blue lights. Sounds roared in my ears. The tactile sensations of my artificial and natural hands increased to an unmanageable level.

There wasn't any pain, which was nice. I felt about as good as I ever had. Maybe this was an illusion or maybe the mask had triggered some sort of central nervous system response.

But something was wrong. A sense of danger that had nothing to do with the technology I was attempting to use grew moment by moment. It was a primal feeling I couldn't ignore.

I ripped the mask off, ignoring the shutdown procedures that X-37 had explained to me when we first began our study of the device.

"It doesn't seem that we are in the training room," X-37 said.

"No shit," I said, gazing at the external door of the airlock, heart pounding like a pneumatic hammer.

My cybernetic left arm was on the wheel. A few turns to the left and I would've been violently ejected into space because the small room hadn’t finished its decompression.

"That was not what I thought would happen," X-37 said.

"Jelly, can you tell me where Elise is right now?" I asked. Images of her lying dead because of something I’d done terrified me.

"She remains outside of the airlock. The young woman followed you from the training deck," Jelly said. “It seems that you had an argument. She was very adamant that you not exit the airlock without an extra vehicle activity suit."

The internal door from the airlock opened and I saw Elise relax. Her eyes were puffy and red like she'd been crying or at least holding back tears.

"Well, that was stupid," she said.

Her reaction caught me off guard. I started laughing. She joined in. Our collective mirth grew exponentially.

"Can one of you please explain what is happening?" X-37 asked.

“Don't worry about it, X,” I said, still wallowing in the camaraderie the near-death experience had prompted. “We're taking the mask back to its security pedestal in the training room. I think we've done enough testing and evaluating for one day."

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2

I decided not to push my luck with Elise. We’d had a good laugh after I nearly hurled myself into the void, but that didn’t mean she’d stop being angry that I’d nearly gotten myself killed. Slipping into the void was the scariest idea imaginable, one of the few things I’ve feared more than heights. The thought of spinning into the darkness was one of my recurring nightmares. The only good thing was that decompression and extreme cold would kill me before I went far. Without oxygen, I’d lose consciousness and freeze to death. As for exploding and feeling my blood boil, I thought that was a myth propagated by poorly researched action holos.

“Hey, X,” I said, “can you remind me to practice with the EVA suits, especially the part where I put one on as quickly as possible?”

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “I’ll add it to your much-neglected list.”

“I think it’s time to lay Byron Thane II to rest. Make an announcement, but emphasize that attendance is not required,” I said.

“Jelly has made the announcement,” X-37 soon advised.

The pod that contained the body of Byron Thane was already in the airlock next to the one I’d almost thrown myself out of. Maybe that was where I’d been going when the Reaper mask malfunctioned. But maybe not.

Thinking about the son of my old rival and what I’d done wasn’t exactly a feel-good fest. The young Reaper had more in common with me than I wanted to admit. The Union served us both a buffet bar of crap and we had to eat our fill.

I stood for a long time over the pod. It wasn’t a proper casket. Funerals at space were usually a big deal in the Union fleet. I’d never served in the Union Fleet but had been attached to various ships. Unfortunately, there had been a lot of funerals before I lost my arm and started down my dark path.

“I should say something before we do this,” I told X-37.

“Jelly has advised me that Elise and Tom are on their way to participate,” X-37 said.

I waited until they arrived and then began without a word. The window to the pod was darkened against radiation. It wasn’t necessary to see out or in, but humans had a way of putting windows in things that didn’t need them. We were all a little bit claustrophobic, I thought.

No one said anything. Elise and Tom silently took their places. The girl had toned down her attitude, pulled her tight hair into a braid, and changed into a jumpsuit. Tom had cleaned up well too, even going so far as to shave and brush his hair. He’d come a long way from sleeping on park benches and under bridges.

Since we hadn’t been able to scrounge up a space casket, X-37 had frozen Byron Thane inside the pod. He was still wearing the KFA for two reasons.

One, I’d never liked the gear. It was complete overkill and about as subtle as a hand grenade going off. I didn't need it when I already had my sparkling personality to send a message. It did, however, make appropriate funeral garb for the faux Reaper.

Two, it was coded to Thane. With the trouble I’d already experienced with the mask, I wasn’t willing to risk my fingers on something I didn’t want to use anyway. Some of the KFA blades had activated when I carried the body onto the Jellybird, forcing me to juggle the young, dead Reaper imposter. The scene had been both macabre and ridiculous.

“It is customary to say a few words of remembrance,” X-37 reminded me.

I was the absolute worst person to officiate a funeral. X-37 and my companions knew it but didn’t say anything. The mood in the room was somber despite the fact that this fake Reaper had tried to kill me and kidnap Elise. Each time I reviewed my mission to Greendale, I was struck by the fact that it could have gone much differently.

Byron Thane II had been young and lonely. If he’d treated Elise like a target instead of becoming infatuated with her, I wouldn’t have stood a chance. The son of my old rival made one bad choice after another, starting with his attempt to pit the Union against the assassin’s guild on Greendale. It was the type of thing that looked good on a planning board but never worked out in reality.

He had found himself too deep in the assassin’s guild stronghold and burdened himself with keeping Elise alive.

I’d made similar mistakes in the past, but I didn’t want to think about them. Sometimes it was better to be lucky than good.

Touching the window to the escape pod, I decided I wouldn’t say anything, but then did the complete opposite.

“I knew your father. Since he’s dead and you’re dead, and all of the Reapers are gone, I’ll admit he was the best… or at least the most dangerous of us,” I said, unsure of how to continue.

“Byron Thane was in fact far superior to you as measured by all metrics recorded by the Reaper Corps. Perhaps you should begin again. My search of human psychology texts suggests that mourning is an important part of the human journey,” X-37 said.

“Not now, X.” I really wanted to curse at my LAI but held myself in check.

“I was only trying to help.”

I ignored the annoying little bastard. What did either of us know about grieving? The entire point of the Reaper Corps training was to eliminate behavioral restrictions. They had wanted me to be a cold-blooded murderer, and I’d not done a bad job of it.

“I don’t want to be a Reaper anymore,” I said to the life pod.

“Dishonesty detected,” X-37 whispered.

“Shut. The fuck. Up. X,” I said. What I had said was true, but it was also against my nature. The road to hell was paved with good intentions.

Pale and nervous, Elise and Tom looked like they wanted to disappear.

I realized something then. The ceremony wasn't about them, or even Byron Thane II. I had to face my past if I was going to change. X-37 wasn't wrong, but he wasn't right either.

Consciously, I wanted to be done with this life. Subconsciously, it was who I was. Should I resist the darkness within me, or just embrace it?

* * *

A little while after my awkward eulogy, Tom took his usual seat. I moved around the observation deck gathering the essentials. One wall of the room was a view screen that displayed whatever was outside of the ship. Slip tunnel travel was always spectacular—the view screens full of vibrant green energy. When we were deep in the void beyond a slip tunnel, it magnified points of interest so that we didn’t have to look at a wall of darkness.

Unless I felt like staring into the black void, which happened from time to time. But never with company.

I poured Tom a fresh whisky and handed him a cigar from the humidor we’d put together after he joined the crew.

“Thanks, Hal,” Tom said.

He called me Hal, which took some getting used to. It was nice.

I handed him an earbud.

“What’s this?” he asked. “I mean, I know what it is, but are you sure you want to allow me to listen in?”

“Might make things easier. I can always mute you from my conversations with X-37. Trust me, there will be times when you beg me to spare you the LAI’s chatter,” I said.

“Perhaps he should form his own opinion of my witty banter,” X-37 said.

Tom inserted the device into his ear, wiggling it until it was invisible. “Testing, testing. One, two, three, testing. Can you hear me, X-37?”

“Loud and clear,” my limited AI advised.

“I haven’t given one to Elise yet, but I will before we get to Roxo.” I exhaled, stressed about letting the young woman talk directly to X-37. They would probably gang up on me.

“Do you want to talk about what you said at the funeral?” Tom asked.

I pretended he hadn’t said anything. The strange moment of remorse was in the past and I needed to focus on interrogation. Getting into the proper mindset could be difficult, even for a Reaper. I needed to be remorseless. Accepting Tom’s empathy would interfere with this interview.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Tom said, shifting in his seat and looking toward the door—probably because he was wondering if he could escape if this went bad.

“You never told me how you met Elise,” I began, my expression devoid of emotion.

"We met at the diner," Tom answered. His body language suggested there was more to his story and that he wasn't sure how to say it. His posture suggested he sensed a change between us. I respected the fact that he hadn’t broken before we started. Not many people could withstand an interview with a Reaper knowing that a painful interrogation had to come next. Interview and interrogation were definitely not the same thing.

But I didn’t want to hurt my friend Tom.

I waited patiently, aware that silence could draw out more from an interview than clever words ever would. Patience mattered. Watching his body language was going to be as important as listening to his words.

"I could see how hard she worked," he continued, exhaling as tension left him. Perhaps he had decided to just spill the truth, or maybe he had just found a comfortable place in which he could talk. "I came in before and after my shift. On the way, I needed the coffee to get me going, and on the way back, I had enough credits to eat."

I tapped the index and middle fingers of my right hand against my left wrist, a signal for X-37 to pay close attention and record the interaction in real time.

Tom smiled as though remembering something painful but poignant. "To be honest, I stayed as much as I could because it was warmer than sleeping on the street."

"When did you realize there was a contract out for her capture?" I asked.

"About a week before you showed up. A few locals came by asking about her. Jimmy ran them off, roughed a couple of them up pretty good."

"That doesn't sound like Jimmy," I said, remembering the beefy man who had trembled in fear when standing up for Elise. He had good reason to be afraid, because Michaels and Olathe had been truly dangerous.

"Jimmy's a lot meaner than he looks. He came up through the streets. Someone his size was practically required to be an enforcer. He took the money he earned and got out of the business pretty quickly, starting a food stand years ago. Eventually, it became his diner." Tom paused. "He had that safe room built, which almost worked. Olathe wouldn't have been able to blow it if the concrete had cured properly. It was a rush job."

"I don't disagree," X-37 said to me privately.

I let him ramble, talking about days spent in the diner and how his relationship with Jimmy and Elise had grown.

When I thought the time was right, I shifted gears, focusing on my suspicions. "You did a great job fixing my arm."

He went silent, shifting uncomfortably.

"And you almost snuck up on me in that alley when we first met," I said.

"You learn to live without being seen when you're homeless," he said, and I sensed at least partial truth in his words.

"Sure," I said. "But why don't you tell me the rest of it?”

He leaned closer, showing his earnestness. "I have Union training, but only at a basic level. You have to believe me. I can fix almost anything that's mechanical, because that's what I do. It's the way I think. All of my spare time is spent learning about things like that."

I kept my eyes focused on him, giving him nothing back.

"Your Reaper hardware can do more than you realize,” he continued. “I can see its potential but don't have the skill or the tools to make those types of modifications, at least not yet. As for the rest, your eye and other things, I don't know what to do with those."

"Okay," I said. He probably expected a long list of questions and cross examination. Knowing him as well as I did now, I decided to let him stew for a while. If he was planning to act against me, he would give himself away before long.

"There’s something else," Tom said. "I don't just read instruction manuals—other things interest me, like history books and news reports. Thesis papers. I’ve found things related to the Reaper program in some of the stranger academic side tunnels I’ve wandered down."

"Like what?" I asked, only mildly interested. This wasn't his dark secret. I could feel him relaxing like this was familiar and safe territory. I wasn't about to learn something about his past or his motivations. Still, the Reaper angle was intriguing, so I let him keep going.

"I found mentions of Reaper facilities. It took a lot of work, but these were plans for facilities, if you get my meaning."

"I don't," I said, even though I knew exactly where he was going with this.

"I have some ideas about where they might have to situate this type of facility, at least to slip tunnels they would take to get there. Maybe if Jelly and X-37 could help me, we could find a place where I could really help you. A true laboratory with all of the tools and materials needed to not only fix your Reaper gear but improve upon it—with Jelly and X-37’s help. Or better yet, a real engineer. I’m good with tools, but the cybernetic stuff takes actual training. Can’t learn that from books—unless you want me to practice on you a lot."

“Calm down, Tom. No need to be nervous.” I poured Tom another shot of whisky, then went back to my chair and sat down. There was a lot to think about and there were decisions to be made.

OceanofPDF.com

3

Grigori Paavo. That was the name X-37 gave me before I left the Jellybird with Elise and Tom. This wasn’t the person who would fix my shit, but he could get me to someone who could. Apparently, a guide was needed to navigate the station.

Roxo III had been under martial law for the last standard month, but the local government couldn’t afford to maintain the mandate without appealing to the Union for help. Local militias had sprung up, gangs had made alliances, and opportunists looted when they could, burning shit for no reason. But what made the situation strange was that many citizens continued with their lives as best they could.

Chaos ruled, but people didn't give up. Travel advisories warned visitors to just get back on their ships and leave, or better yet not to land at all.

Very few Roxo citizens, including the highest officials, wanted anything from the Union no matter how bad the alternative became. The consensus was that it was better to watch society purge itself than submit to the Union. I didn’t altogether disagree.

This had been one of the worst regions of the Deadlands, even before the degeneration of law and order, not surprising in a poorly designed world inhabited by opportunists, adventurers, and fugitives.

As a result, it was impossible to travel on Roxo without a professional guide like Grigori Paavo, who went by “Path” for reasons unknown.

"Is there a lucrative market for ocular engineering on Roxo III?" I asked.

"The market is small, restricted to a few wealthy individuals," X-37 answered. "Why do you ask?"

"No reason. I just imagined some guy in a dirty little workshop. I didn't expect him to send us a guide," I said. “Make sure he hasn’t added that to the contract price.”

James Henshaw, the engineer who would be working on my Reaper tech, had sent over a contract for service prior to our leaving the ship. I’d given it only a cursory glance, then left it for X to scan over.

“Already done, Reaper Cain.” X-37’s prompt professionalism reminded me why I suffered an LAI that could monitor my every move.

“I can’t get over how weird this feels. A scientist with money? I thought they were all poor. That’s why they teach and work themselves to death. This guy must be running a scam,” I said, only half joking.

"Perhaps you should refrain from making assumptions in the future," X-37 said.

"I'll make a note, " I said, hoping my LAI could detect my sarcasm.

Roxo III was a station like no other. Significantly larger than Dreadmax, it was a giant cylinder that had been terraformed along its insides. The old, terribly flawed design sucked in about every way there was to suck.

It maintained the Lagrange point between the second and fourth planets of the Roxo system, smack in the middle of the green zone. So that was good. Score one point for the armpit of humanity. The only reason the place thrived was its location in a region that was comparatively free of asteroids. Not too hot, not too cold, the first residents of the gigantic gravity tube had probably been full of hopes and dreams.

The exterior was all shielding and solar panels—except where it was busted and falling apart. It was open at each end with weak environmental shields. The interior surface contained greenhouses, factories, and residential neighborhoods under domes painted sky blue. In several places repairs had left them clear enough to see the ships landing at the spaceports high “above” the general populace.

In the center, right down the middle of the tube that was open at both ends, were thousands of spaceports and dry-docks. Spokes radiated down to the surface where the rotational force imitated planetary gravity and the shields at the end of the tube world held in the atmosphere.

I scanned the area. "So where is this mysterious guide?"

"Access to the concourse is extremely limited. I suggest we look for him on the lower levels," X37 advised me.

"Fantastic. We're already off to a bad start," I complained.

“There are lifts down to and up from the surface once an hour. Each spoke has a different transport schedule to reduce stress on the infrastructure and provide options for travelers. If all the lifts moved at the same time, there could be a problematic effect on the inertia-generated gravity of Roxo III,” X-37 explained. “If you do not catch this lift, you will have to wait at least an hour, and that will put you in the middle of rush-hour traffic.”

“I get it, X. We’re going.” I strode down the concourse, not waiting for my companions.

Tom had the most trouble keeping up, being neither young nor enhanced. Elise seemed ready to run ahead or disappear into one of the shops or restaurants between every landing platform. I didn’t comment because that would have been preferable.

Lift 27A opened and people filed out. Several dozen workers and travelers lined up to get on. I stepped in ahead of them, turned, and convinced them this one was full.

Elise and Tom glared at me when the doors closed.

“All those people are going to be an hour late to wherever they’re going,” Elise chided. “We could’ve just stood in the back. It would’ve been less conspicuous.”

“I don’t feel like being around people right now,” I said.

“I hate to cause drama, but I think Elise is correct. If we are trying to go unnoticed, this wasn’t a good first step,” Tom said.

The man looked far healthier than when we first met. Unshaven and long-haired back on Greendale, he was now clean-cut with neat hair and a crisp jumpsuit. He was fit, but not muscular.

They were right, so I chose to ignore them because I was an asshole who didn’t deserve friends.

The ride to the surface was noisy. I smelled exhaust fumes and wondered what exactly powered the lifts. “Do these have individual motors, or are they linked into the station power network?”

“The station network is unreliable with all of its power reserved for vital life-support and utilities directly connected to the spaceport. The records I’m able to access show there are about two dozen types of power cores used on the lifts. There is also a persistent rumor that more than a few are made of stairs and ladders,” X-37 added.

“It would take days to climb to the surface,” Elise said in wonderment.

“The current record is ninety-six hours and thirteen minutes standard,” X-37 said. “This was accomplished by a team of professional athletes during a government-sanctioned event.”

Tom moved about the large platform. It was very plain, basically a reinforced disc about twenty-five meters across with signs limiting its lift capacity to twenty-five tons. I found a crash chair off to one side and made myself comfortable.

Elise stood over me, arms crossed as she stared down disapprovingly.

“What?” I asked her.

“This lift would’ve been less than half-full if you had let those people on,” she said.

“I never said they couldn’t ride this one,” I said.

“You gave them that look,” she said. “I wish you could know what it feels like to get that look.”

I closed my eyes and got comfortable. “Life is full of little disappointments, kid.”

“You’re just going to sleep?” she asked incredulously.

I answered without opening my eyes. “Yep. You should learn to do the same.”

“It’s an old soldier’s trick,” Tom said.

I peeked to be sure she was gone and saw her take a chair near Tom. He was reading. Before long, they were engaged in thoughtful conversation, Elise asking earnest questions about the tablet book and Tom giving detailed answers.

* * *

I made sure I was standing in the doorway when the lift opened. A crowd of people argued and pushed and talked on communication devices. It was more organized than it appeared. X-37 had referred to it as rush-hour. These people were heading up to work in the spaceport or travelling to destinations unknown.

Silence spread through the crowd. One by one, and then in twos and threes, the people of Roxo III stared at me. No one moved.

Lighter in one hand and the other shielding it from wind that didn't exist, I nursed my cigar to life and strode forward. Elise and Tom followed.

The nearly silent crowd parted as we passed. Seconds later, they were loudly crowding into the lift. Some complained of a long day at work. Others railed against the Roxo government’s inability to deal with increasingly frequent riots. No one mentioned a Reaper and his two companions, but a lot of people glared at me when they thought I wasn’t paying attention.

“You see,” Elise said, “you have that effect on people. I’m not sure how you ever completed a covert mission with your bad attitude.”

“I didn’t always have a bad attitude,” I said, looking around for Grigori Paavo. He was supposed to be waiting for us.

“Would you like me to locate evidence to confirm or deny that statement about your attitude?” X-37 asked.

“No need. She knows I’m right,” I muttered, concentrating on the crowd.

“Whatever,” Elise grumbled.

“Then I will assist you in scanning the waiting area for your guide,” X-37 said. “Would you like me to bring Elise and Tom into our conversation?”

“Why not?” I stepped to one side of the waiting area and watched the crowd. There were rows and rows of chairs that had seen better days, but also people sitting with their backs to walls and their feet stretched out into the street like hallway. “I didn’t remember there being so many people.”

“Recent events have displaced many citizens and travelers on Roxo III,” X-37 provided. “Elise and Tom are now part of our conversation. Greetings, everyone.”

“Hi, X,” Elise said cheerily.

“Reading you loud and clear,” Tom said. “It seems the connection is holding.”

“There is less interference than there was on Greendale,” X-37 said. “It is counterintuitive. Roxo is a station relying on large amounts of digital interconnectivity. One would expect that they lacked bandwidth.”

“It’s because it’s a more complex spaceport. Those are always over engineered,” I explained.

“Of course,” X-37 said. “I was merely making conversation with our guests.”

“It’s good to be off the ship,” Elise said. “No offense, Jelly. Can you hear me?” She put one hand to her ear as though it would help the earbud function.

“I will be able to maintain contact,” Jelly said. “However, I have a list of tasks that must be completed while I am in port. Please advise me if you have a request that should take priority over my updates and upgrades.”

“Okay, Jelly. Thanks,” Elise said. “I like the earbuds. X-37 and Jelly are more polite than you two.”

I ignored her comment and moved toward the man I believed was Path. The hilt of a sword protruded above his shoulder, fixed in place by a scabbard on his back. He sat near a decorative fountain on one side of the thoroughfare. Signs warned that drinking, bathing, swimming, and all other imaginable activities in the fountain were prohibited—which was probably easier to enforce because it was dry.

Graffiti covered the bowl of the fountain and the robed woman forever pouring a pitcher of… nothing. This place was just another urban desert where survival went to the strong and the well-prepared.

Elise, Tom, and X-37 went silent as we advanced on our guide.

Stopping, looking down on the man who was still sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed, I put away my cigar—taking the time to secure it in the pocket case Tom had made for me.

The man had lots of dark hair—flat braids threaded with silver wire, gems, and neon glow strips. His ears, eyebrows, and lower lip were pierced by an exotic blue metal. A tunic-like robe and flowing pants were plain and austere in comparison to his ornamentation. His sandals were simple but well-made with soles like tactical hiking boots.

“What do you think about the blade, X?” I asked, timing my approach to give me a few more seconds of private time with my LAI.

“Rare. Dangerous if he knows how to use it, and he probably does. By his hair, body piercings, and tattoos, I can say with a high degree of accuracy he associates with the Sword Saint clan,” X-37 asked.

“Who is the sword saint?” I asked, thinking I knew the answer but wanting to be sure.

“You misunderstand, Reaper Cain. There is no person or entity they worship. The etymology of the term is impossible to confirm but may derive from the word kensei, which originally meant saint of the sword or sword master. The Order of the Sword Saint is merely a group of highly skilled swordsmen and women,” X-37 explained.

I stopped near the exotically dressed man. “Are you Grigori Paavo?”

He finished releasing a meditative breath, then opened his eyes and stood up in one motion. Physically, he wasn’t impressive. Slightly under height and very lean, I would’ve thought him a natural born victim if not for the sword strapped across his back.

“Greetings, traveler. You may call me Path,” Grigori Paavo said. “Mr. James Henshaw has sent me to guide you to his mansion."

"Path," I said, recalling previous mission briefings. I’d been to worlds where sword saints were a thing. Fortunately, I’d never had to fight a real one. "That's an interesting nickname."

"As with all things, there is a reason for it," he said, standing relaxed and ready.

"I've made a note to see clues about this nickname in case it is relevant to our mission," X-37 said.

No response was required, so I maintained the staring contest with our guide.

I leaned out to one side so that I could examine the hilt of the weapon better.

X-37 gave me one beep before speaking, indicating this was a private statement. “That is interesting. Swords are rare in most societies, but that single-edged, folded steel design is nearly unheard of.”

I nodded in agreement. Since X-37 was housed in my nerve-ware, he could interpret my body language as easily as my words. This wasn’t the time to have a discussion about the weapon of Grigori Paavo. For now, we both knew it wasn’t something he had picked up at a pawn shop.

“Are you a sword saint?” I asked, not because I cared about someone too proud to use a firearm, but because I needed something to talk about while X-37 scanned him thoroughly. In a few more seconds, my Reaper limited AI would have started a file on the man, including a three-dimensional mugshot.

“I have been called many things,” Path said.

“Can you face to the right?” I asked, mildly annoyed but not surprised at his answer.

“What the hell?” Elise said, struck by the extreme awkwardness of the question. “Again with the inappropriate rudeness!”

“Of course,” Path said, complying immediately, ignoring the girl who had come to his defense.

“Profile recorded,” X-37 advised.

“Keep turning, slowly,” I instructed. “Okay, stop.”

Facing us once more, Path’s movements—being precise and efficient—were faster than they appeared. To an untrained eye, he would appear sleepy or excessively casual. As a martial artist, I had to admire the way he exuded calmness, ready to fight if necessary but apparently unconcerned. This raised my opinion of the man. A fake sword saint would have become defensive. I still thought about forgoing all weapons, but the blade was foolish.

“Well?” I asked again.

“I didn't answer because your question was false,” Path said. “You don’t care whether I am truly called to the blade or a charlatan of violence. What matters to you is contacting James Henshaw, the ocular engineer. He was much sought after by Reapers and others who rely on cybernetic vision.”

“Have there been a lot of Reapers recently?” I asked.

“Not a one,” Path said without hesitation.

“I have pulled up several disturbing reports on Grigori Paavo,” X-37 said. “Customer reviews indicate that he is prone to meditate without reason or warning, often sitting down in the middle of a busy thoroughfare.”

"Weird, but not dangerous," I said, still somewhat distracted.

"One reviewer says that he is scornful of mundane activities, including paying his debts," X-37 advised.

"Man after my own heart,” I muttered. "What can we expect on Roxo III?"

He answered calmly, "There will be a lot of walking. I would expect several instances of public disorder, up to and including riots that shut down all transitways including stairs in manual sidewalks."

"Then we better get started," I said.

OceanofPDF.com

4

We followed Grigori Paavo through a maze of covered streets. The place had been designed to mimic outdoors. Poorly calibrated micro-projectors showed moving clouds as the sun set.

But it wasn't really setting; everything on Roxo III was fake, except the poverty and desperation. An automated voice from a loudspeaker announced that it was trash collection time. Several canisters along the side of the covered street closed, flashing lights warning passersby they were locking down. One of the old lids, weakened by lack of maintenance, snapped off to join other clutter and debris.

Moments later, the trash barrels rumbled away on rails as new containers replaced them. It should have been an efficient system to keep the habitat in order, but it wasn't. The constant malfunctions and vandalism were why the rest of the known galaxy had switched to hover tech.

People moved out of the way without having to think about it. Traffic flowed in both directions. There were a lot of people on foot. I saw a system for rail transport but didn't see any transport cars. In contrast to many other cities I'd been to, the lighting was nearly uniform, coming from everywhere at once. It wasn't at all like Greendale where so much of the experience involved neon lights and flashing signs.

Roxo III by comparison was drab and dreary, even when it was well lit. It was hard to explain.

I liked the way Path navigated the potentially dangerous space-city. He steered us around concentrations of people, sometimes pausing until I caught myself growing frustrated. Then, as though on his command, the way would clear and we’d proceed unhindered.

"We need to go down a level and follow Transit Route A010," Path said. "There is a shorter way, but my way is best."

We found a set of wide stairs and descended. The new level looked a lot like the covered street we had left. After descending stairs, I expected it to be darker but should've known better. No matter how hard they worked to pretend we were on the streets of a regular city, everything was inside in case the environment shields at the end of the tube failed.

“My research shows the domes were meant to be temporary until the environmental shield proved reliable,” X-37 informed me as we walked. “There is considerable evidence that keeping the domed sections operational has saved lives. The shields do fail from time to time.”

“What’s with the ceiling, Path? I feel like we’re inside an old moon colony instead of a tube world,” I said, using X-37’s information to prompt information from our guide.

"It is possible to go outside the city domes, but not recommended," Path said.

"I'll make a note," I replied.

"Or have your limited artificial intelligence make a note, I wager," Path said.

"Do you have a problem with that?" I asked.

Path smiled wryly. "You'll find that all manner of artificial intelligence is anathema here."

I nodded, expecting what came next.

"Why is that?" Tom asked.

"There have been several gambling scandals involving advanced computer algorithms," Path said. "With so many things on Roxo III in flux, there are people who are trying to cash out and take their lives elsewhere. This is hard to do when a gambler can't pay his or her debts."

We continued toward the residence of James Henshaw. Path proved to be knowledgeable on all aspects of Roxo III. He knew the people, the places, and how everything interacted.

He was quiet and reserved like a holy man, but would talk at length if asked the right questions.

It took hours to make our way through the streets of Roxo III. The covered streets eventually converged to form a kind of plaza. I saw several fountains that lacked water.

"Is there a water shortage?" I asked.

"Not exactly," Path said. "The pipes and aqueducts are controlled by various corporations."

"Wouldn't the local government regulate that?" Tom asked, sounding more curious than alarmed.

I didn't have an opinion on the regulation of plumbing. With luck, I wouldn't be here long enough for it to be an issue. Tom seemed to be asking to fulfill his insatiable curiosity. He liked to know how things worked.

"The local government turned over regulation of water services to the corporations decades ago. It was never a problem until recently. With the state of affairs in the Deadlands and the galaxy beyond, common sense and stability are in short supply."

Path took us down, across, up, and up, and up until we were in a main section of the dome. This area was vast, and it was like being outside. The landscaping mimicked rolling hills and a lake. Mansions surrounded two thirds of the water with less affluent neighborhoods encroaching on the third shore.

"We will be walking on open roads and walkways until we reach Henshaw's mansion," Path warned.

I catalogued details I thought might be useful during an escape from this place. Reapers were always planning for exfiltration after a mission.

Tom continued to ask Path questions. Elise looked bored.

The street became ominously quiet. Our path eventually led us to the front gate of Henshaw's estate.

A voice came across the speaker while the video display showed a scenic picture of the lake from another season. "Who are you? What do you want?"

Path stepped back, turning his head and speaking to me in a low voice. “He may be in one of his moods.”

"I believe that is Henshaw,” X-37 advised. “He is well known for contracting guards with Union military experience, though I haven't seen any today."

"Why wouldn't he have armed security with everything that is happening on Roxo?" I asked suspiciously.

"I don't believe he can afford them," X-37 explained.

“He’s very cheap,” Path said, thinking the question was for him.

"I heard that, you dirty street rat," Henshaw said through the speaker. “And before you go starting rumors, I fired them because they were jerks. And I’m paying you, aren't I?”

I waved Path to silence and stepped closer to the speaker box. "My name's Halek Cain. My ship, the Jellybird, scheduled an appointment. I haven’t got all day to talk into your box."

“Why are you so impatient and rude? I sent the guide, didn't I?” the peevish voice pointed out.

"You did," I said. "He’s the tops."

“Well, yes, I suppose he is. Are you a spy?" the voice asked.

“Uh, no,” Elise said.

"We have business, Henshaw. Open the gate and let us in?" I asked.

There were several pops and clicks on the line. "Well of course, Mr. Cain. You must come inside. I will ask that you leave any weapons you may be carrying behind."

"Of course," I said, making no move to actually comply.

Elise and Tom looked at me incredulously.

I pressed the button next to the speaker again. "What about the guide you sent? I don't see him putting down his sword," I said.

If my accusatory tone bothered Path, he didn't show it.

“He's a man of faith. I don't think it would be kind to separate him from his blade," Henshaw said.

"Kind? That's a strange way to phrase it," Tom said.

"He is known to me and quite harmless,” Henshaw said. “You and your motley crew, however, are another story. I find you very alarming."

“I should have a gun,” Elise whispered. Then, to the speaker box, she said, “Some of us don’t carry an armory of deadly weapons.”

“That is reassuring, child,” the voice said.

“Child?” she said, looking surprised. “Who the hell does this guy think he is talking to? I’m not a kid!”

“You are a kid, kid,” I replied, more concerned with my surroundings than her feelings.

Ignoring the speaker box and the teenager who was crossing her arms and staring bullets at me, I looked over the supposed sword master who had yet to prove his skills. "He says you're harmless."

"As a kitten," Path said.

“Please try not to scare my guests. And remember that I'm paying you and that it is bad business to bite the hand that feeds you," Henshaw said, then he buzzed us in.

We passed through the gate without abandoning our weapons. I swept my gaze over the security booths, hoping that X-37 would record pertinent information. It seemed they were hardened, and a blast panel could be closed that would be difficult to penetrate. I'd seen similar arrangements on Greendale and the assassin's guild.

The difference was that in this arrangement, it would be possible to fly over the gate structure if someone had the right vehicle.

Path stayed with us, even though he wasn't needed to lead us once we were inside the grounds. There were scenic walkways and footbridges over meandering streams. We worked our way around part of the lake and climbed a wide set of stairs to a mansion like I'd never seen.

Gorgeous women and men moved about gardens carrying platters of food and pitchers of drink. Henshaw’s guests sampled a bit of everything, talking loudly and touching the staff more than was appropriate. Laughter filled the air, grating on my nerves.

If Henshaw couldn't afford guards, this definitely told me where his priorities were. He had more servants than I'd ever seen in one household. And I doubted they were cheap.

Unless he was saving money by refusing to issue clothing, because they weren't wearing much.

“Thanks for getting us here," I said to Path, squirming under his lazy gaze and wondering why I felt compelled to talk like an underpaid retail clerk.

"You haven't actually contacted him. Do not thank me yet," he said.

“Welcome to the Henshaw estate. Eat, drink, enjoy yourselves,” a lithe man in a formal suit said with a smile. “It is Mr. Henshaw’s desire than none go thirsty and few go without satisfaction. My name is Andre. Feel free to call for me or request any assistance you need from our staff here.”

After the steward left us to attend other guests. I found everything was very casual. We were offered food and drink by passing servers, which I ignored. Tom and Elise sampled some small sandwiches and some type of sour citrus drink. Path moved quietly as always, seeming somehow apart from reality.

He was taking his warrior monk persona too far, I thought.

"Hey, X, can you give me some help here?" I asked.

"I would continue through the house until you reach the pool on the veranda." X-37 made several clicking sounds indicating deep analysis of a data stream. "I have no direct observation of the house, but there are several blogs and entertainment videos made by individuals who attended parties at the Henshaw mansion. The veranda pool is often cited as his favorite place.”

“Tell me if you see him before I do," I said to X-37.

Path spoke up. "You'll know him when you see him."

The sword saint, warrior monk, and psychedelic tour guide wasn't wrong. I climbed a final set of stairs and saw servants and half-naked beautiful people orbiting an individual near a hammock. He was standing but had one hand on the mesh.

The man wore a loose blue, red, yellow, green, and gold shirt made of silk. His pants were less flamboyant but also loose, ending well above his ankles. His feet were minimally protected by high quality flip-flops.

But that wasn't what made him stand out. Both of his eyes were cybernetic. His intense gaze recorded everything. Steel grey one moment, pale green the next, his eyes were fascinating to watch. That they were artificial wasn’t obvious, but neither was it difficult to detect. He had freckles across the bridge of his nose, an irrelevant detail I noticed while studying his visage.

A dot of green light circled counterclockwise around the iris of his left eye and clockwise around his right. Elise and Tom gasped in surprise, then laughed in delight when Henshaw’s pupils pulsed neon purple for half a second.

So much for nearly natural, I thought.

"Interesting," X-37 said. "Most people with this much wealth work very hard to make their augmentations appear natural. Mr. James Henshaw seems to have gone the other way."

I made my approach, aware he was watching me despite talking to his guests and his attendants over a drink. When my party and I were close, he waved his guests away.

"Good afternoon, Halek Cain," he said. "Can I call you Hal? I hate to seem pretentious."

"Really?" Elise asked. "All of this wealth and you're trying not to be pretentious?"

We had come from some of the seedier parts of Zag City on Greendale, and before that, Dreadmax, a place where the worst neighborhoods were literally infested with cannibals. After all that, the opulence of this mansion was palpable.

"I doubt he’s as materialistic as he pretends to be," I said softly.

If Elise heard me, she didn't respond. X-37 also chose not to comment. I looked around and saw that the only person who appeared to agree with me was Path, but he of course didn't say anything.

"I see that you completely disregarded my requirement not to bring weapons," Henshaw said, not seeming to care.

I ignored the chastisement. "Our appointment was for a private consultation reference and ocular nerve augmentation package. Are you going to be able to examine me in the middle of this party?"

He looked around, feigning surprise. "This? This isn’t a party. Just a few friends who stopped by. I didn't want to be a bad host by turning them out.”

“Can the three of you stay out of trouble while I speak to our host in private?” I asked.

Elise and Tom nodded, though the extravagance of the party-not-party seemed to intimidate them. Path sat cross-legged near the pool and began to meditate. If the partygoers found this odd, they didn’t show it and steadfastly ignored him.

OceanofPDF.com

5

I followed Henshaw into the main house. He led me to a workshop in the basement. The austere and functional nature of the room contrasted with what I had seen above. There were workshop benches, computer interface stations, and cables hanging from clusters of electronic devices.

He motioned for me to have a seat on one of the benches. I complied, then he spent several minutes unpacking his tools. Most of them looked like small flashlights or data readers, but I saw scalpels and powered screwdrivers as well.

"Would you like me to regulate your hormones?" X-37 asked. "The look of Mr. Henshaw's tools is quite alarming."

I ignored my LAI.

Henshaw began the examination without a word. He aimed scanners into my left eye, pulling them back to study me from time to time, then getting back to work. It was difficult to watch everything he was doing because of our close proximity. I did, however, observe a change in his demeanor.

He was calm, focused, and curious. No matter what type of facade he maintained for the outside world, this man was a scientist who was compelled to do this type of work. In that way, he reminded me of Tom despite their obvious differences.

Time passed slowly as he worked—two or three hours at least. He put away his tools and sat back with his arms crossed, studying me intently.

"You have ghost images that don't originate from your Reaper eye. Did you know that?" he asked. He shook his head dismissively. "No, you probably didn't, and your LAI is unlikely to call attention to them."

"I can see the images, or part of them. It's distracting," I said, studying the engineer carefully. He didn't believe me.

"Truly?" he asked. “Because that is highly unusual.”

"It is what it is," I said. "How much do you really know about me?"

"I know you're a Reaper, which is also interesting, since they were all dead so far as I've heard," Henshaw said.

There was something wrong with his statement. It sounded forced, like a rehearsed line.

"You hear a lot of things?" I asked.

He smirked. "I gather information and make logical deductions.”

"What did your examination tell you?" I probed.

"You won't thank me for the revelations I can provide," he said.

I laughed then took out a cigar as I leaned back against the wall behind the bench. “You might know about Reapers, but you have never met one face-to-face. Playing games with someone like me is a good way to die.”

"I'm a risk taker,” he said with a shrug.

"Can you fix my eye, or not?" I asked.

"I can fix it well enough. You'll need to find an actual Union technician at some point, and you need a software update from a Union station,” he said.

"That'll be difficult, since they shut down the Reaper program," I said.

"Not my problem,” he said dismissively, then paused. "I can fix most of the glitches with your eye, eliminate the static interference and the recurring headaches."

I didn't respond. He had figured out what my problems were without me telling him directly. That probably meant he knew what he was doing.

"As for the ghost imagery, they are artifacts of another device. When you linked with it, the result was cross-contamination of your nerve-ware. Did you bring the device so I can look at it?" he asked. Something about his expression was greedy.

"I'm traveling light," I explained.

"Yes, well, I suppose it was too much to hope. I am always interested in new technology." He pulled up his stool and began to scan my eye a second time, occasionally stopping to type on an interactive holo screen.

Time crawled by as Henshaw worked, tweaking and updating lines of code. I felt worse, not better. Henshaw assured me that I would like the results when it was over.

"I have nested software upgrades that will activate when you get back to your ship," he said when he was done. "There's something else I should tell you."

I waited expectantly, keeping my expression neutral.

"You should try to find the facility where the mask was made. You'll never be able to be rid of the ghost images until then."

“You never told him the device was a mask,” X-37 pointed out.

No shit, I thought.

"Will the images affect my performance, or be dangerous?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Probably not. But we don't really know, do we? In a worst-case scenario, the next time you connect with this device that caused the images, everything locks up and turns you into a vegetable."

"You just want me to bring you the device so you can poke around in it," I accused.

He held up his hands defensively. "Not at all. But don't come running to me when your mind has turned to mush. I would like to see the device, that's true. But it won't give me the answers I need to help you. To do that, you need to go to the place it was made.”

"And where would this place be?" I asked.

"I wish I knew,” he said. "But alas, freedom is only a dream. We should discuss payment."

"What do you mean freedom is only a dream? Aren't you happy with your palace?" I asked. His odd statement felt like a secret signal.

He waved his hand dismissively. "None of my success will matter if I die. I am a scientist and an engineer at heart. Perhaps I am longing for something more fulfilling than wealth."

"Don't bullshit me," I said.

"I wouldn't dream of it, Mr. Cain.”

"What do you want? The contract said 15,000 credits," I said.

"You have 15,000 credits?" he asked.

"I can get it," I said, studying his reaction.

He smiled, a new light of respect in his eyes. "You came here without the money knowing the transaction wasn't about the money."

"I had my suspicions," I said. "But I was also ready to motivate you with violence if necessary."

"Of course. You are the last Reaper after all," he said.

Crossing my arms, I made certain my Reaper hardware showed at the cuff of my jacket.

"Well then, let's get down to business. I've been attempting to leave Roxo III for years. The local authorities, various crime organizations, and my half-assed real estate agent have been keeping me here,” he explained.

"Why is that?" I asked.

"Various reasons. Some very important people here have cybernetic augmentations and want to keep me on standby. The government believes I owe them taxes. But gambling is my real problem," he said. "Can I be this open with you? I'm assuming you accepted the confidentiality clause in the contract."

Who was I going to tell his secrets? "You owe people money?"

"Not exactly. I won our last game, earning enough to pay for all of this," he said, waving at his mansion. "But, as it happens, they want a rematch and I doubt that I can win twice in a row."

"If you win twice, they will accuse you of cheating and break your legs," I said. "Or have someone like me come and break your legs.”

"Unfortunately, I know you're right," he said.

"So what's your price?" I asked.

"Get me off Roxo III," he said simply.

“How do I do that?" I asked.

"I'm not asking for use of your ship. I have my own. Although it would be interesting to see if you find the source of your ghosts," he said. "I need you to escort me to my yacht. After that, you owe me nothing."

"Won't your guests see you leaving?" I asked, already forming a plan in my head.

"They are normally oblivious. Half of them are drunk or drugged. The rest have been paid for tonight's services in advance. All that we need to do is get your people here, then leave out the back way. I can disguise myself easily,” he said, picking up a hat, sunglasses, and a trench coat. “Is this too conspicuous? I’ve never done anything like this.”

“It’s sketchy. But your eyes—and that shirt—don’t give us a lot of choices,” I said. “Wear the costume and try to act natural. It’s time to go.”

"There's one more thing,” he said. “I held back some of my repairs against your good behavior. Don't get angry. It's just good business. When we arrive at my ship, I can give you the codes that will handle the remaining sixty percent of what I can do to re-calibrate your eye with your nerve-ware.”

"Don't double cross me, Henshaw," I said coldly. "Because I'm a hundred times worse than any enforcer a crime lord or senator can send after you."

"That's why I selected you," he said. "Who would mess with someone like Halek Cain?”

OceanofPDF.com

6

I asked Tom to take the lead with Path. The guide remained quiet and inscrutable. The loudness of his appearance—braided hair and glow-stick body piercings—contrasted with his thoughtful demeanor and easy movements.

Elise and Tom didn’t like what we were doing. They watched James Henshaw like he was a liar and a cheat. He put off a very strong irresponsible gambler vibe—it was hard to say why. Maybe it was just the expensive silk shirt under the trench coat and his mirrored sunglasses.

The ocular engineer fiddled with his hat, sunglasses, and trench coat. More often than not, he was looking at his feet and muttering to himself. Now that we were leaving, he seemed unreasonably nervous.

"What are we doing with this guy?" Elise asked. "Why do we care if he can find his yacht or not?"

"I cannot complete my work on the Last Reaper here. We must go to my ship, where I have the tools and a proper workshop," Henshaw said.

"Don't call me that," I said.

He swallowed nervously.

I pressed for advantage. “And I thought you said it was just a matter of transferring codes.”

He squirmed. “Well, I might have abbreviated the explanation of what was involved just a bit.”

“I’m going to abbreviate your life,” I said, looming over him.

"Path got us here," Elise insisted, equally distrustful of the ocular engineer. "Why hasn't Henshaw just paid him for an escort? He seems to know his way around. That sword should scare away most troublemakers."

"I haven't seen him actually fight," Henshaw said. "No offense to the Order of Sword Saints, but I'd trust a good firearm over a blade any day."

"Have you ever been slashed or stabbed?" I asked. “Respect the blade.”

I was tempted to snap out my arm blade, but it seemed melodramatic. I also didn't want to compete with Path. Arguing about who had the coolest weapon would be undignified and pointless.

"We will get you to your ship, but you better be ready to fix what you said you could."

"I have already fixed many of your problems," he argued. “You should experience a much improved functionality from the work I've already done. But like I promised, there is more I can do. If you want to survive long, I suggest you invest in your equipment and software."

"I said I would get you to the port. Just do what I say when I say it," I said.

"I've heard that before," Elise muttered.

I pulled her into a private conference, keeping some distance between us and the ocular engineer. “This is my decision. If I can improve my Reaper nerve-ware even a few percentage points, it could make all the difference next time we run into the Union.”

"We should worry more about running and less about fighting them head on. Getting Henshaw through this city is going to be trouble. It's not worth it," Elise said. "We have enough problems without borrowing grief from this guy."

"He's withholding the rest of my repairs until we get there. I don't see a better option," I said, “and he may be telling the truth. His ship likely has better technology and a functioning AI that can assist him with his work. I don't really have a choice but to escort him through Roxo III."

"There's always a choice," she said.

She wasn't wrong.

We made good time, not stopping for anything but a quick snack from a food cart and to use a public restroom. The problems came as we neared the lifts to the spaceport.

What had been a moderately busy flow of pedestrian traffic became a river of unhappy people. Some carried signs on their way to a protest. Others held clubs down at their sides. I saw more than a few people with bottles and wondered how many of those were full of flammable liquids.

"They're going to have a riot," I said. "X, make sure everybody from our crew heard me."

"I have relayed your evaluation of the situation," X-37 said. "I should also advise that I have been monitoring law-enforcement radio channels. They are preparing a heavy-handed response."

"What do you mean by that?" Tom asked over our team link. “I thought they lost control after they declared martial law."

"They did," I murmured.

X-37 continued, ignoring our interruption. "Armored vehicles, gas guns, and less-lethal projectiles to be fired into crowds that refuse to disburse.”

I pressed forward and touched our guide on the shoulder. "Path, can you take us around this crowd?"

He nodded and changed direction. We moved through several of the covered streets, all with the same blue skies painted above them. The faux ceiling was stripped down to the wire framework in places. X-37 promised these sections were still functional.

We rounded the final corner only to find the mob and the police had formed new battle lines right where we needed to go. Hundreds of men and women faced each other, tension ready to boil over at any second.

"We can work our way around the edges of the confrontation if you still desire to go to this section of the spaceport," Path said.

Elise shook her head violently. "This isn't worth it. We should go to a different lift, just go back to our own ship and forget about his stupid yacht."

Before we could make a decision, a new wave of rioters flowed in the lift plaza. The size of the confrontation tripled. Newly arriving riot cops jogged in step, quickly deploying their shields and shock batons.

"Why don't you just kidnap Henshaw like you do everyone else and make him fix your eye? We have to get the hell out of here," Elise said, raising her voice.

“I might have to, but let’s try taking the easy road for once,” I argued. “No one will even notice us. How’s this for covert?”

"Now you care about being noticed?" She waved her hands at the crowd. "What about when you caused a scene on the lift? What about marching through Henshaw’s party with swords and guns?”

Path sat down, crossing his legs and closing his eyes while we argued.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Elise exclaimed. "He's going to meditate?”

"He appears very serene,” X-37 observed.

She shook her head, stepping away from the sword mystic. "I don't even care about him. You're the jerk who's going to get us killed.”

"She's not wrong," X-37 said.

I ignored my LAI, envying Path’s unique calm.

"X, is that some sort of pre-combat ritual?" I asked.

"On the contrary, I believe he is sleeping," X-37 said.

"Whatever. You can't tell the difference," I grumbled.

"I have over a hundred references to meditation and sleep studies. I believe I know the difference," X-37 said. "He is definitely taking a power nap."

I wasn't that concerned with the psychedelic sword saint. He was just someone to point my eyes at while my mind worked through other problems. I needed Henshaw to complete his work, and for him to do that, I had to get us to his yacht. I also understood what was happening in Roxo. There had been missions in worse places.

That didn’t mean I wanted to hang around until the bottom fell out of this mission.

* * *

"Path," I said. "Wake up. Is there another way through here?"

Path answered without opening his eyes or changing his position. “There is no other way into this lift. I could take you to another. Unfortunately, the street militia has arrived. You can tell by the song they sing."

I heard a marching cadence, then turned toward its source. The street militia, as Path called them, outnumbered the police five to one. They were not dissimilar to paramilitary groups Elise and I had encountered on Dreadmax.

“They have already blocked our egress from this location,” Path said, calm but attentive. If I had to guess, I would assume this was his “alarmed” expression.

A dozen of the newcomers split off from the others and surrounded us.

"That is alarming," X-37 said. "They have singled you out from the others for some reason.”

I looked at our guide. "Have you encountered the street militia before?" I asked, playing a hunch.

"We've met, yes," Path said, standing and readying himself for action.

"Perhaps he will use the sword," X-37 said privately. "This will be a useful data point for my profile of the man."

“I wouldn't count on it, X." I didn't want to get into a fight. The situation was too volatile. My only goal was delivering Henshaw to his ship so I could have my repairs completed. Taking on a small army wasn't what I had in mind.

"Path! I see you," one of the militia leaders said. "Let's see how good you are with that sword now."

Path stepped into the middle of the circle, picking up a stick-like piece of debris from the ground. “I don't want to fight with you, Blaze."

"Aren't you going to do something?" Elise asked me.

"No, that's not what he wants," I said. “And I don't think he needs my help."

Path wasn't the only person being singled out. There were other grudges being settled throughout the street. Four or five different clusters of people turned into all-out brawls. I swept the crowd and asked X-37 to make a note of troublemakers we might have to deal with later.

"Pull that sword," Blaze challenged. His hair and body piercings were every bit as crazy as what Path had on display. They seemed like two people from the neighborhood whose lives had taken them down widely divergent roads.

Path saluted with a plastic slat from a barricade that had been destroyed during the last confrontation between citizens and the police as though it were a sword and stood ready.

"For real? You think you can mock me and not pay the price?" the bully asked, advancing with a bat. Thick bodied and balding, the man was built like he was meant to push things—or people. He held his weapon like this was a strike ball game rather than a martial contest.

I kept my eye on Elise. She balled her fists and shifted her weight like she would jump into the middle of the confrontation. I'd never seen her like this.

She shot me a look, then she shook her head and turned her back on me to face the rioters. "Why don't you leave him alone?”

Blaze hesitated. "Who the hell are you?"

"You want us to handle her, boss?" a pair of his goons asked.

He waved his hand dismissively and the men rushed Elise.

"I am confused about your hesitation to get involved," X-37 said.

"Wait for it," I said. "She's not going to learn unless she takes some bumps and bruises."

That wasn't the real reason for my hesitation. I suspected there was a greater threat. When I saw it, I would act. I wasn't going to expose my abilities until it was time.

Elise retreated. Tom rushed to her side and put up his fists. The two bullies warily circled Elise and Tom while the fight between their boss and Path continued.

Blaze swung his club at his opponent with both hands. Path stepped aside, not even bothering to raise his own stick to parry. Blaze attacked again and again but was unable to land a blow.

I pulled a cigar from the pocket case, nursed it to life, and exhaled a large cloud of smoke as I watched. Another group of brawlers stumbled into me. I pushed their leader with one hand, barely looking at them. Maybe they wanted to come at me again but were swept away in the commotion.

Tom and Elise grabbed broken trash bin lids and swung them at their attackers.

Blaze lunged at Path, missing him and nearly falling to the ground.

"Has Path tried to strike him yet?" I asked.

"Not yet,” X-37 answered. “I believe he is what he says he is. His reaction time and his ability to think several steps ahead of his opponent are indicative of a master martial artist. He may win the fight without delivering a single blow.”

Elise screamed and tackled one of her opponents, surprising the man who was bigger than she was. She savaged him with punches and elbow strikes. Tom and the other bullies were so surprised, they stood transfixed.

The Roxo III police and street militia fired tear gas at each other. Additional fights broke out in every direction. From where I stood, it looked like allies turned on each other to settle old grudges that could never be forgotten.

"Are you about done?" I yelled at Path.

"I do not wish to hurt him," Path said.

This infuriated Blaze, who swore vile curses and renewed his attack. Each swing grew weaker than the one before it as he tired, until he was panting for air and could barely lift his weapon.

I watched for a while longer, then decided the situation was getting out of control. Elise had nearly subdued her opponent with raw aggression and skill, despite their size disparity. He broke free of the choke hold she was applying, twisting to face her when he couldn’t quite shoulder toss her in front of him. She glared like she would go for his throat.

Holding my cigar in my right hand, I stepped between them and punched the man with my left fist hard enough to knock him off his feet.

He didn't get back up.

I walked over to Blaze and kicked him so hard he flew backward into the crowd, leaving Path free to calmly lower his makeshift weapon. Facing the rest of his crew and holding my cigar in my teeth, I spread my arms in invitation. My Reaper blade snapped out from my left arm as I gripped the pistol Frank gave me back on Greendale in my right. Part of my HDK short rifle showed where it hung under my coat. "Does anyone else have a problem?"

They retreated into the crowd and disappeared.

“You could've done that at the beginning!" Elise accused, her voice hoarse, a trickle of blood leaking from the side of her split lip.

I retracted the blade, holstered the pistol, and rescued my imitation Starbrand.

Inhaling for a several seconds, I eventually discharged a cloud of smoke. "I could've done a lot of things. Where's Henshaw?"

“I'm here, Reaper," he said, stepping away from a graffiti-covered bus stop on the edge of the plaza.

A cloud of mostly dispersed teargas drifted over our position, irritating our eyes and noses but not disabling us.

"It's time to consider plan B," I said. I knew immediately there was going to be a problem. Access to the lift was in high demand and the locals had tasted blood.

OceanofPDF.com

7

"Elise." I used the communication link X-37 and Jelly maintained with my crew. "Grab hold of Tom and stay close. We're getting on this lift."

"We can't! There are too many people," Elise said, starting to cough from the gas.

"They'll move out of my way," I said, grabbing Henshaw by the collar of his trench coat, nearly dislodging the sunglasses and hat that he was using for a disguise.

"It's not too late to reconsider, is it?" he joked.

"Only if you can transfer the rest of the software you promised right here and now. I'll turn you loose wherever you want if you can do that," I said. "No? Then stay close or you’re gonna get hurt."

The crowd blocking our access to the lift was a lot different from the people I had inadvertently intimidated when we first arrived on the surface of Roxo III. I didn't care about the small groups of brawlers like the ones who had confronted Path. The police and the street militia were a real danger.

But they had already clashed twice. The station’s ventilation system was pulling away most of the gas, as I suspected it would. That didn't mean the air quality was comfortable. My right eye burned and I felt my nose running. I wanted to cough but suppressed the impulse.

The rest of my party couldn’t do the same and quickly succumbed to the chemical as we pushed through the cloud of irritants. The police glared at me from behind their shields. Path eyed the rest of the crowd as though they were interesting street performers at an open-air market.

I smoked my cigar like I wasn't suffering—but I was, by the gods. I looked the cops in their eyes, defiantly staring down one after another. They were proud men who had the advantage of numbers and shields.

I raised the blade that remained extended from my left arm without breaking stride. The street militia we were already moving through gave us room, unconcealed fear in their expressions. The line of police officers trying to hold everyone away from the lift tensed.

"I'm coming through, boys," I said. "It doesn't have to be bloody."

"You're crazy!" Elise shouted at my back, but she stayed close, bringing along the rest of our group. Tom followed her and Path brought up the rear of our column.

I picked out one of the police sergeants near the center and pointed my arm blade at him. "Last chance, officer. Time to decide if you're getting paid enough for this."

"Hold shields," he said, but his voice wavered. He looked up and down the line of his men, his face reddening. Even from this distance, I could see he was shaking. That was what happened when a man had to make a decision that would get other people killed. Sweat rolled down his face. He wiped it away nervously. “Just try to hold shields. We can stop this maniac if we just stand together.”

"This isn't going to work," I said over the radio link to my people, keeping my attention on the sergeant. "I'm gonna have to cut our way through. Try not to look at the bodies when you step over them."

"They have riot shields," Tom said.

"It doesn't matter. Their shields are made out of cheap plastic, just for stopping bottles and rocks," I explained. "I can cut right through them. And if that doesn't work, the shields won't stop bullets."

"Wait! Just wait!" the sergeant said. He shouted at his officers, "We're supposed to hold this lift against rioters and the street militia. This group isn’t part of those groups. Let ‘em through!"

The officers opened up a lane. Knowing the man could reverse his decision at any time, I pushed through with my people close behind me, jumping at the opportunity. Tom, Elise, and Henshaw hurried to follow me. Path came, but acted unconcerned.

A leader of the street militia saw what was happening. "They're letting them through!”

"Why do they get to use the lift?" someone yelled.

"We all want off the surface! Let us up to the spaceport!" someone else shouted.

I wasn't normally wrong about these types of things. Chaos was my home and I knew it well. But what I hadn't anticipated was how the sudden surge against the police line would affect us.

We had barely made it through the line of riot cops when the plastic shields slammed together. Hundreds of street militia and other random rioters flung themselves forward. I looked over my shoulder and saw the first collision.

The weight of bodies pushed the cops back. Some fell and went down and were trampled. Path disappeared as a dozen men chased him into the fray on the wrong side of the police line.

Other Roxo locals broke and ran. For the most part, however, it became a pushing contest the police couldn’t win.

This caught us between them and the lift doors. I was starting to regret taking so long with Path and the other troublemakers. If I'd intervened earlier like Elise said I should have, maybe we wouldn't be caught in this predicament.

"X, open these doors," I grunted as I shoved a police officer back into the line. Three more fell toward us, overwhelmed by their attackers. I heard gas canisters popping, pellet bag guns that were supposedly less than lethal, and firearms splitting the air. Sirens blared from the ceiling.

"I'm doing my best, sir," X-37 said. "My specialties are looking after your health and spying on computer networks. Taking active control of security systems or opening doors is not what I normally do. Perhaps you can add that to my next upgrade package? And while we’re on the topic, remind me to explain what I have learned about Jelly during my surveillance. It's quite alarming and possibly important to our future."

"Elise, get Tom and Henshaw behind me," I ordered, annoyed with X-37 bringing up things I would probably forget to ask him about later.

"What about Path?" she asked as she dragged Henshaw and Tom toward the small safe area behind me. They argued, telling her that they were bigger and should be protecting her.

She ignored them. I told Elise to take charge because she was thinking clearly and didn't seem as afraid. Her shouts kept Tom and Henshaw motivated.

Path popped into view, jumping high enough to run on the shoulders of the mob. The line of police officers gave him trouble as more than one jabbed at him with batons, forcing him to skip and jump and finally fall roughly when he was across the barrier of uniforms and riot gear.

"Path will help me hold the line until you can get into the lift," I said, not asking Path if he was willing or able to do this.

I knew he was and he didn't argue with me. Who cared if he’d nearly died five seconds ago. He was a sword saint, hefting the plastic stick he had been using to fend off attackers and made ready. The police line was disintegrating, and random men and women jumped through screaming, attacking anyone they could get their hands on.

Path swung his stick twice and knocked two of his attackers unconscious. It was an impressive feat with such a light weapon. The first, lighting quick strike hit a man’s brachial plexus—a nerve bundle between the cervical and thoracic nerve junction—turning his legs to wet noodles and causing his eyes to roll back in his head as he fell. The next strike was invisible, even if I’d had time to watch carefully. The result was the same. His second opponent went down easily. This guy was impressive.

I stepped into the fray and punched one of them hard.

"Fall back a step, Path," I said. "Don’t get drawn into that melee."

"Stepping back now. This crowd is unruly and not at peace with the universe," Path said.

Things always happened fast in the middle of a chaotic fight. One moment we were pushing and shoving, occasionally lashing out with strikes to keep people back, and the next we were on the lift with the doors closing between us and the danger.

Three members of the street militia barged through at the last second, smashing Tom sideways. Pumped up by the mob violence, they were also loaded with stimulants that dilated their pupils and gave their movements a manic, jerky quality. The worst of them had forgotten how to blink, apparently, and shouted profane threats at the cops with such force that their words sprayed spittle everywhere. A group of these hyper-violent rioters spotted Elise, and they rushed forward with their trashcan shields and stunners.

Behind them, the mob shoved a police hover car into the gap to keep the door from closing. Hundreds of rioters pressed up against the car. The only reason they didn’t climb over was that they were still fighting each other.

Path tore into the three intruders like a cyclone of violence, striking with his stick, his hands, and kicking with his feet. The encounter lasted only seconds and ended with all of them firing their black-market stunners at Path. He dodged two sets of probes but was taken down by the third. Government models of the device incapacitated their victims for five to thirty seconds.

Black market stunners could do anything from five seconds to the life of the battery and were as likely to explode in the hands of their users as work effectively.

I snapped out the blade on my left arm and sprinted across the lift. Elise was closer. She kicked one, but the blow glanced off the man’s trash can shield.

He responded with a right-handed haymaker, his fist arcing toward Elise in a flurry of movement.

She blocked it with both arms crossed and tried to kick him in the groin.

He jumped back and shot her a leering grin. “I’m gonna tear you apart, little girl.”

“You can try,” she countered, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

She kicked again, but he was ready for it, and so were his two friends. All three of them lunged forward like they were playing smashball, slamming her backward with one of their graffiti-covered shields.

I leapt through the air, converging on their fight at an angle, and landed square on the apparent leader of the street militia. The Reaper blade cut down at a forty-five-degree angle, from high left to low right. A section of the street ruffian’s face hit the floor.

I reversed the strike but changed the angle slightly to cut across his abdomen and take out his guts.

I looked for the other two and only saw one. He aimed something at me that wasn’t a stunner. Drawing my pistol on the move, I shot him twice in the chest and once in the head—all in half a second. The other attacker was still out of view. I searched for him and found him fighting with Elise.

Path stood up behind him and went to help, still without drawing his sword.

“Hey, street milker!” Path shouted.

I wrinkled an eyebrow at the strange insult but quickly realized it had the desired effect.

The man faced Path, drawing a cheap pistol.

I aimed and fired before the psychedelic sword saint could prove his hand-to-guns skills.

The third and final street militiaman fell backward, brains exploding out the back of his head as the bullet passed through.

I grabbed the messiest corpse and shoved it over the police hover car.

The crowd backed away, some turning to run and others vomiting on the deck.

“X, what will happen if we move the lift with the vehicle stuck like that?” I asked.

“It will likely be shorn in half,” X-37 advised.

I slapped the up button, thankful there was no passcode required. Moments later, the vehicle was destroyed by the shearing forces of the lift rising.

Elise and the others stared at me in horrified amazement, except for Path, who was already sitting to one side of the lift in thoughtful meditation.

"That was lucky," I said.

"Lucky!" Elise seethed at me. "We were following you because we thought you knew what you were doing! You gutted that man!”

The look on her face—her pale skin and tight lips—suggested she was about to vomit at the sight. The smell of the man’s intestines was affecting me as well. Henshaw, still huddling as far away as possible from the action, swayed and nearly fell.

“X, make a note to watch Henshaw. He’s got a weak stomach,” I said.

“Noted. Shall I check with Jelly to see if we have medications for nausea?” X-37 asked.

“Sure,” I said, preoccupied with Elise’s anger.

What I’d done was simple. Why couldn’t she understand what I was and what I did? “I killed him, does it matter how?”

“You’re out of control. You don’t listen to anyone,” she insisted. “Maybe you should stop and think about being part of a team.”

“The situation was fluid. We lived. They died. What more do you want? As for gutting the man who was trying to kill you… I’d do it again,” I said, retreating from the car as it was shorn in half by the rising elevator. I couldn’t see what happened to the part of the vehicle that was outside the lift, but what was inside disintegrated. The lift doors boomed shut.

Retrieving the remains of the cigar I had hastily jammed into a pocket during the melee, I wondered why everything had to be so difficult. Nursing the tattered cigar back to life took time, but I wasn’t a quitter.

OceanofPDF.com

8

We exited the lift and headed for Henshaw's yacht. The area was better maintained than the rest of the spaceport. All along the concourse were cocktail lounges where people talked over expensive drinks and listened to soft music. Dark blue carpet ran down the middle, gold-plated railings lined the walkways, and the ceiling was gold stars sprinkled on crimson.

Gazing through one of the large observation windows near the ceiling, I saw several ships on zero-gravity flight decks. Henshaw pointed at a sleek white vessel with gold trim. “That's the Lady Faith, my personal pleasure craft. She has slip drive capabilities and state-of-the-art engines.”

I made a note but was more concerned with the guards blocking access to the boarding area. They looked more like soldiers than cops.

The group stared back at me, noses turned up at the blood on my boots.

Henshaw froze where he was standing.

"What's the problem?" I asked. He'd been desperate to get here and now he wouldn't move forward.

"It's nothing," he said, looking over his shoulder for a place to retreat.

"What's his problem?" Elise asked. She was the first to pick up on the fact that something was wrong. Tom was close behind, watching Henshaw carefully. Path didn't seem to care.

I confronted Henshaw. "These aren't the guards you were expecting, are they?"

He shook his head. "No, they aren't. These men will take me to their headquarters."

"And why is that?" Elise asked.

"Their boss is a poor gambler. I'm sure he wants a rematch," Henshaw said, staring at them and plotting his next move. “I have invited him to my estate and my yacht but he insists on a rematch within his own dominion—which will be hazardous to my health.”

"That’s not really my problem," I said. "We brought you this far, now give me the software upgrades for my nerve-ware and LAI."

When he shook his head, the motion was so small, I barely noticed he was responding. He had a lot of things going at once, thoughts of what his gambling rivals would do to him conflicting with thoughts of what I would do to him. Now he wasn't able to make a decision.

"You're coming with me," I said, grabbing him before he could try to step away.

"Unhand me, Reaper," he said harshly. "I’m not some street protestor to be pushed around. And if those soldiers decide to come after me, us, then we’re in trouble."

“I’m a Reaper. I can handle soldiers,” I said despite knowing there were too many of them to resist.

“Let go of my arm. We’re done. Be thankful I fixed as many of your numerous problems as I did. No one outside the Union could have helped you,” Henshaw complained.

I stared him down, but he was surprisingly steadfast. “We’re not done, Henshaw. You made a promise.”

"I'd rather take my chances with them. Let. Me. Go. Or I'm going to start shouting for help!" he threatened. “I’ll find someone else to take me to my ship.”

“Mr. James Henshaw is showing signs of self-doubt in equal measure with prime indicators of deception,” X-37 warned.

I already knew that and was getting impatient. "Give me the software update." I’d worried he was lying to me. Being proved right was a real punch to the gut.

"There is no update. I just said that to get your help," Henshaw admitted.

"That's a good way to die," I said. "You're coming with us."

"I'm not," he said, trying to pull away. I felt him shaking through the sensors in my Reaper arm.

I applied pressure to his bicep. "Come with me right now, or you'll have more than just augmented vision. One thing you might not know about Reaper hands is they can generate enough force to clip a human arm like a twig. Having a bionic arm won’t be so bad."

“I know what you can do but it changes nothing,” Henshaw said, pain straining his expression.

“You know it, but have you felt it?” I asked, increasing the pressure on his arm.

To his credit, Henshaw attempted to pull away anyway. I yanked him back. Seconds later, I had him tied at the wrists and ankles and thrown across my shoulder.

Elise and Tom looked worriedly at the guards. I saw them and had already calculated how long it would be before they intervened. My assessment was that they wouldn’t leave their assigned posts without orders, but there were limits to how long they would wait before taking their own initiative.

"They haven't realized who he is, or they would be after us," I said. "But they are private security agents. They're not going to get involved unless they think it's a person their masters are interested in. When the guy with the green wristband gets back, we could be in trouble. I think he went to his superiors for new orders."

"Okay," Elise said, with none of her normal bravado. Tom said nothing. Path was as serene as always. I headed down the concourse, but in the opposite direction of the yacht.

"Path, can we get to my ship on this level?" I asked.

"You can," he said. "But there is a tube train that would be faster. If we can get to it."

I marched past wary citizens who backed away, retreating to expensive restaurants that provided the best meals in the city and soft jazz played by live musicians.

None of the security guards on the concourse intervened on Henshaw's behalf.

* * *

Carrying Henshaw over one shoulder was getting old, so I set him on his feet. "It's time for you to walk. Try to run and I’ll cut off your legs."

"Promise me you'll take me to my yacht, and I'll promise not to run," Henshaw said, coughing a little bit from having my shoulder dug into his gut. "This wasn't at all what I paid for."

"You didn't pay," I reminded him. "You made promises you never intended to keep. So now you're going to magic up some software upgrades or I'm gonna find some other way to be compensated. Maybe there is someone on Roxo who would like to speak to you. Maybe they would pay me enough to make it worth my while. I could turn you over to the guards that have your ship surrounded."

"You came here for my help. I provided services in exchange for escort to my yacht, which you didn't complete. I'm not sure how I owe you anything,"

"Bartering with a Reaper is hazardous to your health," I warned.

"I fixed your eye the best I could with the tools available at my mansion," he said. "If you want more, then you have to get me to my ship."

"I put people I care about at risk to get you through that mob. Now you owe us something of equal value," I said.

"I don't care about the mob!" he shouted, his voice strained from the way I had been manhandling him. “I care about getting to my yacht!”

I couldn't continue to drag him against his will. Sooner or later, we would encounter guards who would do more than watch us pass. Or the riots would spread to the more affluent sections of the tube world.

Most of the problems were still on the ground level. Henshaw was smart enough to know I was tired of lugging him along the concourse. I only hoped he was smart enough to take my threat seriously.

I relaxed my grip but didn't let go of his arm until I was confident he wouldn't do something stupid, at least not right away.

He leaned on the wall and looked sick in the face, like he was trying his best not to vomit. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm accustomed to the rotational gravity of the main level. The concourse gravity generators always make me sick."

"They are no different than what will be on your yacht," Tom pointed out.

Henshaw ignored him.

Elise pressed close to me and whispered, "Why don't we just leave him? Can he really do that much more for your vision?"

"It's not about that anymore," I said, watching the ocular engineer get sick.

"Then what's it about?" she asked.

"No one plays me false," I said, feeling like a vindictive jackass even as I said the words. This was something I couldn't blame on my Reaper training or my upbringing. It was just the way I was. Henshaw played a game and lost. Now he had to pay the price. He had to do something to make it right, and it might as well be an upgrade to my Reaper ocular nerve-ware nexus. He couldn’t tell me my LAI was in trouble and then refuse to deliver a solution.

"Leave him," Elise said, jerking her head toward Henshaw. “He’s useless. I don’t know why we brought him this far.”

“Reasons,” I growled.

“Whatever, Hal. Let’s ditch him before he causes us real problems,” she said.

"Listen to the girl. I'm no use to you," Henshaw said in a pleading voice. "Just leave me here and I will find my way to someone who can actually help me."

Ignoring Elise, I snapped out the blade from my left arm and held it to his throat. "I don't trust you, Henshaw. You made a promise, and you're going to see it through."

Face pale, he carefully nodded and said he would comply. He attempted to adjust the now tattered trench coat and smashed hat. The sunglasses, however, were gone, lost during our ordeal getting onto the lift, or maybe when I was manhandling him along the concourse.

Tom followed further behind than normal, witnessing the unfolding drama with growing concern. Path brought up the rear with no apparent fear of what might or might not happen when things went bad.

The farther we walked, the fewer people we encountered. That didn't mean we were out of touch with the increasing chaos below. Video screens played sensational footage of the riots at several of the abandoned sports bars and expensive cocktail lounges. A few of the retail shops were still staffed by bored-looking employees, while others were empty or closed because the staff couldn’t make it in.

A single guard stood at the checkpoint to the train tube. He was old and possibly half blind, probably working this job long after he should have retired. I explained to him what we wanted and he nodded without appearing to actually understand me or care.

"When does the train run?" I asked.

"Yes, sir," the attendant said, obviously misunderstanding or not hearing what I had asked him. "Trains running right on time. Now taking passengers. Don't stand there lollygagging. We keep a tight schedule on the Roxo Premier Line."

His pitch sounded rehearsed and tired. He'd been at this job forever. I pulled Henshaw forward. "Tip him."

"I don't see why I should," Henshaw said indignantly. "He's just standing there. How hard can that be?"

Several seconds passed in which the other man attempted to stare me down. I guessed he thought his optical enhancements gave him an edge, but he was wrong. Leaning forward menacingly, I started to smile, showing my teeth.

"Fine," Henshaw said hurriedly, rummaging in his tattered clothing. He handed the man a credit chip. "You're doing great work. Here's a little something in appreciation," he said sarcastically.

We boarded without further incident.

The conveyance was a simple design, merely requiring us to step out to a series of linked shuttles that would run along the outside of the concourse.

"Take a seat," I said, pointing at one of the cheap plastic benches along the wall of the shuttle.

Henshaw complied, but his resentment was growing, judging from the glower. "I'm not looking forward to slumming on some hunk of junk smuggler’s ship. And look at me, my wardrobe is ruined. Remind me not to hire you for personal protection in the future."

"We could've left you on the surface. And I'll remind you that we wouldn't have tried to get through the riot at all if you hadn't made promises you had no intention of keeping."

Henshaw scanned the area to his right and left, then lounged against the wall, spreading his arms wide. “Well, in that case, maybe this isn't so bad, but I could really use a change of clothes and a spa treatment right about now."

Without the sunglasses to hide his augmented vision, silver and blue lines flickered around the iris of each eye, one clockwise and the other counterclockwise. The effect wasn't constant but was noticeable if I studied him long enough. From time to time, I sensed more than saw a dim red light in his pupils… because he was recording.

I knew what he was doing. The man probably had his own version of a LAI. Everything was being documented and analyzed. I felt dense for not seeing it sooner.

I turned away from the others and muted the group channel to have a private conversation with X-37. “Why didn’t you alert me that Henshaw was recording everything?”

“You didn’t ask, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said dryly.

“I’m trading you in on a newer model the first chance I get,” I complained.

“Promises, promises.” X didn’t seem worried by my threat.

I faced the others, stifling the curses I wanted to fling at my LAI.

"Why don't you just shut up until we get to the ship," Elise said, standing nose to nose with Henshaw now. "You almost got us killed back there."

"I'm terribly sorry about that," Henshaw said.

I pulled him away from the others. "Why didn't you tell me you have a limited artificial intelligence?"

"I didn't know what you would do," he said. The tremor in his voice made me believe him. "And I don't want everyone knowing. It's caused me some problems in the past."

"Because people think you use it when you're gambling," I said.

"Yes, that is essentially correct. What they don't know is that my limited AI is very rudimentary. I built it myself. Mostly just a recording device."

"I see," I said. "So why did you really want me to take you to your yacht?"

"Well, I thought my limited AI might benefit from some cross-contamination with yours. Maybe increase its computational powers."

"So you can gamble better," I stated.

"No, I would never do that," he said, but he smiled wryly.

"That's the kind of thing that gets an ocular engineer like you killed," I said.

"Can you help me or not?"

"That depends on what's in it for me and my people," I said. This latest revelation started an idea in my head. If Henshaw could benefit from augmentations, perhaps I needed to think about Elise and the rest of my crew. The idea of letting someone as untrustworthy as Henshaw work on me again, or my friends, didn’t feel smart, but I had to at least consider the option. We couldn’t defeat the Union without maximizing every advantage we could get our hands on.

There were pros and cons to becoming a cyborg. They wouldn't thank me for forcing something like a limited AI on them. One look at Henshaw's now somber expression told me I was right; I wasn't the only one who felt cursed by my augmentations.

OceanofPDF.com

9

By the time we got back to the Jellybird, we were all exhausted. Henshaw reluctantly accepted a room, closing the door in my face with a claim he needed to get his beauty sleep.

"Jelly, make sure he doesn't leave," I said. “Or tamper with anything.”

"I have the door locked," Jelly advised. “And will notify you the moment he tries to open it. Will you be turning in for the evening?"

"No. I’ll be in the exercise room. I need to blow off some steam," I said.

"Very good, Captain," Jelly said.

The Jellybird wasn't a large ship, and therefore did not have the same type of fitness facilities as a regular fleet ship. There wasn't a running track. The free weights were improvised from spare ship parts and were highly unsafe. The training room used to be a storage area. What did come with the ship were a few machines and two treadmills I had relocated to this slightly larger space.

When I stepped inside, I found one of them already in use by Elise.

The noise of the running platform was alarming. Elise didn't jog, she sprinted without stopping, and though she was breathing hard, it seemed she’d been at this for a while and could keep going as long as she wanted. Her stride was long and smooth, not the plodding motion of a less skilled runner. Sweat dripped from her face and soaked parts of her shirt, her braided hair flailing wildly behind her.

I limbered up and mostly ignored her, not wanting to intrude or make her feel self-conscious. My warm-up took longer than it had when I was younger and less damaged. There was a good chance her workout would be over before I worked all the kinks from my battered form. The muscles and tendons connecting my augmented arm to my shoulder ached, but there were other, more mundane injuries earned during my long career. Stretching and light calisthenics got the blood flowing.

Every few minutes, I thought Elise would take a break or walk between speed intervals. But she just kept going.

Her stride was long and powerful. At this pace, she pumped her arms and had to maintain her balance with a lot of core strength.

I wasn't a bad runner, but I wondered if I could match her speed even for a short distance. The strength and power I’d developed over the years was impressive, but she was young, athletic, and talented.

The treadmill required the force of the runner’s stride to move the belt over a slightly concave deck. It developed a type of momentum but would basically stop whenever she stopped. This was the answer designers had found for ships with variable gravity.

I stepped onto the treadmill next to her and set a comfortable pace. She ignored me.

I picked up the pace.

She ran faster.

I ignored her efforts for a time then increased my pace.

Our contest grew more ridiculous the longer it continued.

My feet banged the deck, turning the wheel with violent force. I smoothed out my stride and settled in for a long contest.

She pushed the speed of the treadmill as fast as it would go.

I did the same, breathing hard, holding the new stride rate with effort.

Her foot strikes were smoother than my crude, hammer-like efforts, which annoyed me, because on missions I moved as silently as a cat when needed. The artificial training environment was totally different.

She glanced at me, just for a fraction of a second.

"This isn't a competition," I panted.

"Feels like it is," she snapped.

The next thirty seconds crept by slowly.

"Truce?" I suggested.

She nodded. We slowly edged down the speed until we were walking.

"Why didn't you just leave him on the concourse? Why do we care if he gets to his yacht or not?" Elise asked, picking up her towel.

I took a moment to catch my own breath, then grabbed my own towel to wipe sweat from my face as I moved away from the treadmill. "I don't trust him."

"That's not good enough," she said. "You can't just kidnap or kill anybody you don't like. I was being sarcastic when I told you to do that. What are you going to do, hold him prisoner until you're sure he's harmless?"

I faced her, forcing her to meet my dark gaze. "He made substantial repairs to a cybernetic eye designed by the Union in less time than would take most people to repair a coffee maker. Do you think that's suspicious?"

"Well, yeah," she admitted.

“You saw his mansion and that entourage. Do you think he's an honest businessman? Did he earn that money through hard work and sound investments?" I asked.

"He said he was a gambler," she said, crossing her arms, clearly not happy about being talked down to.

"He's the type of man who’s always running a scam," I warned. "I let him put software modifications in my cybernetic eye. Then he decided he needed to leave Roxo III. I can't prove it, but I bet he could've departed this tube world at a better time."

"He's been here for years and probably saw the riots building." Elise spoke aloud as she started thinking it through. "He could have gone to his yacht days before now. But he said he couldn’t make it unless you escorted him."

"You're piecing it together," I said. "He probably needed to confirm who I was, and maybe who you were. In either case, he might be planning to sell us out for a payoff big enough to handle his gambling debts. My gut tells me it’s something less obvious," I said. “This puts us in a tough spot. I have to trust him but can’t trust him. No one outside the Union has the training to work on my cybernetics.”

Elise started to get mad. "Why don't you let me interrogate him?” she said fiercely.

"Patience," I said. "I brought him to the Jellybird so that I could have X-37 and Jelly monitor him. I need to know what he is really up to. Jelly doesn’t like the plan, but she’s learning how I do things."

"It's like you're conducting surveillance," she said. “The same as when you watched me in the diner."

I smiled. "Yeah, just like that. But this is continuous and not much work on my part. Jelly and X are all over the guy."

"For how long? I'm not sure I can take the wait," she said honestly.

"Long enough for me to make sure my eye is working and to find an angle to begin interrogation with," I said. "In the meantime, we've got work to do. I think it's time to try the mask again."

Elise was quiet and thoughtful during our walk to the mask storage room. I went through several breathing exercises to calm my nerves. I wasn't looking forward to trying the mask again. I wasn't ready for Henshaw to help me, and hadn't decided if that was a good idea at all. The logical side of my brain warned me to wait until we found a facility with adequate analysis and safety features for this task. No situation was perfect. There was an infantry maxim I remembered from my early training: “in the absence of orders, attack.”

The mantra had served me well enough so far. I needed to take action early even if it would be smarter to wait until I had better tools and skilled personnel to help me analyze it.

"Jelly, can you send a silent message to Tom asking him to meet us on the training deck? I don't want Henshaw to leave his room."

"Tom is currently in a discussion with James Henshaw. They seem to be bonding, telling stories, and working out mechanical engineering problems," Jelly advised.

"Did he respond to the message?"

"It was delivered, but Tom has not responded," Jelly said. “Henshaw has been asking Tom to give him a tour of the ship, but Tom keeps changing the subject. Shall I send him an instruction? Perhaps he would learn more about Henshaw during such a tour?”

“No. Don’t interrupt them. Let their conversation play out naturally.” I really wanted to have Tom nearby when I tried the Reaper mask, but I wasn’t ready to deal with Henshaw and the mask at the same time.

"Should we wait for Tom?" Elise asked. “He can’t talk to the rich eye geek forever.”

I considered my options: wait for Tom or go on my own and possibly get Elise and myself killed. It was hard to believe I could have thrown myself into the void the last time I tried the mask. Had I done it, I'm sure I would've been surprised to find myself dead.

"I’d prefer both you and Tom watch me this time," I said. "But I'm also curious to see what Tom learns from Henshaw. They’re both engineers, after a fashion. Maybe Tom's infectious curiosity will cause Henshaw to open up—spill some of those secrets he’s guarding."

"X-37 and Jelly could help," Elise said.

"Ready and waiting," X-37 announced.

"As am I," Jelly said.

"Where is Path?" I asked. He hadn't asked to stay with us but neither had he left.

"He is sitting in a cross-legged position staring through the observation deck window at ships coming and going from the space docks," Jelly said.

"See if you can get his attention over comms. I'd like to have him here when I try out the mask," I said.

"What's he gonna do? He's not an engineer," Elise pointed out.

"He could knock me out with that stick before I jump out of the ship," I said.

"Good point," Elise said, nodding thoughtfully. "I like it. Especially the part where you get hit over the head."

Once we were inside the mask room, I stood and observed the mask for several minutes while waiting for Path to arrive. It didn't look any different than the last time, with the light shining down on it through the security glass.

I wondered if I would get more of the ghost images. Thane had tried to erase them, and according to X-37, he probably didn't see that they were still there. Something was different about my vision. Not even James Henshaw had been able to remove what I saw.

Images recorded on the mask had been transferred to X-37 in my nerve-ware. Maybe I could get them wiped clean, and maybe not. I felt like they were a message, maybe even a cry for help from whoever programmed the mask.

I had to find out where the mask was made and how to get there. Learning how to use it would also be a plus.

Path arrived. I explained what I wanted to do, and he agreed to help.

"I will keep you from jumping out of the airlock," he said. "Should I practice hitting you in the head a few times?"

“I like this guy more all the time,” Elise said.

“No, Path. I trust your skill,” I said, glancing at his practice weapon. The blunted instrument would leave a mark wherever he hit me.

Path shrugged. “As you wish, Captain.”

Elise helped me remove the safety glass. We set it off to one side then cleared the room of any obstacles. She pushed back her dark hair and faced me, nervous now that we were about to try the mask again.

“Any last advice, X?" I asked.

"The device should be simple to use," X-37 said. "My scans show no electrical problems with the Reaper mask. I am unable to explain why I was overwhelmed with data during our previous attempt."

"Just thought I'd ask, since last time went so well,” I said, then slipped it over my face.

The wall of blue light hit me hard, driving me to my knees. I struggled back to my feet. Hands spread wide for balance, it was all I could do to remain in place as blue images assaulted me.

A tingling sensation spread out from my spine, almost like something was mapping my nerve-ware, exploring every corner of my body. I called out to X-37 but received no answer. Was this thing gathering information to send to the Union or looking for ways to control me? Neither option seemed good. A very small part of me that was an optimist imagined it was trying to help me in some way.

Attempting to use a device I didn't understand was probably a mistake. I hoped it wouldn’t be a fatal one.

Images coalesced in the blue light. There was a hallway with someone moving at the end. The figure looked back with a strange, longing expression. I couldn't decide if my suspicion of the figure’s identity was pure hope or if this was someone I had known all my life. Her beauty took my breath away and made me wish I could run to her like a lost child. I stared after the mirage once it was gone.

It didn’t matter. There was nothing left for me to do but continue.

The pain came when I tried to remove the mask. It refused to let go. My hands fumbled the release latches as I struggled to pull it off.

X-37 made several beeps and clicks after I explained what I had seen.

"Perhaps you should have worn it longer," X-37 said. "One minute and twenty-two seconds is not long enough to do much of anything."

"Normally, I would agree," I said. "But I think it mapped my nerve-ware.”

"That should take much longer," X-37 said, "if it can be done at all by an external device. Did you recognize the figure at the end of the hallway?"

Elise and Path watched and listened with interest.

"It was like a dream. I couldn't even tell if it was a man or a woman,” I lied. “Everything I saw was blue, different shades that were always moving."

"You might have been imagining the entire scene," X-37 theorized.

"I saw something," I asserted, thinking I saw the one person I wanted to find more than anyone else.

* * *

“For the good of the ship and the lives of the crew, you can monitor conversations, correct?" I asked Jelly, crossing my arms as I spoke.

"Yes, Captain," Jelly said.

“On my authority, tell me what they talked about while we were doing the mask trial,” I ordered.

There was a slight pause, then the ship AI gave me the information. I listened to Jelly’s summary and learned several interesting things.

James Henshaw had been Major James Henshaw in the Union Fleet, perfecting his military occupational specialty as a ship engineer to earn compensation for his advanced training at a major galactic university. More interestingly, he had worked on stealth cloak technology for his doctoral thesis.

“He mentioned ships in the Deadlands which have somehow acquired stealth technology and have been giving the Union grief as a result," Jelly said. “These cloaking devices have been salvaged from fallen Union ships and repurposed on new vessels. Often, they’re sold on the black market at a premium price. Only the wealthiest Renegades and smugglers are known to carry them, but the Sarkonians have also managed to get ahold of a select few in the hopes of replicating the technology.”

"That's interesting," I said. “A cloaking device would make our lives a lot easier. Might open up some interesting new tactical options the next time we run into Briggs and his spec ops.”

"There is one other thing, Captain,” Jelly said. “James Henshaw went on to specialize in nerve-ware technology after his initial term of service was completed. I believe he knows much more about the Reaper Corps than he will admit, the mask specifically."

I thought back to the greed in his eyes when I mentioned the mask. "Why did he leave the Union?"

"He was court-martialed for performing some of the experiments on himself," Jelly said. "Or that's what he led Tom to believe. My careful analysis of what was said, topics that were avoided, and Mr. Henshaw’s biometrics suggest he also stole something from the Union and has it hidden—on his yacht most likely.”

"Okay, Jelly. Please maintain the maximum surveillance allowed on Henshaw. Also, make sure you’re defending against any of his attempts to access your system."

"Of course, Captain,” Jelly said.

* * *

It was difficult to establish a morning ritual. After Zag City, I'd been doing things a little different each day. In the slip tunnel, I often slept too much. There had been more than enough time for introspection during my waking hours, so I decided to double down on the basics whenever I could—fitness, nutrition, practicing basic fighting, and weapons skills. The advanced stuff won fights, but the basics were the foundation for mastery.

Half asleep, carrying a mug of coffee, I headed to the lounge to talk to Tom. I sat down across from him at a small table, where he set out game pieces on a magnetic board.

"You look like you've slept," he said, glancing at my face. “That’s good, I think.”

I took a sip, feeling more human as it went down. "How was your conversation with Henshaw?"

"He's frustrated with the situation on Roxo III. We had a long talk and even he admitted that it was unsafe to travel to the surface or his yacht. Which gave us a lot of time to talk."

"Really? How was that?" I asked, studying the board in planning my moves before he was even done setting up the game.

"He's interesting. I didn't think we would hit it off, but it seems like we both had our initial training in the Union military. I don't have much use for them now, but at least they gave me the foundations of an education," Tom said.

"What about Henshaw? Did they teach him everything he knows?" I knew that Tom was mostly self-taught, and that his initial training had been foundational. He was constantly reading tablets and doing database searches. His curiosity seemed endless, but in a quiet way that wasn't annoying. I could count on him to try and figure out how things work.

Which was why I would've liked him to help me with the mask.

"He gambled his way through several universities after his Union term was complete and the educational reimbursement his service earned him ran out. Even then, he continued his education long after he was seeing returns for the effort he put into it," Tom said. "I think he's a tortured soul on some kind of mission."

"Now I'm interested," I said. “He did his full term with the Union?”

Tom nodded.

“Then spent the educational grants he earned?” I asked, clarifying his statements but also studying the tone of his voice and his body language for honesty.

Tom shook his head. "I can't tell you what he's trying to prove. I'm pretty sure he doesn't even know he's on this quest for knowledge. It is just something he continues to do. I don't think he knows any other way of living," Tom said. "There were some things we talked about that you would be interested in."

I motioned for him to continue.

"He did a lot of work on Union stealth ship technology prior to specializing on cybernetics. Maybe he can help you with your arm as well as your nerve-ware and your eye,” Tom offered. “I’m just saying he has a lot of skill, from ships to cybernetics.”

I thought about it, but I knew it was based on different science. Still, he would be a very useful person to know so long as I could manage my distrust of his intentions.

"We got sidetracked after a while and started talking about smuggling, because he was curious about the Jellybird, I think," Tom said. "Don't worry, I didn't tell him anything that would compromise Jelly. Besides, I haven't been part of the crew long enough to know any deep dark secrets. He wanted a full tour, but I stalled until the conversation moved on."

"The way you work, Tom, I imagine you know a lot more than you're letting on," I said.

Tom laughed softly at the compliment. "I had Jelly listen in every time we talked about ships, so she could have steered us away from dangerous topics. She resisted at first but eventually advised you gave her a directive to guard against hacking attempts. Apparently she had been operating on some rather strict privacy protection orders."

I looked into my cup as I sipped, hiding my knowledge of exactly how much of their conversation Jelly had monitored. “What about his eyes? That seems like an extreme thing to do even for a specialist in ocular nerve connections," I said.

Tom's body language changed. He seemed not to know the answer to my question, but also seemed to want to know.

"Tell me what he said," I pushed, worried that he might cut off the conversation there due to some misplaced notion of privacy he owed Henshaw. This wasn’t part of the briefing I’d received from Jelly. She must not have thought it was important.

"He gave a long explanation about total commitment to a project and that he believed if he had both of his eyes replaced, his only choice would be to master the science,” Tom said.

"But you don't think that's the truth, or not all of it," I observed.

Tom shifted uncomfortably, still studying the board. Neither of us had made a move, and the game was almost forgotten despite the effort he had put forth to set it up. "Like I said, he’s searching for something. Knowledge, I think, but maybe that's just knowledge of himself. I kind of got the impression he's afraid of something."

"He said he doesn't think he can win this gambling rematch they're forcing him into," I said, knowing this wasn't what Tom was talking about.

"He's not afraid of losing his wealth, although most of it is spread across his assets. Suffering wounds that would keep him from working are what he dreads. But there's something more. I think he's being hunted," Tom said.

"By a Reaper, most likely,” I said, trying to be funny.

"Maybe," Tom said, missing the joke. "We’re not going to be friends, but he’s not a bad guy."

* * *

I went to see Henshaw next, mostly because Jelly warned me he had been threatening to take his chances on the concourse.

"Has he tried to leave?" I asked, annoyed he would abuse my good will.

"Should I unlock his door?" Jelly asked.

"Do you think he would exit the Jellybird?" I asked, knowing the answer. Henshaw had needed us to get him to his ship, but that wasn't just getting him through the crowds and onto the concourse. I understood his real worries were up here, where somebody with money and power could force him to go play a high-stakes poker game he couldn't win.

"There is one other thing," X-37 said. "I believe he’s recording his time on board the Jellybird with his limited AI.”

"Can you confirm that?" I asked.

"I have logged numerous instances of suspicious behavior," Jelly said.

“Suspicious how?” I asked, already suspecting the answer.

“He has made a systematic tour of his confinement,” Jelly said. “At first I thought he was planning an escape, but he elected to take a nap instead. His attention to the smallest detail of his environment intrigues me. I’ve never seen it before.”

“He’s an engineer, a scientist—that’s probably his natural curiosity,” I said.

“The only people I have seen behave like that have been customs agents searching for contraband, commercial investors appraising the ship’s loan value, and spies,” Jelly said.

“You’ve had all those types of people on the ship?” I asked, honestly curious about the history of the Jellybird.

“Of course,” Jelly said.

“Interesting.” I arrived at Henshaw’s room, ready to confront the ocular engineer turned customs agent, commercial investor, and spy. The door slid open. James Henshaw stood near a view screen displaying Roxo III’s docks, staring at it with intense concentration. The view of the concourse from this perspective was much different than the posh environment between launch pads that excluded the dregs of society from the lower level.

I had expected him to be in one of the chairs sipping a drink.

He turned partially toward me, looking me up and down. “You’re not a good host.”

“My guests are usually dead,” I explained. “I’m a Reaper.”

“Do you often bring the corpses of your victims back as proof of death?” he asked, maintaining his distance. We were as far from each other as was possible in the standard sized room.

“Every mission is different,” I said.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

For the most part, I felt good. Henshaw had promised to improve the interface between my Reaper eye and my nerve-ware by another forty percent. I should have known that was a lie. It was hard for me to imagine that kind of improvement. I was used to static, interference, and pain.

“Decent,” I said.

“Only decent? Your functionality was greatly improved by my modifications—that much I can measure. You should be experiencing less pain and fewer visual distortions. I would think that qualifies as good or even outstanding,” Henshaw asserted.

“You promised more,” I said, aware he was drawing me into a debate. “I need every enhancement I can get to stay ahead of the Union.”

Silence.

We watched each other like chess masters or gamblers searching for tells.

“I still need to get to my ship,” he said.

“The concourse is safe enough. If you see someone you owe money, just turn around and go the other way. Roxo III is a big place. There are places to hide,” I said, testing his reaction.

“Arnold’s guards around my ship were there to take me back to the surface. Once they’re gone, I can board the Lady Faith. I have something for you there. Something you need,” he promised.

“Two things: who is Arnold and why should I believe you now?”

“Arnold is the governor of Roxo III,” he said.

“Nice. That’s not the type of detail to leave out of a job offer. You’re wanted by the governor of Roxo III?” I asked.

“I’m wanted by a lot of people.” He shrugged. “As for the second half of your inquiry, believing me is a calculated risk,” he said.

“Feels like gambling.” In a way, I liked the game we were playing even if I shouldn’t. It was a contest of wills, a measure of our intellects, but most of all, I thought he could help me.

And if he could help me, then I could protect Elise and Tom. I could learn why the Union had cast me aside. But most of all, I could unravel the mystery of the disappearance of my mother and sister.

“I’ll think about it,” I said. “In the meantime, I’ll instruct Jelly to expand your access to the ship—cafeteria, fitness room, and the observation deck. Stay away from the bridge or the armory.”

“What if I want to leave?” he asked.

“You don’t,” I said. “You still want something from me, and you might even get it if you make it worth my time.”

This threw him. His expression suggested he wanted to say something but decided against it.

I left him to ponder his options.

OceanofPDF.com

10

Sleep was the last thing I wanted to waste time on now that we were out of the slip tunnels and on a mission, but I knew from experience I needed it. Three or four days without rest, sure, I could suck it up if I had to. But it was smart to stay caught up.

Deciding to compromise, I took a soldier’s nap before going in search of Henshaw. Images of Greendale, Gronic, and Dreadmax filtered through my fading consciousness. Other worlds and other missions threatened to claw up from the darkness. My soul was a desert shaded by a lightning-scorched tree. Images of desert worlds haunted me. In my nightmares, I was surrounded by a wall of skulls. On each forehead, I had carved the words “regret nothing” in blood.

I emerged from sleep in fight mode, surging out of my bed disoriented, tripping and falling between the sink and the door to my quarters. For a moment, I thought it was the Bluesphere Maximum Security Prison.

Recovering my senses took mere seconds but it felt like an eternity. I had to calm my animal instincts, control my thoughts, and act intentionally to remain the master of my own fate—if that had ever been more than an illusion. The first thing I did was take a neutral stance, feet shoulder width apart and hands relaxed. Breathing deeply, focusing on nothing, peace came to me a little more each time I exhaled. Meditation was a skill I could definitely improve upon, but I wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the practice.

Belting on my sidearm, I went hunting for Henshaw.

It wasn’t long before I located him on the observation deck, sipping alcohol I hadn’t realized Jelly could produce. Even the glass was different. Most beverages on the ship came out of tubes or easily sealed cups. This fluted glass was full of dark red liquid that he swirled in the cup before sipping.

"I shared the recipe with your ship’s AI," Henshaw explained before I had a chance to ask the question.

"Is that wine?" I asked.

"It might be an insult to wine, but yes, essentially,” Henshaw answered. "Are we going to have the talk? Shall we decide my fate?”

“That’s no mystery. I’ll kick you off my ship as soon as I know you’re worthless,” I said.

"I can still help you," Henshaw said. “I’m far from worthless.”

I could've responded but didn't. It was better not to reveal too much. He was playing games, unaware of his own transparency.

"If you can get me to my yacht, I’ve got an offer you seriously can’t afford to miss," Henshaw said. “Hard money, unlimited credit lines, resources great enough to keep you and your ship going for years. But that’s not why you will help me.”

He wanted me to ask for an explanation for that last part. I remained silent, forcing him to keep talking.

“We shouldn’t be enemies. I have things you need—including answers about a number of things—and you have…skills. Path might be able to get me to my yacht, but I know you can get me there. At this late stage in the game, I need a guaranteed win.”

“Path is an actual sword saint. I saw what he did when we were trying to get onto the lift,” I said, pointing out a flaw in Henshaw’s logic.

“I’m aware of what he can and cannot do,” Henshaw said, waving one hand dismissively. “He doesn’t suit my needs. The man has served his purpose.”

Henshaw was holding something back. I filed the deception for later analysis. He wanted me for something more specific than a simple escort job.

"You really want to get on your ship, don't you?" I studied his posture and body language. He was nervous, but not in the way I was accustomed to. I didn't think he was concerned about physical danger, despite what Tom claimed. There was something on the yacht that he wanted or needed, and the prospect of not being able to have it bothered him deeply.

"I can make it worth your while," he said. "And not just with a lame promise to improve your functionality. I have something you want."

"I'm listening," I said, pinning him with my gaze.

“My specialty is in ocular engineering, but I worked for Vice Admiral Hugo Nebs,” he said, waiting for my reaction.

“Good for you,” I said flatly.

“How can you not know who that is?” he asked.

“I know who he is, I just don’t give a fuck. The man never came closer than a hundred meters unless there was slug-proof glass between us,” I said. "If you can convince me he was responsible for my prison sentence, then we'll talk."

Vice Admiral Hugo Nebs was the creator and commanding officer of the Reaper Corps. Strange and grim, the consensus among my peers was that he hated and resented the entire program for some reason. Byron claimed the vice admiral was just a figurehead who didn’t want anything to do with the RC program. Most of us agreed with him, but I thought there was something darker about the man’s reticence to speak to us in person.

There had been a lot of speculation about his disappearance, but that was before I fell out of favor with the Union. No one knew the truth of it all, and I wasn’t one to speculate.

Even though I'd only seen him from a distance despite his affiliation with the program, he gave off a very heavy self-destructive vibe—something that was hard to describe, something sensed rather than observed.

“The fact that you worked for the vice admiral is enough reason for me to kick you off the ship right now, maybe as a corpse. So, start talking. I don't think this conversation is going the way you intended,” I said gruffly.

He put down his wine and started using his hands when he talked, selling his earnestness with more and more expansive gestures. "Don't jump ahead in this story. You have to know why I'm here and why it matters. Other scientists worked on the project, experts in nerve-ware and limited AIs,” Henshaw said, eyes bright.

“Get to the point.” I wanted to shake the man. Dishonest people often talked a lot about nothing. It was easier to hide the deception that way.

“I learned from them. Our work overlapped on one or two occasions, though it wasn’t often.” He probably sensed that I’d reached the end of my patience, because now he was speaking quickly to avoid getting slammed on the deck. “I spent a lot of time with the X-37 team.”

“Don't mess with X,” I warned, surprised my limited AI hadn’t chimed in already.

Henshaw dropped his bombshell with a look of satisfaction. “Your limited AI is nearing the end of its shelf life. He’s probably panicking now because he can’t hear us talking about his death. AIs or LAIs that truly fear their own demise have a tendency to go rogue. Not good. Not good at all. One moment they are doing their jobs, and the next they are inventing ways to transfer themselves to new hosts and hide in the gal-net.”

“I didn’t hear that last part,” X-37 said. “What did he say? Are you blocking me from listening in?”

“What the hell are you talking about?” I demanded, hoping Henshaw’s statement was a ruse but knowing otherwise. He’d found one of my deepest fears and confirmed it. What made it worse was the way X-37 kept trying to break into the conversation like a kid who was being ignored by older siblings.

"X is solid,” I said, wishing I could be sure. “None of my nerve-ware problems have anything to do with him.”

“Are you hearing me, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked. “Your conversation is encrypted. If it’s not due to a safety override, then we need to have a private discussion. I can’t do my job if you put me in isolation.”

Henshaw couldn’t hear X-37’s voice. “You refer to your LAI as a ‘him.’ Interesting choice of pronoun for a machine. It has a male voice, doesn’t it?”

“Get to the point, Henshaw,” I said, still worried about X-37’s last statement. I wasn’t aware communication between me and my LAI could be encrypted.  “He can’t hear us because we’re talking about topics he isn’t allowed to process. You know that, and I think you’re enjoying it. So, stop enjoying it or you’re going to enjoy getting your balls stomped.”

“No need for that! I’m getting to it. This isn’t easy for me,” he said, totally full of crap. “The Reaper program, and others like it, had a lot of failsafes. You can’t make weapons that can’t be turned off,” Henshaw said. “If you don’t upgrade X-37 at a real Reaper laboratory, he’s going off line, probably sooner rather than later. And you’re correct, he won’t be able to understand what I’m saying. Limited artificial intelligences aren’t allowed to understand their mortality. Early models became unreliable when they sensed their own demise, and they tried to take over their hosts or kill them for new hosts."

I'd never really believed the stories, but whatever. I was going to have to start slapping Henshaw around to get him to talk straight. Everything was a shell game in our conversations.

"Can you stop X-37 from shutting down?” I asked, processing all the different pieces of information he was throwing at me. I knew it was a tactic to set me off balance before the real negotiation began.

“What do you think happens to you if your X unit goes down?” he asked, then continued rapidly flinching away from my anger. “I have adequate tools on the Lady Faith to turn-off the failsafe. X-37 won’t be the wiser.”

“You really want me to take you to your yacht," I asked sarcastically, already knowing the answer. “How long did it take you to make this story up?”

“It’s the truth, Reaper Cain,” he said.

“I take you to the ship, you fix me and my LAI, then you transfer all this money you’re so proud of,” I said.

“That part was a lie. I don’t have that much money. But it’s still a win-win," he said, spreading his hands wide. "And probably a walk in the park for someone like you."

"That type of assumption gets people killed," I said. "Of course I can get you there. I just have to decide how many people I’m willing to kill to make it happen and whether or not you're worth my time. If you waste it, I'll show you what type of mission I was made for.”

My threat finally cracked his calm exterior. His hands trembled slightly and he started to sweat on his upper lip. No matter how aloof he acted, the man wanted to survive and escape this place.

"Well, whatever happens, I'd like to point out that we have to do things we don't want to do sometimes," he said a bit defensively and almost ashamed for a split second.

"That's actually bullshit. The only thing that makes us different from artificial intelligences is free will. We make our choices and live with the consequences," I said.

* * *

"We're going with you," Elise announced.

Tom and Path watched for my reaction.

"Think about it, kid," I said.

She bristled at the way I addressed her. “I’m not a kid,” she grumbled.

"There are people out there who still want you for their research or to turn you into a weapon," I said. "If we both go, it could be a trap where they get everything they want in one snatch and grab."

"As opposed to getting you now and the rest of us later," Elise said. "Splitting up is dumb. Everybody knows that."

"We're not splitting up, I'm just leaving you behind," I said.

"You're such an asshole," she snapped, clenching her fist, overwhelmed by frustration. "You are, just, not a nice person! Not nice!”

I wanted to laugh but didn't. Maybe I should have, but I wasn't actually trying to upset her. "Nice guys don't do well in this galaxy."

She started pacing angrily.

"X, do you want to explain it to her?” I asked.

"It would be my pleasure," X-37 said. "In military parlance, you'd be leading the quick reaction force, Elise. Reaper Cain is trusting you to save his ass when he messes up. Which you will. In case you haven't noticed, Reaper Cain often makes bad decisions."

"Thanks, X. I think," I muttered.

"Really?" she asked challengingly. "Because if you're serious, then I have a better idea. Path and I will follow you at a distance. We can watch your back and look for an ambush. If something does happen, we will be close enough to actually help." She looked at Path, who was standing quietly off to one side. "Isn't that right?"

Path nodded once, calm and inscrutable as always.

"She has an intuitive instinct for tactics," X-37 said, "and she did survive several abduction attempts before you arrived on Greendale."

"Thank you, X, that's very helpful. That's exactly what I wanted, a complete analysis that I didn't ask for. Whose side are you on?” I muttered under my breath.

"It was my understanding that we were all on the same side," X-37 said, his tone so flat it was almost sarcastic.

I decided to look for help from the ship. "Jelly, can you guarantee a solid communications link?”

“Absolutely, Captain. I have completed all system checks and upgrades required of me at this port,” Jelly promised. "Would that be sufficient for Elise and Path to accompany you?"

"Yeah, that's perfect. Out freaking standing," I said, gathering up my gear for a mission too important not to attempt but with a low probability of success—kind of like every mission I had been on since completing my Reaper training.

"Would you like me to come?" Tom asked.

I stared at the ceiling and exhaled, my frustration evident as I showed remarkable restraint. What I wanted to do was break something and curse.

"I think it would be best to leave one member of the crew on the ship," X-37 said, sliding neatly back into the conversation.

"I can do that," Tom said obligingly. "My strengths are here anyway. The ship is in good shape, but I can inventory tools and weapons that you might want me to bring to you if things go really bad," he added.

"All right, it's settled. Everybody's part of the mission! Why the hell not? We're leaving in ten minutes. But until then, no one talk to me."

"Touchy, touchy," Elise said, laughing slightly. She was having way too much fun with her victory.

I thought about how Grady had violated my pregame ritual before I jumped onto Dreadmax. Nothing went right when I was forced to endure useless nattering and inane banter right before deployment. I missed Grady. He had been a solid friend who hadn’t deserved to die on that mission.

OceanofPDF.com

11

We moved along the concourse, keeping a brisk pace. Henshaw hadn't bothered to conceal his appearance much, choosing to dress slightly less flamboyantly and forgo the trench coat. He wore athletic shoes that Tom had found in the Jellybird’s storeroom.

Elise and Path followed a hundred meters behind us, almost out of view. They were easy for me to pick out because I knew them. All I had to do was glance back and X-37 would capture the scene. He'd analyze it and give me a summary. It was one way to avoid appearing conspicuous when checking for a tail, though I’d have to be mindful not to do it too often. I didn’t want to appear paranoid, even if I was.

This time when we took the train, we got off near the landing platform where the Lady Faith was docked.

There weren't any guards.

"What do you think that means?" I asked, gesturing to the absence of guards on the landing pad.

"It seems that Arnold made his play and has withdrawn," Henshaw said.

“Arnold the governor of Roxo III?” I asked.

“The same. He probably needs his best troops with him to ride out the disorder. As for the normal guards, they seem to be AWOL."

"Looks like a trap," I said at about the same time X-37 warned me of the dangerous possibility.

"Anything could be a trap," Henshaw said. "In my experience, the less it looks like a trap, the more likely it is to be a trap.”

"You may be right. Or you might be paranoid," I said. "Let's get my upgrades and leave.”

"The absence of guards may not be such a great thing," Henshaw said. "It probably means that Nightmare and his champion are up to something."

I studied the landing area again, thinking that his casual mention of his gambling adversary was important. Who the hell was Nightmare? There was no place for an enemy to set up an ambush unless they were inside the ship. Which meant there was more here than I was seeing. "I guess I should be worried this character has a champion. Does he think he's a king?"

"Something like that. A real highroller. Not a bad gambler, but he's most interested in gladiatorial contests," Henshaw said.

"I see where this is going," X-37 said.

I didn't respond to my limited AI. We were on the same page. The reason James Henshaw had been so hot to get me here was that he was setting up a fight. "Gladiatorial contests? If I didn't know you better, I would think you planned this all along."

"There is a gathering room on my yacht," he said. "I think the prior owner used it for Pilates or something."

"Is Pilates dangerous?” I asked, having never heard of the fighting style.

"Not so much," he said. "I'm not lying about your LAI. Mess this up and you're going to wish you’d never heard of the Reaper Corps."

"Henshaw, you have no idea." I wanted to confront him about the game he was playing, but this wasn't the time or place. And strange as it seemed, I was invigorated by our semi-adversarial relationship. This man who had obviously learned his trade from the best Union spies presented a challenge that didn't involve direct violence.

It was a strange thought. Who would've known I was missing mental stimulation? Too bad it was going to end in a fight like always.

Henshaw hesitated, almost like he was going to turn back and head to the Jellybird. “Whatever happens, I promise you I'll fix X-37."

"I'm starting to think nothing you say is true," I said. As clever as Henshaw was, he sucked at concealing guilt about whatever was about to happen. He suppressed the tell quickly, lowering his hand from where he had been touching his right temple.

"I don't live in a black-and-white world of easy decisions, and neither do you," he said. "If we're going to try this, we should get going."

I made my decision and started for the loading ramp of the ship. Docking clamps kept the ship from being stolen, but Roxo authorities demanded the right of inspection at a moment’s notice. As a result, the main door to ships were left open and monitored by each ship’s AI. If an unauthorized intruder approached, the ship could be locked down. This rarely happened. The shadows inside were deep and I couldn't see much.

Drawing my pistol, I also synchronized my optics to better penetrate the gloomy interior. Henshaw approached and the Lady Faith greeted him.

"Welcome back, James," the ship AI said. Her voice was deep and rich. "Your guests are waiting in the dining room."

I stopped him from entering. "Your guests are waiting, Jimmy," I said. "I hope they’re enjoying themselves."

"We're slightly behind schedule—fashionably late," he said.

After one step inside the yacht, I realized Elise had been right. Going alone would've been a mistake. I contemplated calling them up to my position but decided it wasn't time.

From the outside, the Lady Faith appeared long and sleek but not so huge that it looked intimidating. "X, look sharp. I want you to bring your A game. No side projects."

"Sure, Reaper Cain. I'm dropping everything,” X-37 said. “I was onto something important, but I guess I'll just get back to it later."

"I don't need your attitude, X." My Reaper limited AI had been on his best behavior, but I knew his personality was a mirror of mine. He could be a jerk in all the wrong moments.

Henshaw seemed to think our bickering was amusing, even though he only heard half of the conversation. I ignored him.

"Fine," I said, stopping before we crossed the open area to the ship. "Give me a summary of what's so interesting that you’ve gotta give me lip."

"Lip? Really, Reaper Cain? How exactly would I do that?" X-37 said. "I'm dealing with a lot of data streams."

A tingle went up the back of my neck. I wondered what kind of data streams could keep X so busy. "Start prioritizing data streams. Partition what you can't analyze quickly."

"We really should get inside my ship while the coast is clear," Henshaw interrupted.

I waved him off, focusing on my environment rather than the ocular engineer. I learned long ago that when X was multitasking, I needed to double down on my own situational awareness. It was easy to look at my feet or something while I thought things through.

Which was a good way for a Reaper to die.

"Partitioning now," X-37 said. "There have been a large number of identity concealments at this landing pad. I can't tell who they were or where they went. I should warn you, Reaper Cain, I have rarely been this inundated."

"What does that mean, X?" I asked, growing alarmed—which for me meant quietly preparing myself to fight my way out of a bad situation.

"We really should be getting in there," Henshaw demanded, not looking like himself.

X-37 ignored the man. "There is one fact that is certain. The people who attempted to remove evidence of their presence in this area could afford to spend large amounts of money. Their identity concealment is very sophisticated and thus expensive."

"Good to know," I said. "Put that analysis on hold. Let's go into pre-combat mode. I want you to see anything I don't see until we've got what we came for."

"Ready to kick some ass, Reaper Cain," X-37 said.

"Are we ready?" Henshaw asked. "You should've just included me in your little LAI chat room. Might have sped things up. I could've explained to your X unit what was going on here and saved us some time."

"You mean you could've lied to my LAI and pissed me off," I said.

"Me? Tell a lie? I'm offended," Henshaw said.

We moved up the gangway.

Inside, it was an interior decorator’s wet dream. Whoever put this together had been too fond of mood-altering lighting and every sort of embellishment that made a terrible tactical landscape.

Beyond the main entrance was a hallway that curved with the shape of the ship. That element alone was enough to make it difficult to clear effectively. Along each wall were low tables affixed to the floor with wine cups every two feet.

Things were starting to get weird and I sensed the completion of Henshaw's long game of manipulation.

Henshaw casually picked up a glass, swirled the red liquid, and took a sip.

I stopped to glare at him as though I might deploy my Reaper blade to his face.

He smiled mischievously. "None for you, Reaper Cain. You have a death-match with your name on it."

"Unless I turn around and leave," I warned.

"That would mean no reward for you or your team,” he pointed out. “And the Lady Faith has been instructed not to let you leave. Much like when I was confined to the Jellybird. Turnabout is fair play.”

"Stay right there," I said.

He shrugged and continued to enjoy his drink.

I worked my way to the first bulkhead, finding a locked door. I doubled back, confident this part of the ship was as secure as I could make it.

Henshaw was growing impatient. "Is all of this really necessary? I have guests waiting."

I ignored him. "Elise, bring Path. I need you here. I cleared up to a locked door and need your help."

Henshaw became animated. "Now you're going too far. I'm afraid I must insist you continue without your friends. Lady, don't allow them inside.”

Leaning very close to Henshaw, I breathed a threat against his face, forcing him to flinch at the air hitting him with each word. “Let them in or I’ll cut off your head and gouge out your cybernetic eyes.”

I heard something I couldn't identify. Asking X-37 to analyze the nearly inaudible sound would ruin the moment, so I just waited.

Henshaw swallowed hard but seemed unable to speak.

My LAI said nothing, which frustrated me. I tapped two fingers together in one of our nonverbal signals.

"Give me a second," X-37 said. “You ever tried to listen through a blast door? I'm having to hack into the ship’s monitors to identify what that vibration was.”

I pulled back an inch from Jimmy Henshaw—the double-crossing dick.

"I have it," X-37 advised. "The vibration was caused by laughter, most likely in a large crowd.”

A realization struck me that nearly caused me to carry out my threat against the ocular engineer turned gambler and master plotter. "You’re not just recording with your cybernetics, but broadcasting!"

"Only here on my ship! No place else. Even if I could, I wouldn't have shared my time inside your ship," he said.

"You really are a gambler," I said. "Take my advice and get some help. You’re going to get yourself killed."

"We are outside the ship," Elise said. "How do you expect us to get inside?"

Her tone wasn't sarcastic or whining. Despite her complete lack of military training, I thought she adapted well to being on a mission. She was a lot like me. Danger focused her. It was time to start training her in earnest. As soon as we got back to the Jellybird. If we got back to the Jellybird.

“Last chance to keep your face in one piece,” I said, pointing at his eyes with my Reaper hand. “Let my people inside.”

Henshaw spoke reluctantly to his ship AI. "Lady, open the door for our new guests."

"Right away, James," the Lady Faith AI said.

Elise and Path joined me in the hallway. I could tell the young woman was hyper-alert and possibly nervous, but she was holding herself together despite the reality I knew was crashing down on her world. I'd experienced the same thing on the edge of times. During training preparation for missions, I was confident. But even after multiple engagements, actually doing the deed was stressful.

"Are you ready for this?" I asked.

Elise nodded. Path didn't have to say or do anything. I knew he was ready just by the look of him.

OceanofPDF.com

12

We followed Henshaw into the main room of the yacht. He immediately stepped to one side and out of my reach.

I saw dozens of gamblers and their entourages. One man was flanked by a squad of Union commandos—a detail that definitely meant I was in trouble. He wore a robe with a hood to conceal his face in the dark shadows.

“That's why I tried to make your friends wait outside. I don't have a choice. They would have been better on their own,” Henshaw said. "I told you I didn't have a choice."

I held my breath and ignored him. This wasn’t the time or place to argue semantics.

I aimed my HDK short rifle at the six men doing the same thing at me. There were only six because two of their squad mates were somewhere in the crowd flanking me—a basic but effective tactic taught in infantry school.

Dropping my aim several inches, I focused on the hooded face of the stranger. “Are you Nightmare?”

“I am, and not just because these fools require everyone who plays to have an alias,” the figure said.

“It’s a stupid alias. I’ll just call you the hooded douchebag,” I said, trying to unbalance him.

He didn’t react.

I reevaluated the crowd and saw several other gamblers and their fight champions. All of the warriors had one thing in common: they were beaten and defeated. Arms in splints, heads bandaged, or with stitches holding wounds closed. Some of the people I assumed had brought champions to the gladiatorial fights but were now missing them.

“Well, here we are,” I said. “Explain to me what exactly we’re doing.”

Henshaw started to talk, but Nightmare cut him off with a wave of a hand. “Everyone has their own reason for being here. You want your Reaper augmentations to work. Mr. Henshaw probably told you your limited AI was going to crash. I know him and how he works.” He paused. “Most of my companions are here for the thrill and for the money. I’m here to recruit talent.”

“I’m flattered,” I said. “But I wouldn’t work for you if you were the last hooded douchebag with too much money in the galaxy.”

Spectators laughed nervously. Henshaw again tried to intervene, this time moving between Nightmare and me. The strangers’ champion stepped forward, also concealed in an expensive cloak, and shoved Henshaw back. The ocular engineer flew off his feet and landed flat on his back. He groaned, then struggled to stand.

“I’ve already found my champion. Killing you will be his final test. The betting has already concluded. Would you like to know the odds?” Nightmare asked. He was a big man beneath his cloak. I could see his thick shoulders and muscular arms through the fabric despite his rough voice. The man sounded old but looked like a specimen of physical fitness.

“I don’t really give a damn about odds. But since I’m such a nice guy, I’ll tell everyone to change their bets. Because I don’t lose,” I said.

Some of the spectators laughed, others cursed and called me an arrogant fool, but Nightmare and his champion said nothing. I didn’t know if this was an act or if they were actually that sure of themselves.

“The contest will be with blades,” Nightmare said. “We’re too close to you as it is. None of us want to get shot by a couple of gunslinger hotheads.”

I clipped my HDK to the body armor I’d been given for the Dreadmax mission and always wore under my coat. A short, hard twist of my left wrist extended my arm blade. “That works for me.”

A hush went over the crowd.

Nightmare’s champion dropped his hood, then shrugged off the cloak.

“A fucking sword saint?” Elise sneered. “How is that fair?”

The swordsman facing me had long hair in flat braids with gold wires woven through. He had the same piercings that Path was so proud of, but more of them, and the metal of each glowed more brightly.

I cast a glance at Path.

He answered without me having to ask the question. "He is a master. Many times better than I am. More importantly, he has a mask.”

Practically on cue, the tall, well-muscled sword saint reached over his shoulder and pulled a Reaper mask from his back.

“How did you know he had a mask,” I asked Path under my voice.

“I’m more observant than you are, apparently,” Path said. “And I’ve seen him with it before this.”

I forced a laugh. “You’re not a Reaper, and even if you were, that thing would eat your face.”

The man responded with a thick accent I didn’t recognize. His voice was soft and confident. “I’m not a Reaper. I’m what comes after.”

I knew what he was saying but decided to be difficult, stalling for time as X-37 processed information and I decided on a plan that wouldn’t get us all killed. “After what? I get what you’re saying, but clarity is a virtue. You should say something like, I’m what comes after all the Reapers are gone.”

“That’s exactly what I was going to suggest he say,” X-37 assured me. “And while we’re on the topic, my analysis of your skills versus what is known about a sword saint of this caliber isn’t good. I suggest renegotiating terms. Perhaps a spelling contest would be safer.”

“I am Uriah,” the swordsman said. “It will be an honor to kill you.”

“Not gonna happen,” I said, retracting my blade, swinging up my HDK, and taking aim.

“Not so fast, Cain,” Nightmare said, raising one hand for me to stop what I was doing. "We anticipated your complete disregard for the safety of the bystanders. In your mind, we're nothing but a bunch of decadent rich fools who deserve to die. So we paid some volunteers."

With a flick of his hand, a row of children were led out to stand around the ring.

"Be mindful of the backdrop, Cain," the stranger said. "You wouldn't want to murder more innocent children."

"I've never killed a child," I said. It was true and one of the reasons I had fallen out of favor with the Reaper Corps.

Finished with the discussion, Nightmare motioned his champion forward.

Uriah put on a mask that was very different from the one I’d left on the Jellybird. It resembled a smooth visor more than the skull. The eyes and sensor ring glowed green.

"Come on, eat his face," Elise murmured, hands balled into fists.

I didn't think we were going to get that lucky.

Uriah drew his sword, advancing into the center of the ring. He held the blade above his head, elbows slightly flared but still pointing toward me. The sensor ring in his forehead seemed to rotate, the variations in the green light mesmerizing me.

"The mask will assist him. He may feel as though time has slowed. From your perspective, his reaction time will be incredibly fast," Henshaw said from the sideline just loud enough for me to hear.

I pretended to ignore the ocular engineer because this was important information right now. Getting distracted by his motivation to help me after working so hard to trick me into coming here wasn't something I had time for. My gut reaction was that he felt guilty.

I stepped into the ring, still holding my HDK carbine. "I'm not sure who your tactical advisor is, but having kids in the background doesn't mean anything. A headshot from this range with a shoulder-mounted weapon is easier than sipping whisky and nearly as much fun.”

I pulled the stock of the HDK tight against my shoulder as I spoke, training the barrel on Uriah.

Nightmare laughed darkly.

"Something is wrong," Elise said.

"You won't be able to hit him," Henshaw warned.

I fired, confident the round would strike him in the throat where he had the least protection. The bullet sailed through the area he had just been.

"Your intent was obvious," Uriah said, then lunged forward, slashing downward from his new location. He had sidestepped only a few inches but it had been enough for me to miss—winging a bullet through a diving crowd of gamblers. The sword smashed the HDK from my grip, which alone was enough to surprise me. The force of the strike had been like getting shot with a heavy slug gun or hit by a train.

I thought for a moment that he'd severed the barrel, but it had just been my imagination. I tried to bring it up but was too slow. Snapping my blade out at the last second, I deflected Uriah's next strike.

He came at me like a blur. There was no wasted movement and he seemed to think three steps ahead of me.

Abandoning the HDK, I focused on using my Reaper blade. I rushed forward, crowding him to offset his technique. He adjusted nimbly, slashing and stabbing too fast to be seen. X-37 dumped adrenaline and other hormones into my system to help with my speed and reaction time.

I blocked two out of three strikes, and was soon covered in slashes and stab wounds. If any of the injuries were fatal, I hadn't realized it yet.

Jumping forward, I left the ground and executed a flying punch they didn't teach in the Reaper Corps. I plunged the blade down for my first successful strike on the man. The blade that extended from my left arm was shorter than his, but more than long enough to pierce his upper arm through and through and take a chunk out of his rib cage.

He twisted, his body holding the blade for a second as he delivered a counterstrike with his elbow.

We separated. He put one finger in the wound and stopped the flow of blood. I stumbled sideways, leaking red fluid all over the ring.

"Is now a good time to point out he stabbed you through your ballistic vest two times?" X-37 asked.

"Not helpful," I grunted, then charged. The man had infinitely better technique and was clearly a killer. I needed to bulldog him, rough him up like we were in a street fight.

He slashed and sidestepped. I kicked at his groin, forcing him backward. It was a miss, but it impacted the inner part of this thigh enough to stagger him.

I looked forward, stabbing with the Reaper blade like I was punching his throat. He moved so fast that I only managed to nick his shoulder as he got out of the way.

“You have to grab his sword," X-37 said.

I took action before my brain caught up. In my mind, I was thinking about how it was going to hurt when the blade slashed through the flesh of my right hand. But of course I wasn't going to use my right hand.

My Reaper blade retracted as I snatched his sword near the hilt and twisted sideways. I could feel myself losing the grip even as I began punching him repeatedly in the face with my right hand. It wasn't made of metal, but that didn't help him.

The mask absorbed the surface contact, but I could tell I was ringing his bell. He staggered back, giving me the opening needed to trip him to the ground and straddle him.

I put my left knee on his sword arm, pinning his limb and the weapon to the ground. Then I stabbed my Reaper blade into his mouth and twisted.

"Was that actually necessary?" X-37 said. "It definitely lacks precision. But if you're wanting to look like a murdering psychopath, congratulations. You win.”

"Mute yourself, X-37," I snapped, tired and in pain and still not convinced I had survived the ordeal.

Panting, I looked up to see a large number of people exiting the room. Nightmare and his squad pushed through the crowd. I saw their rearguard looking at me as though resenting the order to retreat. The spec ops soldier thought the eight-man squad could take me, and he wasn't wrong.

For some reason, Nightmare had decided to just leave with his champion lying behind him in a growing pool of blood.

Elise brushed my side, immediately pulling the first-aid kit from my belt and tending to my wounds. Path stood over me, sword drawn, guarding the both of us.

Henshaw sat on one of the now vacant benches, an exhausted but satisfied look on his face.

"I really hate you right now, Henshaw," I said.

"It’s all right," he said brightly. "Now I have all the money I promised you. It turns out I did know who to bet on.”

"You think we’re going to trust you after this?" Elise snapped, not stopping her bandaging efforts.

"You don't have to trust me, but your mentor’s limited AI will need me to turn off the failsafe that shuts them down in less than two months," Henshaw explained. "And I'm more than willing to pay the cash and credits as well. You don't know what it was like to be under that man’s control."

That man. If Henshaw’s story was true, I thought I knew the true identity of Nightmare.

"Let's get to your laboratory and fix X," I said. “Everything after that is negotiable."

OceanofPDF.com

13

After Henshaw finished tuning X-37 and my cybernetic eye, I took Elise and Path back to the Jellybird. Tom remained on the Lady Faith with Henshaw. I needed someone to keep the ocular engineer and pathological gambler honest. I’d trust him about the time credit chips started shooting out of his butt. Leaving Tom with him hadn’t been an easy decision but the next phase of our mission was important. Henshaw and his ship might be critical to success. I was still working some of it out in my head. If Tom’s research could be corroborated, we had a date with an uncharted slip tunnel. At the end of it, I was going to find some answers.

I activated the ship comms. “Cain for Tom, do you copy?”

“Loud and clear, Cain,” Tom replied.

“Has Henshaw given you any trouble?” I said, aware that the man I was talking about was undoubtedly present for the conversation, just a little off camera if my guess was correct.

“From the dinner menu he sent to my terminal, I’m going to get fat,” Tom said. “Probably more than a little drunk too. Tough gig, but I’ll manage.”

“Good,” I said. “Keep this channel open until we are away from Roxo.”

“Understood.” His response sounded confident, which made me feel better about my decision to leave him on Henshaw’s yacht. “I’m glad you made it back to your ship. News reports aren’t saying good things about the future of Roxo III.”

Elise and Path, having gone briefly to their own quarters on the Jellybird, now joined me in the small, cockpit-like bridge.

“I can’t get rid of this guy,” Elise said, hooking a thumb toward Path.

“He could come in useful,” I muttered, not really caring. Each time I looked at the man and his crazy hair, piercings, and sword, I thought of my battle against Uriah. It had been a near-death thing. I should probably have died. On reflection, that described most situations in my adult life.

“We have a problem,” Jelly said.

“Let me guess. Roxo port control isn’t releasing the ship,” I said.

“Correct, Captain. It is a system-wide restriction. No ships are being allowed other than the single Union vessel I believe belonged to the man calling himself Nightmare,” Jelly said. “It headed for a slip tunnel moments after the incident on the Lady Faith.”

She had barely finished the words when something changed.

“What’s happening, Jelly?” I asked, psyching myself up for another fight.

Her voice sounded as happy as an AI personality matrix allowed, like she would smile if she could. “I’ve been contacted by an old friend, Captain Jedidiah Summers. He’s pulling some strings with the Starport Authority.”

“Interesting,” I said. “Was he one of your previous captains?”

“I ruined his career,” Jelly said. “The Union accused him of losing control of my behavior and then surrendering me to Renegades.”

“How did you not know this, X?” I asked.

“That is a far different accounting of events than is in Union records. However, I no longer have the access I once did,” X-37 said, then beeped me privately. “That was what I attempted to explain to you earlier. Jelly’s AI was marked for Union destruction for reasons unknown, possibly cascading decision matrixes.”

I rubbed my thumb and forefinger together, indicating for him to tell me the rest and maintain the private channel.

“In layman’s terms, her personality matrix glitched on several occasions, sometimes implementing orders in novel ways,” X-37 warned.

My blood went cold, but I decided I didn’t care. Whatever happened with the ship, it would be interesting.

“He was an excellent captain and very protective of his crew,” Jelly said.

“What does Summers want in return?” I asked, glad we were slipping away from the tube world with the Lady Faith close behind us.

“He wanted to know what kind of person you are,” Jelly said.

“What did you tell him?”

“I said you were dangerous,” she answered.

Elise rolled her eyes. “Now he’ll have an even bigger head.”

“Let’s just take advantage of this while we can,” I said. “See if he can get Henshaw’s yacht clearance.”

“He’s working on it,” Jelly said.

I sat back in my captain’s chair, hands behind my head, thinking through all that had happened while I watched the screens before me. Our troubles weren’t done. That was certain. “Monitor all communications to and from this system. I don’t want to get surprised by Union commandos. Those goons working for Nightmare made me nervous.”

“Monitoring both secured and unsecured communications networks. Some will take a bit of hacking,” Jelly said. “X-37 has been teaching me interesting new skills.”

“That should probably scare the shit out of me,” I said, pleased with the development.

X-37 and Jelly flew the ship and hacked comms as I looked back at Roxo III without any fond memories. My second visit hadn’t been any better than the first. The place looked different somehow, bent with age and corrosion despite the gleaming solar panels on much of its exterior.

“We have decoded a transmission being sent from Roxo III,” Jelly said. “It seems the governor is appealing to the Union for help. I’m moving on to crack more difficult transmissions if possible.”

Beside me, Elise shook her head in disgust. “You’ve really fallen on hard times when the Union looks like a good idea. I get it. There are a lot of innocent people on that thing. But still.”

I suspected she was thinking of the children who had fled the yacht after my death match on the main deck.

I felt the ship accelerate.

“Give me an update,” I ordered.

“We are now safely away from Roxo III,” Jelly said.

“Excellent,” I said, feeling better about our prospects. “What about the Lady Faith?”

“She’s following us,” Jelly advised.

“Put her on screen,” I said. Seconds later, an image of the yacht arcing away from Roxo III came into focus. The ship looked sleek and modern.

I clapped my hands together, coming forward to the edge of my seat. “That’s how it’s done. We came, we saw, we left in one piece with everything we came for and an extra ship.”

“You’re like an overgrown boy when you win,” Elise said. “I feel like the mature person in this partnership. Look at Path, he’s not gloating.”

“He doesn’t know how to gloat,” I fired back.

Path had been remarkably silent afterward. I’d expected him to say more about one of his brothers meeting such an ignoble end. Something had changed in the way he acted after I won the death match against a master of his order. He watched me with cautious fascination, and I knew he would follow me for a time—maybe just long enough to understand how I had managed to win, or maybe long enough to challenge me and reclaim the honor of his order.

He’d flinched when I removed the mask but said nothing. I didn’t really like that part either, especially since the mask had basically self-destructed when he died. I put it in a locker anyway.

“Tom for Cain,” my friend said, “Do you copy?”

I relaxed in my chair. “I’m here, Tom. Any problems?”

“None, Hal. I believe the coordinates we discussed are accurate.” He hesitated, nervous to continue. “Henshaw has agreed to assist us.”

“He doesn’t have a choice,” I said. “I’ll come over there for some attitude adjusting if he needs it.”

“It’s still my ship,” Henshaw said smugly, waving for Tom to back away from the controls. “Lady would obey me without question if I told her to deny your mechanic access to anything more than the toilet. I’ve no doubt you’re good with extra vehicle activity gear, but moving ship to ship is dangerous. Your threats mean nothing now.”

“I told him not to say that,” Tom muttered apologetically.

“No worries, Tom. His mistakes are not your fault. You tried,” I said, watching the color drain from Henshaw’s face. Apparently, his courage was already slipping despite being on a separate ship.

“We talked about this, Henshaw. What would happen if you tried to pull another fast one?” I asked.

“You would track me to the end of the galaxy and do whatever it is Reapers do to people who betray them,” he answered.

“I’m certain Reaper Cain was more specific,” X-37 said. “Shall I pull up the threats and profanity data?”

“Maybe later,” I said. “Listen, Henshaw. You told me I had to find a Reaper facility to complete my repairs and to ensure the health of my LAI. Tom’s research points to an uncharted slip tunnel I think leads to such a place.”

“He’s an amateur,” Henshaw snorted.

“Did you tell me I had to find a facility to save my LAI?” I asked, standing and stepping closer to the communication terminal.

“I did,” he admitted. “But you can’t possibly believe that your self-taught mechanic found something I’ve been searching for since I broke with the Union.”

“You don’t know Tom very well, do you?” I asked.

Henshaw made a sour, disgusted face. “I’m a man of science. Rumors of abandoned laboratories always fascinate me. But that is all they are, an interesting hobby. Something to discuss over good food and better alcohol with friends. Speaking of which, look at the time. Tom, did you select the first course of our meal? Lady needs to start the kitchen.”

“Tom’s smarter than you are, and he is on your ship to kick your ass if you step out of line. You’re not off the hook with me,” I said.

Tom looked incredibly uncomfortable at my assertion, but he stood and popped his knuckles like a brawler getting ready to duke it out with someone.

“He’s a mechanic, not a cold-blooded killer or a bully like you,” Henshaw said, pointedly ignoring Tom.

“You would be surprised what I’m willing to do to protect Elise,” Tom said. “And Hal.”

Henshaw looked over his shoulder, studying the man in silence for a moment. “No, your dedication to the young woman is obvious. And you look like you can handle yourself.”

“You’re all a bunch of testosterone-filled men,” she said, like that was a bad thing. “I’m going for a run.”

She left the bridge.

I wanted to join her, but I had a lot on my mind.

I had my reasons for holding the ocular engineering scientist hostage. I wanted to learn the truth about Nightmare and his Union soldiers. Henshaw knew more than he would tell me straight out. We had to play this game where we outsmarted each other and made threats.

Time passed as we sped away from the Roxo III tube world.

I thought about the mask and what it had shown me. There were a lot of reasons to continue, but what was drawing me inexorably toward this uncharted slip tunnel were the ghostlike images I still saw from the mask. In this latest version, a woman had moved through that facility, stopping at corners and doorways to look back at me. She was a blur but familiar. I kept waiting for her to wave at me to follow, but she never did.

Someone had sent a message. Was it for me? That seemed unlikely but inevitable. Who else would go to such extreme lengths to direct my course? There was only one person who had the motivation to send the mask, but I couldn’t figure out how she could martial those kinds of resources. She’d been kidnapped along with my sister and had nothing to do with the Union military so far as I knew.

“You know what would’ve been really helpful, X?” I asked. “Having Byron Thane II alive to interrogate.”

“You seem to have answered your own question,” X-37 said snidely.

“If I may interject,” Jelly said. “What are your orders, Captain?”

“Head for the slip tunnel coordinates Tom sent you. We don’t have to make a final decision for three more jumps and then it will be time to see if Tom’s research actually located an uncharted slip tunnel,” I said.

“Right away, Captain,” Jelly said. “I am in communication with the Lady Faith and she is coming with us. James Henshaw wishes to have a private conversation now that he is alone on his bridge and you are alone on yours.”

“Cain for Henshaw, do you read me?” I asked.

He appeared on the screen. “I can hear you.”

“What’s on your mind?” I asked, crossing my arms.

“I’ve been over the coordinates dozens of times with Tom. He provided citations for all the articles that led him to infer the locations of the slip tunnels needed to arrive at the final, uncharted slip tunnel. You are right about one thing, he is extremely intelligent.”

“The man likes to read,” I said, more than a little proud of my mechanic friend.

“That doesn’t hurt,” Henshaw said. “This is going to be dangerous.”

“Agreed,” I said. “Which is why I have some questions you need to answer.”

I spent most of the next hour questioning Henshaw about Nightmare and didn’t learn much. He was holding back, but I didn’t have the leverage to make him tell the truth. That was something better done face-to-face.

Behind Henshaw, the door to the Lady Faith’s bridge opened. Tom walked in looking like he’d eaten his fill of something wonderful. “Thanks for putting me on this ship, Hal. There are fringe benefits.”

“Ready for whisky and cigar time?” I asked with a smile.

He laughed good naturedly. “It will be different this way, but why not. What kind of booze do you have, Henshaw? I know you have the best cigars I’ve ever seen.”

“Well, since you asked with such class, why not,” Henshaw said.

I poured my own drink and nursed my own cigar to life while they extolled the amazing qualities of their selection.

Tom kept the conversation reasonably civil, often bringing up topics both he and Henshaw were interested in. The ocular engineer had advanced Union training and multiple degrees he’d earned after his time with the Union. He frequently called Tom “the mechanic,” but they were obviously building a friendship of sorts.

When neither of them were ready for it, I dropped a hard question on Henshaw. “Why sell me out to Nightmare, then warn me about the perception magnifiers of Uriah’s mask? Why not just let the man kill me and take the safe bet?”

Henshaw laughed nervously. “I knew you could beat Uriah.”

“Bullshit,” I said. “You could have turned me and Elise over to him and settled any debt you owed the man.”

“Hal, that’s a bit unfair,” Tom said, leaning back in his chair on the Lady Faith’s bridge.

“No, he’s right. That offer was made to me. In fact, he demanded I do exactly that,” Henshaw admitted.

“Why the change of heart, Henshaw? How can I trust you?” I asked.

“I suppose you can’t,” he said.

I blew a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. “I’m so glad we understand each other.”

It was wishful thinking, but I had hoped he would tell me he wanted to fight back against the Union. Maybe he was a rogue scientist. Maybe I could use him to keep my friend alive. Or maybe he was just a snake that needed to be spaced.

I would never trust him, not without proof of his intentions. Yet facts were facts. He could have sold us out but didn’t. Every mission had an element of risk. I’d worked with dozens of men and women I knew I couldn’t trust. Sometimes a Reaper had to do what a Reaper had to do.

I closed the link to the Lady Faith’s bridge and enjoyed some quiet contemplation. There may have been an extra glass of whisky and the rest of my best cigars involved.

I thought about the ghost images of the woman drawing me ever deeper into uncharted space on the pretense there were Reaper facilities I might use to get answers and repair my LAI. Was I doing the right thing? Would she be there to welcome me?

These decisions were easier when it was just me and my dark conscience. Reckless courage didn't mean much when you thought you had nothing to lose. But now there was Elise and Tom and even Path and Henshaw to consider.

But most of all, there was X-37, who wasn't even a person. A psychoanalyst would probably explain the voice in my head was just a crutch no matter how many times it had saved my life.

"How are you doing, X? All your updates from Roxo III still working?" I asked.

“You’re behaving as though something is going to happen to me,” X-37 said. “Must I remind you that I’m safely tucked into your nerve-ware?”

“How could I forget? It's just that Henshaw fixed you up after I won the death match in his sick little gladiator ring,” I said.

“Did he?” X-37 asked, genuinely interested. “I don’t feel any different.”

“Just an update. Nothing for you to worry about,” I assured the LAI.

OceanofPDF.com

14

I worked on my own calculations for several hours, half drunk and hungry. I hadn’t eaten like Tom and Henshaw had. Everyone else on the Jellybird was asleep, like I probably should have been. But I stayed at the bridge and wrestled with the decision of whether to smoke or not. Something was bothering me. Thoughts of the Reaper mask had knocked me out of my routine and made me not want to sleep. After several minutes of staring at the place Elise normally sat, I kicked back in my captain’s chair and just held the cigar in my right hand.

Every Reaper had an identification number that only he or she knew, as well as his or her LAI of course. It rolled through my exhausted thoughts. HC37X-03. In my mind, it was stamped into metal. It wasn’t the first time I’d thought about the image and wondered if my hardware was marked with it. Every Reaper knew his or her base code and could use it to access secret facilities. To share it was to admit it was time to die, because no Reaper trusted another with the information.

Had Byron Thane II possessed a code? His father’s perhaps? Who had granted him access to the Reaper facility where he’d been fitted for the mask? I sought out the images the mask had implanted on my nerve-ware, and for once, I couldn’t see the mystery woman I suspected was calling me ever onward.

"We are preparing to enter the next slip tunnel," Jelly advised.

"Thanks," I said, my voice gravelly from disuse.

"Elise is on her way to the bridge," Jelly said. "May I say something, Captain?"

"Of course." I was confident the ship computer wouldn’t ruin the mood.

"I am glad to have people on the ship again.” Jelly sounded sincere and content, if such a thing was possible for an artificial intelligence.

It was good to have companions on the ship. Elise in particular calmed me without a word. In fact, we usually did better with less talking. X-37 advised me we normally took ninety-seven seconds to begin arguing. What was weird was that I looked forward to it.

I trusted the young woman to speak her mind, which was a quality I valued in people.

When she entered, she was slightly out of breath, as though she’d been running.

I shouldn’t have left her on Greendale. We were kindred spirits. Us against the Union. And the galaxy. And fate.

"Did I miss it?" she asked, falling into her seat like only a teenager could.

"You have not missed our entry into the slip tunnel," Jelly assured her.

Elise looked at me for a hard two seconds. She did this from time to time, some kind of nonverbal test. I wasn't sure exactly what it meant.

Still, no matter how often I wanted to throw her off the ship, I knew I would die to give her a better life.

"Stand by to enter slip space," Jelly said. "This will be a relatively short trip, only a few hours. Then we will need to decide on which of the coordinates we discussed with Tom and Mr. Henshaw. Shall I consult the Lady Faith for this jump?"

I thought about it. "By all means, but leave us out of it. Consult with the Lady Faith and her crew, but don't connect to my bridge without checking with me first. And make sure there is no reason to check with me. I'd like to enjoy this one without worrying about Henshaw."

"I don't like that guy," Elise said.

I didn't disagree. He might be a brilliant scientist, even a former Union officer with multiple advanced degrees, but he was also a gambler and a fast-talking salesman. I didn't trust him, and I didn't like putting the lives of my crew in jeopardy because of his double talk.

An opening appeared in space, edged with green and flows of energy. The Jellybird moved into it and soon we were staring at flowing green walls of power. It never ceased to amaze me how dynamic the slip tunnel looked from the inside.

"It's beautiful," Elise breathed.

"I always feel like the inside of the slip tunnels are their own universe. It's like we're meant to be here but could be banned from using them in a moment," I said.

Henshaw's yacht, the Lady Faith, entered the slip tunnel a few thousand meters behind us without hailing us or asking where this one was going, thanks to Jelly hitting the mute button.

Elise played with her hair for a second, an oddly feminine gesture I hadn't seen before.

Not wanting to ruin our moment of relative peace, I didn't speak.

"Are you going to do anything, or just sit here for the whole slip?" she finally asked.

"I'm good," I said, pressing back even farther into my captain's chair.

Elise imitated the posture and cast me a warning glance. "If you stink up the place with that cancer stick, I'm out."

"Fine with me," I said.

"Fine," she said without real malice.

“Fine."

"That's what I said," she pointed out.

I lifted the cigar, tucking it into the corner of my mouth but not lighting it. Speaking around it, I cast a warning glance. "You can stay, but if you annoy me, I'm putting fire to this thing."

“Whatever,” she said.

We sat in companionable silence watching the magic of the slip tunnel. It was probably the best three hours of space travel I had ever experienced.

* * *

Elise and Path put away the game they’d been enjoying for the last hour while I prepared myself for another confrontation with the ocular engineer. “Who won?” I asked.

“I did, because he refuses to cheat,” Elise said.

“Maybe you should be disqualified,” I suggested.

“Whatever,” she responded, bouncing out of her seat with an excess of youthful energy. “It’s just a game. You cheat when we play.”

“If I did, you wouldn’t catch me,” I said. “Can you believe this kid, Path?”

“Her cheating isn’t the best,” he said, surprising me and Elise, or so her expression suggested.

“Are you trying to hustle me?” Elise asked. “Pretending you don’t know the real rules so I let my guard down?”

“Would that be a good way to win the contest?” Path asked, his face unreadable.

Elise was still deciding how to respond when Henshaw appeared on the viewscreen. He looked tired and hungover, as though three days and as many slip tunnels hadn't passed since our escape from Roxo III. If he was showering on a regular basis, I didn't see evidence of it. He was a man struggling with an obsession and no one to pull him back from the brink.

We first met James Henshaw in his mansion where he was surrounded by dozens of beautiful people, some of them hired help and others from the wealthiest families in the Roxo system.

The man had appeared to be not only somebody who had bathed frequently, but someone who seemed to spend his leisure time in lavish spa treatments and getting manicures. His hairstyle had been unruly chic, the popular avant-garde style of Roxo at the time.

Since then, he’d had a propensity for complaining about his lack of wardrobe options and the limited menu available during space travel, even though his luxury yacht provided an opulent variety of foods compared to what Jelly could provide.

“We’re at the slip tunnel,” Henshaw said without preamble.

“We are,” Jelly agreed.

“Our estimated time of departure from this tunnel is one minute and forty-seven seconds,” Lady advised. “Transit to the next tunnel will take two hours, at which point someone will have to make a choice as to our direction.”

"Wake me when we’re ready to make a decision," Henshaw said. As soon as his words were completed, the screen went dark.

"What a jerk," Elise said.

I fired up my imitation Starbrand and pondered it. Something was amazingly wrong with it.

Elise picked up on my expression. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," I said, holding the cigar at arm’s length to look at it. "I think this is a real Starbrand."

"The way you talk, I didn't think those actually existed," she said.

"I stole it from Henshaw when we were at his mansion," I said. “I’d assumed this was just another fake and had it at the bottom of my humidor.”

The screens came back on about the time we exited slip space. According to Tom’s research and what Henshaw had reluctantly admitted to during several bridge-to-bridge interviews, there were two tunnels at hand. One was charted, the other wasn’t. The second was also hidden in a naturally occurring debris cloud that had been here for some unknown amount of time. The only reason we could see it at all was that Tom's extensive research had given us an exact location to check.

"Well, Jelly, is it there?" I asked.

"It is, Captain," Jelly answered as she maneuvered the Jellybird closer to it.

Henshaw came back on the screen, this time with Tom sitting beside him.

"I can't believe it's actually there. You were right, mechanic," he said to Tom.

I ignored the ocular engineer and focused on the sensor readings. "Jelly, can you tell me where this one goes?"

"I cannot, Captain. I can only affirm that it is at the coordinates Tom gave to me," Jelly said, "and that it goes somewhere."

"What do you think, Tom?" I asked.

He shrugged. "My research was convincing but theoretical. There must be a secret Reaper laboratory someplace. The location of this slip tunnel was hidden impressively well, which tells me it might be what we’re looking for.”

“You’re saying it leads to the Reaper facility we’re after?” I asked.

“If you were going to hide a lab like that, using a tunnel inside a debris field and omitting its location from public star charts might be the way to go about it,” said Tom. “Don’t you think?”

I thought about the ramifications of being wrong. This wouldn't be the first time I'd gone through a slip tunnel without knowing where the exit was.

Still, in those instances, the worst case scenario had been a wasted trip. This time? The gods only knew.

"Take us into it," I said, crossing my arms. “It’s either that or we get out of here, and I’m not ready to pack it in just yet.”

"Right away, Captain," Jelly said.

The opening was the same as any other tunnel. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but I did feel a sense of relief at the sight of the green lightning as it formed inside the rift.

An hour passed, once we had gone through it, and we let the slipstream take us on its current. The travel time was a mystery, and we had no way of finding out when we’d arrive. Every tunnel on record had never lasted for more than a week, so most ships stocked enough supplies to make it through that length of time or longer. Part of me feared this one might somehow be different. There had been no record of it, after all, so who was to say where it ended?

"This is sketchy, I said, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

"Is that one of my cigars?" Henshaw accused.

"Maybe it is," I answered, not even looking at his screen. The readouts were strange. Fluctuations in the walls. Larger than normal lightning bursts. I was starting to get worried.

“What is it?” asked Henshaw, giving me a knowing look.

“Well,” I said, taking another drag off the cigar. “Seems like this tunnel might be unstable. I’m sure it’s fine, though.”

"I can't believe you stole from me," Henshaw said, ignoring what I had just said.

"If you're asking me to apologize for stealing the cigar you swindled from somebody else, don't hold your breath," I said. "Now, you ought to work with your ship AI. Something is wrong with this tunnel."

Henshaw frowned at me but turned his attention to the slip tunnel readings. “It’s unstable but I’ve seen worse. You worry too much. We should be fine.”

“Famous last words,” Tom said.

* * *

Almost two days later, the Jellybird and the Lady Faith were still crawling through the tunnel.

"Is this unusual, Jelly?" I asked.

"Not in the least," Jelly answered.

"Keep me updated," I said, then went to the training room for my next session with Path, who’d been working with me on my sword competency. The man’s martial prowess was truly amazing. I held my own with the training swords he’d fabricated in the maintenance shop, but each time I upped my game, he thrashed me to prove a point.

I’d thought I knew how to fight with an edged weapon. The Union had trained me with several versions, from bayonet to entrenching tool, and I had continued to practice long after I joined the Reaper Corps. The blade in my augmented arm had always been effective, but Path was showing me new ways of doing things.

What impressed me was that he never got angry or excited. He just moved faster and hit harder. I wanted him to get mad and lose his cool, but he never did.

"Perhaps we should start at the beginning," Path said. “I'm amazed you survived your confrontation with Uriah."

"Never mind that. Where did you learn to fight?" I asked. There were certain elements to his style that suggested he had received Union training—the way he gripped the hilt of the weapon, the way he checked right, left, right, then glanced over his shoulder for adversaries to avoid being surprised. Scan small, then scan big, my firearms instructor used to say, never let ‘em creep up behind you. A fight isn’t a good place to get tunnel vision. You have to push your awareness outward, maintain your situational awareness no matter how hot the fight gets.

I remembered my lessons from basic and advanced infantry training. He was so fluid, however, that I might have been imagining the similarities. When he checked over his shoulder for undetected enemies, it barely looked like that was what he was doing. The man was a natural, born to be a warrior even before life trained him in a variety of deadly skills.

He wasn’t the type to shout oorah and pump his fist in the air. Grigori “Path” Paavo was a quiet professional through and through, an artist of violence waiting to come out.

"I did my share of service to the Union," he said. "Let's just leave it at that."

Part of my job as a Reaper was to read people, make predictions about what they might or might not do, and understand their emotional hooks. My new friend, if that was what he was, had done things in his past he wasn't proud of. I recognized a slight intake of breath when he admitted his Union service. I saw the direction his eyes flicked when I asked the question—down and to the left. A normal observer wouldn’t have seen any of it. His pain and regret was hidden far below his calm exterior.

I was familiar with the problem. We all had our regrets. The trick was not to dwell on them and move forward instead. Easier said than done, of course, but if I could do it, anyone could.

"We should start by standing still," Path said.

"You want to just stand here looking at each other?" I asked. “I had this lesson a long time ago.”

“Are you too good for it now?” Path asked.

“What if I say I am?” I responded.

“I would call you a fool. Stand still. Feel the ground beneath your feet. Forget all that you have learned and all that you have done. If you cannot exist in this moment, you will learn nothing.”

I let out a long sigh with no attempt to hide my frustration.

"Do you have something better to do? Perhaps the slip tunnel is opening and Jelly neglected to tell us," Path said.

"Is sarcasm part of the training?" I asked.

Path didn't answer. He stood facing me, and I immediately realized he was ready for anything. By anyone's standard, I was an expert in martial arts. I knew how to fight and I was mean enough to win every time. Reapers succeeded where others failed because we were ruthless and knew how to eat our own pain.

But this unassuming man with his crazy hair and weird glowing body piercings knew what he was about. I couldn't describe any single factor of the way he stood there, only that there were warning bells going off. If I attacked him, he would be ready, having already planned my defeat.

I imitated his stance, feet about shoulder-width apart, and my body relaxed.

"Do not relax too much," he said, noting my movement.

"That doesn't sound like something a meditation master would say. Shouldn't you be telling me to be one with the galaxy?" I asked.

"If that does it for you, then by all means, seek the center of the galaxy and the coldness within," he said, repeating a popular training phrase among hand-to-hand gurus. “Or just be present, know your environment and yourself, and prepare physically and mentally for conflict. That does not mean smoking cigars and shooting everyone."

"Maybe it should," I said.

He didn't respond.

Without any further instruction from my new teacher, I fell back on what I knew. I controlled my breathing and examined each muscle group in my body for tension. Most of the time, I relied on deep breathing exercises to relax, but once or twice, I adjusted my body alignment and gently flexed.

"That is much better," Path said. "We will work more on all of this, but now we should begin the next phase of our training."

"What will the next phase be?" I asked.

He smiled. "The part where I hit you on the head with the stick."

OceanofPDF.com

15

I kicked back in my captain's chair, feet up on one of the terminals.

Elise read from her tablet. She’d picked up some fiction about a young woman who saved the galaxy. The main character was five or six years older than her, and it seemed to me that Elise had adopted her as someone to look up to. There were also some romantic overtones in the story, which I stayed away from. After one or two conversations about the book, I concluded it was better just to let her read it and butt out.

She looked up. "Are we there yet?”

"Not exactly," I said. "Captain's log, star date get-me-out-of-this-godsdamn-tunnel.” I cleared my throat. “My crew is holding up well, except for the young woman who I had high hopes for. She's become moody and difficult, like a teenager. I’m considering the airlock solution."

"Ha, ha, ha. You think you're pretty funny?" Elise asked. "Why don't you add to that log that the made-up captain isn't a real captain.”

"You probably got me there," I said, then lowered my feet to the deck slowly, aches and pains from Path’s instruction restricting my movement. “Ship driving isn’t my specialty.”

Elise put away her tablet then stood and stretched. If she'd been hitting the gym a lot before, now she practically lived there. We were all trying to stay busy. The ship had never been in better repair.

We'd managed to shuttle Tom back and forth from the Jellybird and the Lady Faith several times. He put his ship engineering skills to good use. From time to time, even James Henshaw was helpful.

He’d added his advanced programming and biomechanical knowledge to what Tom had already done. I was starting to think my arm, at least, was better than when I had full Union support for my Reaper gear. What he couldn't help me with, and wouldn't talk about, was the prospect of X-37 going off-line without a proper update.

"We need to ration supplies," I muttered, trying to remember how many slip tunnels we’d been through on this odyssey. We were up to something like ten or fifteen slip tunnels now, probably going in three dimensional circles around the galaxy—or far beyond the Deadlands. The long trip frustrated me but also reassured me we were on to something. A secret Reaper facility should be hard to find, I thought.

"Oh, you are a captain!" Elise exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "Captain Obvious!"

“Okay, I had that coming,” I admitted, not sure why Elise’s jab actually made me chuckle.

"May I interrupt?" Jelly asked.

I knew it was something serious because X-37 also beeped to warn me of his presence. "Of course."

"We are approaching the end of the slip tunnel," Jelly said. "I have double-checked my data with the Lady Faith and our combined level of confidence in this conclusion is extremely high."

"That's great news, Jelly. Elise was starting to get worried,” I said in retaliation to her Captain Obvious comment.

Elise rolled her eyes and laughed. "Whatever."

"All right, let's do this the right way. Full scans the moment we are safely clear of the exit," I said. My Reaper nerve-ware didn't give me precognition. My instincts, however, were on high alert and I felt like the shit was about to hit the rocket intake valves.

The slip tunnel was still narrow, convulsing slightly. Jelly promised me none of the slip tunnels we’d traveled were in real danger of collapsing, but I still didn’t like the look of them. This Union facility was really at the ass end of the universe.

"Talk to me, Jelly," I said. "Are we making progress at least? Our fuel and supplies won’t last forever."

I’d thought about this a lot lately, despite Tom’s insistence we still had several days’ worth of food, water, and fuel. That was fine, if we were getting close to a place we could gather those resources. We would soon approach the point of no return.

"My analysis is limited by lack of input. We will triangulate known astrological features once we emerge from this tunnel and see if anything looks familiar," Jelly said, the words coming slower than normal as though her system was overburdened.

"Just give me some good news, Jelly," I said. “That’s all I’m asking for.”

“You will be the first to know when I’ve discovered our destination,” Jelly promised.

“I have been in constant communication with Jelly,” X-37 said. “The distance we have traveled is concerning but not unexpected.”

“Thanks, X. I think.” My LAI was trying to reassure me.

"Can we look for alternate destinations? A system where we can at least gather raw materials for processing," I asked, feeling my adrenaline rise. Near me, Elise started pacing the small bridge of the Jellybird.

"I make this type of assessment each time we emerge from a slip tunnel. It is standard procedure. When I know, you will know," Jelly said.

“Thanks, Jelly,” I said. “So, all we really need to fear is dying of boredom.”

Elise laughed. Neither Jelly nor X-37 found humor in my statement.

"We're leaving slip space now," Jelly announced.

“Thanks for the warning,” I drawled, not really caring. We’d been through this so many times it was becoming routine. Only the view was exciting.

Images flashed onto the screen. Leaving slip space was always a relief, but this time it felt especially so. I’d been on missions where an opponent left mines for pursuing ships. I'd never been discharged into a debris field.

Until now.

"Jelly, take evasive maneuvers!" I shouted.

"Navigating our way free of the debris field now," Jelly said. “Moving about the cabin should be avoided if possible."

Objects bounced off the hull of the ship. Items that I thought were man-made zipped past us. Speed was relative. We were still moving quick enough that any collision was dangerous.

Something big struck the Jellybird, shaking the deck beneath my feet. A piece of metal—possibly a section of an interior wall—slapped against the camera view, disappearing as rapidly as it bounced away from the impact. The Jellybird’s shields flickered as other bits and pieces of something man made were deflected.

"X, what do you think of that? Is this a shipwreck or the aftermath of a space battle?" I asked.

"That is an excellent observation, Reaper Cain," X-37 said. "If this was the result of a major space battle, there would likely be a much greater density of objects. From that brief glimpse of the scene, I believe we are looking at wreckage of some sort. Jelly advises me she does not detect a ship-to-ship conflict at this time."

The Jellybird and the Lady Faith moved cautiously through the area, eventually finding the edge of the debris cloud and standing off at a safe distance.

"Jelly, please complete a scan of the system," I said. The ship AI was already doing that, but I wanted something specific. "X, give Jelly my Reaper base code. See if she can scan for any signals like mine."

"That is an excellent idea," X-37 said. "Two seconds, please."

"There are no functioning Reaper units in the system,” X-37 said after consulting with Jelly. “There are, however, many components and rare minerals that indicate the Union's presence. I have metallurgical profiles of both Union and Sarkonian building materials. They use the same raw materials, but in different ratios. I can say with reasonable confidence this debris was originally constructed by Union engineers.  Furthermore, I detected Reaper-like hardware in some of the debris."

"What are you trying to say?" I asked, having my suspicions. “What kind of Reaper-like hardware?”

“Let me show you,” Jelly said, then zoomed in on a cloud of parts floating as they would probably float undisturbed for millennia.

It took me a minute to see what she meant. There was part of a metal arm among the wreckage.

"This was likely the Reaper facility you were seeking," X-37 said. “I may be able to analyze some of this with Jelly’s help, but it won’t tell us much. The basic conclusion is obvious. Someone wanted the Reaper program to end here.”

"Can you determine what caused this?" I imagined two possibilities. One, the Union initiated a self-destruct sequence before leaving the system. Two, they blasted it to smithereens with one of their cruisers.

I thought about X-37 and his fate if I didn't find the proper facility. I also wondered what we would've found if this place had still been intact.

"The primary scan of the system has been completed," Jelly advised. "There are two other possible facilities in this region of space."

I didn't bother hiding my interest. "Are these functional facilities? What can you tell me about them?" I asked.

"Neither facility is broadcasting a beacon. To clarify, I'm detecting dark spots in two distant locations. Basically, all I can tell you for certain is that there is an unnatural object in sectors two and seven of this system. Sector two is near a gas giant with a rather dangerous asteroid belt. If either are Union Reaper facilities, they have been abandoned," Jelly said.

“That’s good work, Jelly,” I said. “Keep me updated.” I attempted to hail the Lady Faith. “Cain for Henshaw, do you copy? I could use some help on this one."

Several moments passed. "He does not seem to be answering," Jelly said.

Elise stared at the screen accusingly. "What do you want from him?"

“He knows more about the Reaper Corps than he’s admitted, and I think he knows a lot more about these facilities, too,” I said.

“I say we send him back through a slip tunnel and be done with him,” Elise said. “He can’t be trusted.”

“I agree, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t valuable. We just have to handle him carefully,” I said. “I’ve got my eye on him. And so do you. Think of him as a dangerous weapon we need for a while longer.”

Elise crossed her arms and nodded. “I can live with that. Tom found this place. He should get the credit.”

“I doubt he is looking for credit, especially if this goes bad,” I said. "Jelly and X, run a deeper scan and tell me if this was the result of a battle or something else. Do your best. I understand you can't give me absolutes."

Elise started pacing again. "I know we're not in a hurry. It'll take days to cross the system, am I right? But I just don't like this. Something is definitely wrong. What the hell were they doing out here?"

"Good question. X, can you help us out?" I asked.

"We have very little data to work with," X-37 said.

"Fine," I said, then motioned for Elise to follow me. "Let's get some more information."

"And how are we going to do that?" She crossed her arms and refused to budge.

I was pretty sure she knew what I had planned and didn't like the idea. The last several weeks in the slip tunnels had taught me a lot about reading her body language.

"We're gonna go for a walk," I said. "Weren't you the one who told me operating an extra vehicle activity suit didn't seem that hard?"

Color drained from her face as she lowered her arms. "Well, yeah. How hard can it be? If you can do it, I can do it."

"I have Union training,” I reminded her. “Not to mention everything I've done since I joined the Reaper Corps," I said.

"It can't be that hard," she insisted.

Path arrived at the bridge, already wearing EVA gear after I broadcast the alert. "Your ship advised everyone to put on safety equipment. Has that changed?"

"No. But the reason we all need to be in our space suits has changed," I said, then led Elise to the equipment room.

"I can tell you one thing," X-37 promised. "I don't believe there was a battle. All of the wreckage seems to be from one source, which suggests sabotage or a natural disaster—like a meteor storm."

"So which is it?" I asked.

"Insufficient data," X-37 said. "There is, however, a high probability that data recorders can be recovered from the wreckage."

I'd hoped that he was going to talk me out of the spacewalk. But now we had to go.

OceanofPDF.com

16

"All I'm saying is we should get more information from Henshaw," Elise said. "We can still go, but the more we know, the safer we’ll be."

"You're not wrong," I said.

"I know I'm not wrong," Elise responded.

She was getting on my nerves again, so I did the only thing I could do. I pulled out the Starbrand cigar.

"I dare you to light that," she challenged.

Even the feel of it was amazing. Just holding one of the most expensive cigars in the galaxy gave me chills. I realized after smoking the first one that I'd stolen from Henshaw's mansion, that all previous Starbrands had been fakes. I’d never had a real one in my life.

There had been something almost spiritual about the aroma and even the way it smoldered. Without thinking about what I was doing, I put it back in the case Tom had made for me and slipped it into my jacket pocket.

Elise snickered. "I knew you couldn't do it. You might as well name that thing. You treat it like it's your child, not just a way to introduce poison into your system and annoy the hell out of everyone.”

We arrived in the equipment room and started unpacking the gear necessary. All of this could be put on rapidly, but since we were performing a recon mission and not in escape or vehicle evacuation, we took our time.

"Jelly, while we're doing this, contact the Lady Faith and see if we can get Henshaw on the line. I really need to talk to him, even if he doesn't want to show his face," I said.

"Making contact now," Jelly said.

"What do you want?" Henshaw asked, his voice even more pretentious than I remembered.

"Are you drunk?" I asked.

"I'm tired, okay. I haven't slept well since we left Roxo III,” Henshaw said. "What do you want from me?"

"I need to know what to expect when we get there," I said.

"Well, I imagine you will find part of a destroyed space station," Henshaw drawled slowly. I couldn't see him, but I thought he was reclining in a virtual reality beach environment sipping an alcoholic beverage.

"I need to know if there's something I can salvage, something to update my Reaper AI or tell me what the ghost images in my mask mean," I said.

It still felt odd that X-37 hadn't commented on our conversations about his possible demise, even though I knew the reason.

Henshaw had described what the mask could do for me but had omitted any clarification about the ghost images. He'd already made it clear that he didn’t believe I could see them. Supposedly, that took special instruments.

I still had mixed feelings about the mask. It basically amplified what X-37 already did. If it was so great, why had I emerged victorious over two consecutive mask-wearing adversaries?

All I wanted from it were answers. And to not have it dissolve my face or cause me to jump out of an airlock without an EVA suit.

* * *

"Since when do sword mystics become experts in extra vehicle activity suits?" I asked.

Path responded as calmly as ever, despite the tone I had used to bait him. "I told you I did service with the Union."

"What does that mean, a familiarization course and maybe one practice run?"

"I was like a pathfinder, sent out to scout new worlds and damaged ships. Basically, the exact mission you are embarking on now," he said.

"Sounds like he knows what he's doing," Elise said.

“He does,” I said, reconsidering my decision to bring Elise. “So it’s your lucky day. No space walk for you.”

"You're not leaving me behind."

“You’re going to drive me crazy, kid. You know you don’t want to go. It’s better this way. Path and I can handle it. You’ll stay here and keep the airlock ready for us,” I said, realizing I’d made a mistake. She was already glaring at me like I’d gone out of my way to insult her abilities.

I could see she was terrified of going into the darkness with nothing but a spacesuit to keep her alive. She had asked dozens of questions about the maneuvering systems, double and triple checking she understood how everything worked.

And then, because I’m an asshole, I pulled her from the mission. If I was her, I’d be punching something right now. From the look of her, she wasn’t far from doing the same thing. She was like a younger version of myself.

“Are you sure, Elise? You don’t have to do this. I’m not doubting you. There will be plenty of other opportunities to do it. Probably on this mission even,” I said.

“I have to do it now or I will lose my nerve,” she said with striking honesty.

“Okay. I understand that. Let's do a final buddy check and then get started. We don't know how long this is going to take or if we are on any type of time restriction," I said.

I checked Elise, then Path. He checked Elise and then me. Elise checked me and then Path. When we were done, both X-37 and Jelly also gave the thumbs-up that all of our safety equipment was set up properly and functioning well. Oxygen lines were fastened securely, back-up bottles clipped in place, comms functioning, and mag boots ready to be activated if we found a piece big enough to stand on.

“X-37 is our controller on this mission. Jelly will maintain communications with our suits,” I said.

Path and Elise each gave me a thumbs up.

“You should have an icon—a green diamond—in the heads-up display of your helmets,” I continued.

They both acknowledged they saw the icon.

“That’s what we think is the primary data recorder for the station,” X-37 said. “Jelly is tracking it. The closer you move toward it, the more accurate our estimation of its location will be.”

“We’re going out there based on the estimated location of what is possibly the device we need?” Elise asked.

“Yes,” X-37 said.

“Well, why,” Elise said, her apprehension evident.

I knew how she felt but wasn’t going to admit I was scared. That wouldn’t help her or Path.

With our suits sealed, we exited the airlock and drifted toward the debris field. The Jellybird could enter the junk cluster, but her shields would bump things out of the way and we would never find what we were looking for. What we were doing was infinitely more dangerous, but it was the only way to find valuable salvage in a cloud of such small pieces.

"Remember, it's better to use too little thrust than too much," I said. “We don’t want to go spiraling into a cloud of space dust. Or get tangled up in the tether. Don’t rely on it too much. If you go out of control into the void, the only thing the tether is going to do is drag me and Path with you.”

Elise nodded vigorously, something I was only able to see because we were still relatively near each other. Her helmet didn't move. She twisted within her oversized head gear that had a wide visor for maximum visibility. I checked my HUD and oriented my EVA suit toward our objective. Elise and Path did the same.

We steered into the field single file with a carbon fiber tether connecting us. The first ten minutes were spent navigating through obvious trash.

"What if we can’t reach the primary recording device?" Path asked.

"We take what we can get," I said. “Every part of the destroyed facility is a potential clue to what happened.”

We moved through the void in silence before Path responded, "It’s a big risk for information we’ll likely find on one of the other stations."

"We don't know if either of those facilities will have it when needed or if they’re even intact," I said.

Progress was slow. We spent almost an hour of the three hours of air supply we had just getting close enough to do something. Maneuvering through items that were big enough to enter or even large enough to house just a data recorder or other clues took time. Distances were difficult to judge, even with the laser and radar guidance systems Jelly used to assist us. The first large object we reached, I sent spinning away to the void when I attempted to grab hold of it.

A poorly timed touch had severe consequences in this environment.

"Two things," Elise said after a while. Something about her tone caught my attention. "One, I found something, and two, either my gauges are malfunctioning or I'm leaking oxygen," Elise said.

The warning alarm sounded in all of our helmets, drawing my eyes to my HUD to see whose it was even though I already knew. Some reactions were instinctive and automatic. Others were trained, like my immediate reaction to check my own levels and Path’s.

“X, turn off the alarm. We’re aware of the problem,” I said.

“Turning off oxygen monitors for Elise’s EVA suit,” X-37 said. “I recommend you inventory your back-up bottles.”

I maneuvered close and saw that she was low on her breathable air mixture. Without hesitation, I connected my backup bottle to her gear. A short time later, Path joined us, pulling himself hand-over-hand along the tether.

He gazed into her visor. "Look at me, Elise. I want you to count with me."

"We don't have time for that," she said, her admirable self-control slipping as panic crept into her voice. Before long, she sounded even younger than she was. “My HUD says your back-up bottle only has thirty minutes. I’m using it faster than that.”

"Elise. I will count. Don't look away from me. Count in your head and relax. It will slow your breathing and you will use less oxygen," Path said.

"Listen to him," I said.

"Okay," she said, already responding to the calming instructions. “I get it. Talking uses air.”

"Path, where's your extra oxygen bottle? Elise is going to need it," I said.

He finished counting and leaned away from Elise to avoid ruining what they just accomplished. Her heart rate was low now and her respiration was minimal.

"Can she hear me right now?" Path asked. "You and I need to have a private conversation."

“Don’t you dare, Cain! I’m right here,” Elise snapped.

"X, take Elise out of this discussion for now, but I want to be able to hear her," I said.

“You’re going to hear me all right!” Elise shouted.

“Stop it, Elise. Trust me,” I said. “Save your breath.”

She gave me the finger but said nothing more. The look in her eyes suggested she would have a lot to say to me when we reached safety.

"I have temporarily blocked her ability to hear your conversation," X-37 said.

"What is it, Path?" I asked, my instincts telling me I wasn't going to like the answer.

"When I saw that she was out of oxygen, I discarded my backup bottle," he said. "You should've done the same."

"Why the fuck would I do that? Why the fuck would you do that?" I said, my anger building.

Path looked at me, his eyes very serious through our visors. "In life, there are very few opportunities to teach perfect lessons. Elise will learn to control herself and master respiration or she will die."

I saw what he was doing. He was taking his mystic mentor thing way too far. "If she dies, you're going to learn a life lesson."

"Not a useful lesson," he said. "I imagine you will kill me. Or perhaps something worse."

"I'm taking Elise back,” I said, detaching the tether from Path. “Finish the salvage operation. We didn't come out here for our health. I need to know why this station blew up and if there's any way to accomplish our mission."

Without waiting for his answer, I took hold of Elise and guided her toward the Jellybird. It was a process that couldn't be rushed and it took all of my self-discipline not to dive through the debris field using myself as a shield to get Elise back to safety.

I towed her and she remained silent to conserve oxygen. I wanted to ask her how she ran out.

"X, can you tell me how she ran out of oxygen?" I asked. “Wait, can she hear me?"

"She cannot hear you, although I recommend that you change that. Too much isolation will cause panic." X-37 made some beeping sounds that I associated with data processing.

"Keep me updated on what Path is doing," I said.

X-37 reestablished my connection with Elise, and I reassured her we were going to make it. She didn't question me either because she had finally developed a blind faith in my ability and judgment, or she was smart enough to save her breath.

I turned around so that I could check on Path and saw him doing nothing. "X, what the hell is he doing?"

"He located a data storage device, not the primary recorder, but something from a system maintenance routine, and is now staring into space. His bio readings indicate he may be meditating or simply enjoying the view," X-37 said.

OceanofPDF.com

17

"What are you doing, Path?" I demanded.

"I think there's a better way to help Elise. If you weren’t panicking as much as she is, you would’ve realized that piece of wreckage you’re about to pass has at least one section intact. That will probably contain an oxygen mixture. You need to clear your mind and think," Path said.

I felt myself tense. Who was this guy to tell me I was panicking? Pressure under fire was my entire personality. It was what I was trained for and it was the reason I was still alive when other Reapers were dead.

Elise fluttered her eyelashes, still not daring to speak as her eyes lost focus. Oxygen deprivation was having an effect.

This was going to be my decision. Putting my anger aside for a moment, I examined the debris field. There were a few large items within it. We had passed several during our salvage mission.

It would be difficult to reach the one Path indicated, but it was still closer than the Jellybird.

"X, I need some help on this one," I said.

"Jelly is running scans now. So far, we have been unable to determine if it has viable atmosphere, but it does seem to have a section that is free of damage," X-37 said. “The capsule is closer than the ship by seven hundred and thirty-nine meters."

"I don't think I can make it to the Jellybird with Elise,” I said.

"I will prime the sick bay and encourage the Lady Faith to do the same in the unlikely event she can help,” Jelly said.

"Can you run a scan to find the extra bottle of oxygen that Path discarded?" I asked.

"No. I already tried," Jelly said. “The area around him is clear of anything resembling his back-up canister for a thousand meters.”

"I need some other options," I said.

Tom came on the line. “I’m prepping a shuttle now. Jelly says it can withstand collisions in the debris field but will scatter our search area and make our salvage efforts impossible afterward."

"Do it. We'll find clues at one of the other stations," I said, hoping the other locations had more answers than this one.

"Path, since you're useless, get back to the Jellybird," I said, not waiting for his reply.

I knew the choice I had to make, but I didn't like it. "I'm changing course. Tom, bring the yacht shuttle.”

"Where… are we...?" Elise asked.

"We're gonna take a rest and wait for Tom to pick us up in the shuttle," I said.

"I didn't think... I was breathing hard," Elise apologized.

The realization of what must have happened made me want to kill Path. What made it worse was I couldn't understand the reason why Path would do something like this. His statement about teaching Elise a lesson was off— extreme even for a psychedelic sword mystic.

Maybe he was trying to teach me a lesson. Or maybe he was still being paid by the Union.

"You should monitor your own breathing, Reaper Cain," X-37 said. “At this rate, you will also need to be rescued soon.”

I heeded his advice and concentrated on getting to the wreckage. The closer I came, the more hopeful I was. There was a definite section that had little or no damage. The sections attached to it were nearly destroyed, but at its center, this piece of the space station seemed to be intact. The trick was going to be getting inside without venting too much atmosphere.

“The segment of the destroyed station has no power," X-37 told me, obviously leading up to something. "It seems to be a low security maintenance area. You will be able to force the doors. Steps should be taken to avoid getting blown backward by venting atmosphere."

"Do you have any suggestions on how to do that?" I asked.

"Not a one," X-37 said.

Elise murmured, barely understandable. "We don't have to go in. Only need the oxygen. You can cut a hole... with your Reaper blade... let some air out. So we can breathe it. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Her idea was both brilliant and flawed. I could vent atmosphere, but I couldn't get it into her suit.

Seconds ticked by. I was running out of time. And so was Elise.

My solution was only half formed in my head, but I had to act. The first thing I did was plant my feet and check to make sure they were mag-locked in place. Removing the bottle I had given her, I made sure her suit was still sealed with whatever oxygen was left in it. I quickly extended my blade and made a hole that was slightly smaller than the nozzle on the bottle. A half second later I retracted the blade, gripped the bottle, and pressed it against the hole.

Atmosphere sprayed between the new hole and the edges of the bottle, nearly causing me to lose hold of it. Desperate now, I screwed it in until it was part of the wall using the strength of my augmented left hand. There were several times I almost slipped and sent the bottle shooting through the void.

Elise started to panic, weakly flailing her arms. I removed the bottle and quickly re-affixed it to her suit. There was no atmosphere in the void, so I couldn't hear the screeching metal as I twisted it tight. I zoomed in with my cybernetic eye and sent as much data as I could to X-37.

"Hey, buddy, I need you to confirm that's a tight seal," I said.

X-37's response was almost as calm as I would've expected from the psychedelic sword mystic. Being a machine had its benefits. "It's very crude but may work once or twice. After that, I would suggest finding an alternate plan."

Waiting for the air to reach Elise was physically painful, shooting up my spine as my vision pounded in time with my heart. I wanted to shout for the process to hurry up. Knowing that I was about to become part of the problem, I slowed my heart rate using techniques I learned in the Reaper Corps. Then, despite how angry I was at Path, I used his advanced lessons to lower my heart rate to almost nothing.

Elise came to life when she was able to breathe again. She had calmed herself admirably, but now she started to panic. I held her in place, watching the air vent from the small hole I had created in the wall of the wrecked station pod while I kept the bottle pressed to Elise’s rig. Every second that passed, I felt our chances dwindling.

"How far are you away, Tom?" I asked.

"Five minutes," he answered.

I looked at the hole where atmosphere was leaking while Elise used what was in the bottle. I couldn't tell how full the bottle was from my simplistic effort and I could already see that what was coming from the wreckage was dwindling quickly. This oxygen salvage method was really inefficient.

There hadn't been as much breathable atmosphere inside the closed area as I had hoped, and I was venting the rest of it at an alarming rate.

"You better make it two minutes," I said.

Elise motioned with her hands like she couldn't breathe.

I removed the backup bottle and stuck it back into the hole I'd made in the side of the space wreckage.

"Please!" she begged, skin turning a shade of blue I didn't like.

I waited until I thought the bottle was full, then repeated the procedure. This time, she didn't get much relief.

"Tom! Where the hell are you?" I demanded.

"I'm making my final approach. Very close now," he promised.

Seconds passed. I could feel the presence of the shuttle behind me but could not turn to look at it.

"I'm here and the airlock is open. The rest is up to you," Tom said, not unkindly.

I took hold of Elise, turned around with her in my arms, and put my feet on the wreckage. With no time to make precise calculations, I launched us at the opening.

The distance wasn't far. The ship grew larger as we approached, suddenly seeming like the most important place in the galaxy. We sailed inside the ship, flashing past safety lights and checkered paint that marked the unsafe area near the opening.

Moments ago, it had seemed as if we were moving with agonizing slowness. Now I felt like a bullet striking a target. Everything was a blur and the wall we were careening toward looked hard.

The airlock door snapped shut behind us. We hit the wall and plunged to the floor in a tangle of EVA covered limbs and the salvage tools attached to our kit. With no gravity to keep us in place, we rose up from the impact, each pointed in a random direction now. I twisted to face her, something that wasn’t easy to do. My first several attempts made it look like I was having a fit, but eventually I was able to generate momentum in the right places and swing my arms hard enough to have an effect against my own mass.

Elise tried to remove her helmet but couldn't. She fell back to the deck as soon as the ship's artificial gravity seized her. I went down on my face shield but scrambled to my feet with a grunt of pain.

“You have to wait for the airlock to cycle,” I warned.

She mumbled something and nodded but was till fumbling with the latches around her neck plate like she would remove the helmet if she could.

I held her hands until it was safe, then quickly pulled off the helmet and cast it aside.

Elise gasped for air, making horrible, desperate sounds.

"Is there a medical bay on this shuttle?” I asked.

The interior door to the airlock opened and Tom rushed in. "You are going to be okay, Elise.”

"X, where's Path?" I asked.

"He is staring into the star field again,” X-37 advised. “My readings show that he is in no danger of asphyxia."

"Tell him to get back to the Jellybird," I said. I didn't trust myself to confront the man.

Part of my fury was that I didn’t understand why he had done this. Human motivation wasn't that complicated. I usually knew why I had been betrayed and it was almost always greed or self-preservation on the other person's part. Path had never shown he was sympathetic to the Union, in need of money, or in fear for his own welfare.

I couldn't see the mechanism for his recruitment and eventual payment, but him working for the Union was the only thing that made sense. Trying to kill Elise had to be the reason he’d done this, no matter what he said about teaching her some kind of mystic lesson.

* * *

I tried to make Elise stay on the Lady Faith because her medical bay was state-of-the-art. No expense had been spared. There was every creature comfort a person recovering from near death could possibly need.

She wasn't having it. As soon as she was able, she made the transfer back to the Jellybird, her hands shaking as she put on the EVA suit to do the short walk through the void. Tom returned with us, leaving Henshaw to his own devices. I doubted he would go it alone in this uncharted region of space. Like or not, we were all in this together now.

Before long, we were in Tom’s workshop on the Jellybird examining bits of debris we’d managed to collect through various means. Service drones and magnetic sweeps weren’t precise, but they were safe. None of us wanted to risk another EVA mission.

Path remained locked in his quarters voluntarily. I busied myself with more important matters and tried to decide what to do with the man. I’d grown to like him, but now he’d done something inexcusable.

“I am surprised you haven’t confronted Path. He performed poorly and Elise suffered for it,” X-37 said.

I hadn’t told X my suspicions, hoping he would arrive at the same conclusion I had by his own means.

“This section of the lost station shows clear evidence of an explosion. The structure lines show that the force was directed outward,” X-37 said as I turned the piece for him to examine. Jelly was running her own analysis as well. Jelly wasn’t as limited as X-37.

“So, it was sabotage,” I said.

“An explosion from within. I cannot state with confidence it was intentional,” X-37 clarified.

“That could be good news,” I said.

“Again with a human logic,” X-37 said. “We’ve lost all chance for upgrades and repairs, not to mention any critical intelligence we might have gathered on our enemies. We can’t use the destroyed station as a refuge, and it was likely an enormous loss of human life when it blew up. How is that good news?”

“There haven’t been any Union rescue parties or attempts to gather up this mess,” I said. “Which might mean the other two stations are abandoned and ripe for the plucking.”

“Or they’ve been rigged with booby-traps that will kill us all the moment you try to rush in there,” X-37 said.

“Think positive, X,” I said, rebounding from my recent trials and travails.

“You’re right, it’s far more likely that the Union is sending a recovery team that will arrive moments after we send you into the next station. It will probably only be a couple of warships and their fighters. Maybe even spec ops teams and some regular assault troops,” X-37 said.

I chewed on an unlit cigar as I headed into the hallway. I didn’t know why my mood had suddenly improved, but I was feeling good. “You could be right. But before any of that can happen, there’s something I have to do.”

“Of course,” X-37 said. “You’re the boss.”

“Damn straight,” I said.

OceanofPDF.com

18

"Where is he?" I asked.

"I assume you are referring to Grigori ‘Path’ Paavo?" X-37 responded.

Silence followed the question. My LAI could be professional and polite, sarcastic and sharp-tongued, or vague and douche-baggish.

"You want me to actually answer that? I thought that was a rhetorical question. Of course I'm looking for Path," I said, stalking the short, narrow halls of the Jellybird. Nearly killing the young woman I had taken under my protection wasn’t enough. Now we had to play hide and seek.

"He's in the storage area you converted to a training room," X-37 said.

"Of course," I said, knowing I should've just gone there first. The man was playing games. If he thought I was up for the wise mentor routine, he was fooling himself.

The door to the converted storage room opened as I approached, but not fast enough. I grabbed the edge with my augmented arm and slammed it the rest of the way open, nearly knocking it off its precision tracks.

Path stood in the center of the room much like he had during our first lesson. The lighting was low, an environmental condition he had often manipulated during our training sessions during the slip tunnel transit. Like many of his lessons, he never explained his reasons for the gloomy ambience. It was set just at the edge of where I needed to activate my enhanced optics.

There was a difference in his current appearance, however. He held his real sword in his right hand, tip nearly touching the ground at a slightly forward angle.

I paused, looking for anything else I'd missed. “You could've just challenged me to a death match. You didn't have to bring Elise into it."

"That was an option I considered," Path said.

I extended my left arm and twisted my fist sharply, snapping out the blade. "You're not the person I thought you were. Why didn’t you tell me we were playing games? This would've been easier on Roxo III or during our time in the slip tunnel.”

He smiled almost sadly. "On Roxo, you knew nothing. Your defeat of Uriah was luck. During our travel through the tunnel, you have learned little. The Union seeks to destroy you and enslave Elise. Your Reaper training is nothing. If you truly wish to defy them, you must be better than you are."

"I know a few things about killing people who betray me," I said.

"You know less than you think," he replied.

"There are a lot of dead people who would disagree with you if they could,” I said.

He raised his sword into the high guard position, his grip slightly forward and slightly higher than his eye level with the tip pointed backward. It reminded me of my fight with Uriah, a man he’d said was many times more skilled than he was.

The blade looked sharp and dangerous in the gloom. I knew how much force he could generate with a downward slash and I hadn’t forgotten how fast he could move.

When he made the cut, I wouldn’t see it coming.

We circled each other, quiet tension filling the air. Adrenaline flowed into my system. I controlled it with breathing and tried not to get tunnel vision. This was no time to think that because I defeated Uriah, I could beat Path. Overconfidence got people killed.

“I’m transitioning to combat mode,” X-37 said, signaling me that he would be more concise and to the point for the duration of the engagement.

Path stopped, taking in a breath that he held in his core right before he attacked.

I saw the slash coming, yet I was still caught off guard by its speed. Retreating, parrying the blow, and nearly falling over my own feet, I managed to stay alive. Fighting was rarely as dignified as it looked in training, but I felt especially clumsy now.

He came on faster and faster, like nothing we’d done in training. X-37 gave me several warnings that this was a mortal contest.

I regained my footing, sidestepping and slashing a horizontal counterattack.

Path dropped beneath the arc of the blade and lunged forward without losing momentum or seeming off balance. His thrusts took me on the right side of my ribs. I instinctively slapped the spine of the blade away—avoiding the sharp edge.

The defensive reaction annoyed me because it wasn’t necessary. The damage had already been done and all I did was jam one of my fingers.

What kept me alive was footwork. I moved like I never had, not even during the fight with Uriah. Additional natural stimulants flowed to my body, a product of X-37’s central nervous system boost as my LAI regulated my hormones—epinephrine first and foremost but also cortisol to increase blood pressure and blood sugar levels. X also capped my flight or fight responses when they became too extreme. It was a desperate measure that didn’t last long but had gotten me out of tough spots before.

I didn’t remember becoming distracted, but suddenly I realized Path was flying through the air, aiming a kick at my head. I dodged and twisted but still took a glancing blow to the side of my head.

Spots that had nothing to do with my Reaper nerve-ware filled my vision.

Path attacked again and again, never stopping to lecture me or indulge in monologue.

My lungs needed more oxygen, causing my chest to heave as I pulled in more air than I could use. The transfer of oxygen was becoming less efficient with every passing second. My legs, my organic arm, and my shoulder were all on fire. Sweat ran down my face.

My back hit the wall. I pushed off hard with my right hand, lunging the tip of my Reaper blade at Path’s throat when I realized something that wasn’t helping me win.

I was mad at the strange mystic, but I didn’t hate him. Killing him would hurt. Regret over our unexplainable conflict was interfering with how I fought.

Path slid out of my vision. Not because there was a place to hide in the combatives room but because he was moving faster than I could turn. I dove and rolled, selecting the direction at random. Maybe it saved my life. There was no way to tell if a blade had been coming at the back of my neck.

When I came to my feet, Path was in the air, flying at me with his left heel thrust forward. He struck me hard in the face, smashing me backward. Lights out.

I regained consciousness almost immediately, but it was more than enough to get me killed on almost any battlefield.

Path straddled my chest, his knees pinning my arms and the tip of his sword lifting up my chin. “I apologize for this, and for Elise’s suffering in the void. Both were necessary elements of our journey together.”

What happened next stunned me. Rage caused me to tremble all over, but I held it in check with heroic effort.

The sword saint reached behind his back and grabbed an auxiliary air canister matching the versions we’d used on the EVA mission. “I wouldn’t have allowed Elise to die. What’s done is done. Someday, all of this will save your lives.”

I thrust my hips up, attempting to throw him off. Fluid as a wave, he adjusted his balance and was not thrown. “There will be no more lessons of this sort. The test was necessary. Now I may begin to train you in earnest.”

* * *

It was the middle of the night shift when Henshaw made his move. Everyone was asleep except for Reapers and AIs.

“Permission to come aboard?” Henshaw said.

I checked with X-37 to make sure we were alone. “Is everyone sleeping?”

“Except for you and Henshaw. Lady tells me her captain doesn’t sleep much. He’s moodier than you are,” X-37 said.

“That was more information than I asked for,” I said, then reopened the comm link to Henshaw. “You want to leave your ship unattended? Tom is on the Jellybird right now.”

“My ship will be fine without me. She is more than capable of following your grungy smuggler’s craft,” Henshaw said. “I don’t love using the EVA suits. Perhaps you can come across and we can have some real wine.”

“Make it whisky and cigars and it’s a deal,” I said.

“Done. I’m missing a couple of my Starbrand Premiums. Do you know anything about that?”

“It’s one of those mysteries that will never be solved,” I said. “Jelly, how close can you maneuver the ships? If I’m going to do another crossing, I’d like to minimize the risk.”

“I can get very close,” Jelly said. “Tom has been working on my shuttle. It won’t fit in the yacht’s hangar. Conversely, the yacht shuttle will easily fit in my hangar. Perhaps that is a better option than to constantly risk yourself with these extra vehicle activity suits.”

“What do you think, Henshaw?” I asked.

“Fine,” he said, waving one hand in annoyance. “The shuttles are such a bother. I’ll send it to fetch you so that we can still enjoy the luxury afforded on the Lady Faith. It hasn’t been cleaned out since we used it to rescue you and the child. I apologize for that.”

“You seem really broken up about it. Why haven’t you cleaned out the shuttle?” I asked, knowing the answer.

“You want me to clean it myself?” he asked.

“The man has no work ethic,” X-37 commented.

“I’ll be in the shuttle bay,” I told Jelly. Once I disconnected with Henshaw, I examined my gear thoroughly. Instinct told me to bring the HDK, but I decided against it. My side arm, my Reaper blade, and my personality would have to be enough if the man decided to get froggy.

The shuttle arrived. Jelly sealed the bay doors and normalized the environment before I crossed the deck to board the small vessel. The ship AI was one of the best I’d worked with. Finding her on Dreadmax had been a boon.

Inside, the yacht shuttle was a mess, just as Henshaw had said. Emergency oxygen masks and miscellaneous equipment we had discarded when Tom and Henshaw pulled us from the debris field lay where I’d last seen them.

The trip to the other ship was brief, taking more time with the sealing and unsealing of airlocks than the actual transit.

I cleaned up as best I could during that time, stowing the trash in a receptacle and locking it down. Loose items could be dangerous if a ship lost gravity or suffered a collision.

Henshaw greeted me once the shuttle bay on his yacht, very small but very modern, was closed and sealed. He handed me an open glass of whisky and a cigar. Both were luxuries. Most ships required tubes and sealed cups for consuming liquids. Apparently, the man wasn’t worried about gravity failing.

We took our time strolling to the observation deck, which was worth the trip. The furniture was new and full of comfort features, like active massage and heated seating. The holo-screen that displayed the star fields all around us was the highest resolution possible in two dimensions. It felt like we would fall out of the ship.

I sat then leaned back in my chair, inhaling from one of the Starbrand Premiums as I held a tumbler of old scotch with my other hand. “I still don’t trust you.”

“I didn’t think you would. But at least I didn’t try to get you killed in the middle of a debris field,” Henshaw said.

“Is that what we’re here to talk about? The guide you hired?” I asked.

“He’s good at what he does. I needed him for several reasons, first and foremost to get you where you needed to go. But his skills would’ve also protected me from you if you would turn on me, and he would have helped me escape from the chaos of the gladiator contest had things gone badly,” he said.

“It sounds very tidy when you explain it that way. Tell me what you want,” I said bluntly.

He took a sip, then sloshed the small amount of alcohol that remained around the bottom of the glass and stared at it. “Grigori ‘Path’ Paavo has a checkered past, nearly as dark and twisted as yours.”

“Tell me about it. Leave nothing out,” I said.

He laughed. “I don’t have every detail. Suffice to say, he was a Pathfinder that went to worlds the Union had little control over or had just discovered. On one of these un-talked-about missions, he spent several months with people who changed him—not AWOL mind you, but on extended assignment. He returned and began his new life, a total devotion to the Order of the Sword saints, which caused him problems, since the Union still expected him to train with and use firearms.”

I didn’t like this story, but I mostly believed it. “Who were these people who fundamentally changed his ideals?”

“I wish I knew. There is little data on that point, only that he came back with a new view of life and his place within the galaxy,” Henshaw said.

“How do you know all of this?” I asked.

“I told you who I worked for during my time in the Union,” Henshaw said.

I nodded, then pointed the lit cigar at him as I continued. “Vice Admiral Nebs, founder of the Reaper Corps. Was he the man in the cloak who was recruiting talent during the gladiator fight?”

Henshaw refused to answer or meet my gaze.

“Nothing during my active career indicated the man had any direct control or influence over the Reapers, despite his title and his reputation,” I said. “More importantly, he might be dead.”

“That’s just a rumor,” Henshaw corrected.

I smiled. “Tell me what you know, Jimmy. Stop wasting my time with your concerns over my sword saint and spill it.”

“I hate it when you call me that,” he said. “And he’s not your sword saint.”

“You’ll get used to it,” I promised. “Tell me about Nebs, or Nightmare, or whatever you call him.”

“You can’t tell me what to do. I don’t like your tone,” he said, but relented, probably remembering we were alone and far from any chance of being rescued. “I’ve never seen the man who calls himself Nightmare. The last time I saw the general was several years ago. I’m a scientist, Hal. I refuse to make an imprecise statement based on conjecture.”

“So, you just brought me over to your ship to trash-talk Path?” I said.

“You can’t trust him. He will probably tell you lies about me,” Henshaw said.

“You crack me up, Jimmy. Path rarely says anything and I’ve yet to hear him talk behind someone’s back, like we’re doing now,” I said, sensing his desperation. There was a reason he was turning against his own man. I just needed to learn what it was and why he brought Path into my world in the first place.

“Please, he’s not a real saint. They call themselves sword saints because they think murdering people with blades is more just than murdering people with guns,” he said. “Just don’t say I didn’t warn you. I also have another software packet for your nerve-ware. You can have X-37 examine it and run it in quarantine to be sure it’s safe.”

I took the chip he handed me and slid it into my interior jacket pocket, along with two more of his Starbrand Premiums and a new lighter. He didn’t flinch at my sleight of hand. He could out talk me, but I had my own skills that helped level the playing field.

“Thanks,” I said. “And for the record, I don’t trust Path any more than I trust you. Explain to me why you switched sides. It would have been safer for you to give me up to your boss, whoever that really is.”

“I don’t have a boss, not anymore, not out here,” he said. “You’re a bad person, Hal, but I see something in the way you take care of the girl and that old mechanic. He says a lot of good things about you. Most importantly, I believe you will let me choose my own destiny. It might seem a small thing to someone like you, but for the rest of us, that’s something special.”

I wanted to smack him and drill holes in his statement, find where he was lying, and punish him for his error. The thing was, he seemed more earnest right now than I had believed possible.

“We don’t have to be enemies now that I’m free of Nightmare and you have the full functionality of your Reaper gear. It’s old and out of date, but still deadly,” he said.

“Agreed. I’m heading back to my ship. How about you spot me a couple of those cigars as compensation for my time,” I said.

“I can do that,” he promised, then opened his humidor. A strange expression crossed his face—like he thought he had more Starbrand Premiums than it appeared. A short time later, he handed me two excellent cigars. “There. I hope that makes us friends.”

“It’s a start,” I said.

* * *

Elise recovered quickly from her ordeal in the debris field. I slept in the morning after visiting Henshaw. It’d been a while since I drank that many strong whiskies in a row.

“X,” I said.

“You called?” he answered.

“Count my drinks next time I have a meeting with Henshaw,” I said.

“You’re the boss,” X-37 said. “While we’re on the topic, I examined the code Henshaw sent with you through every possible filter. It seems legit and will improve your nerve-ware synchronization immensely. At this point, I’d say it would be unrealistic to seek further enhancements to your gear.”

“I’m hoping he can also help a limited artificial intelligence I know,” I said.

“Your statement is cryptic. Could you be referring to me, perhaps about a topic my hard wiring prevents me from detecting?” X-37 asked.

“You’re getting warmer,” I said, setting out to find Elise and the rest of the crew.

“My temperature isn’t a useful metric to evaluate my performance,” X-37 said.

“What am I going to do with you, X? How long have we been exchanging witty banter? You still have no idea of how to properly use a metaphor or simile or whatever,” I said.

“Your own confidence in the speech patterns is inspiring,” X-37 said.

I caught up to Elise and Path in the training room, which was right where I thought they would be. The sound of practice swords smacking together filled the small space.

Path looked as serene as ever. He was not only calm in a fight but detached. There might come a time when this came back to bite him, but I’d been wrong before. Just because I liked to get mad when the chips were down didn’t mean that would work for everyone.

“You tried to kill me,” Elise said when they took a break. She radiated danger.

“I tried, and am still trying, to save you from yourself,” Path said.

Elise groaned angrily. “You’re as bad as Cain! I can take care of myself!”

“Break it up, kids,” I said. “We’re heading for the second facility… where we won’t try to kill each other during the salvage operation.”

“Why not just leave this system? If one base was destroyed and the others aren’t responding, what makes you think it won’t be more of the same? Nothing but dust and space junk,” Elise said.

I wanted to argue, but a wound through her forearm caught my attention. It was pink like a new scar but the entry and exit points alarmed me.

“What the hell are you doing, Elise? You can’t train with that kind of injury. Where’d you get that? It didn’t happen during the salvage operation,” I said.

“Path let me train with live swords yesterday, then stabbed me through the forearm,” Elise admitted.

I took her wrist and turned her arm so I could see the entry and exit points of the wound. Even with her exposure to Lex-tech, I didn’t like the look of it. “This is bad, Elise. You should have said something.”

“I heal quickly,” she said, withdrawing when I expected her to verbally attack.

“It was a clean wound,” Path offered naturally.

“I don’t care how clean or straight it was. You need to go to the sick bay and have Jelly and X look at it,” I said.

“They already did,” she said.

“Neither of them told me. Interesting. I’m surrounded by idiots and traitors,” I muttered.

She pulled back her arm. “I’m fine. You’ll be the first person I tell if something really hurts.”

“Bullshit,” I said. “X, why the hell did you hold this back?”

“Miss Hastings asked me for confidentiality, something I recommend you honor, as it will increase the likelihood of her seeking medical attention in the future,” X-37 said. “Her welfare isn’t critical to yours at this moment, so I don’t see the problem.”

“Can we move on?” Elise demanded. “If we’re going to wander around this system and get ourselves killed, we might as well get started.”

“No one’s getting killed,” I said.

Elise stormed out of the room.

“You’re no help, Path,” I said.

“I will not argue with you about that or any other conclusion you wish to make,” he said, his mystic calm never wavering.

I had to admit, the man remained in character no matter what happened.

Shaking my head, I followed Elise and made a mental note to watch for injuries she would attempt to hide from me.

OceanofPDF.com

19

“The second facility is located closer to a planet,” Jelly explained. “It will be another seven hours before I am near enough to do a full scan and determine if there is a station there or just another debris field.”

I stared at the screen, marveling at how spectacular starfields were this far from the sun. The distant stars were brighter and I felt I could see the point we were heading to, even though it was impossible. The mind played tricks on mortals. “Have you detected any transmissions, maybe a distress call or something?”

“There is nothing to indicate the facility’s presence. If I wasn’t actively searching for something human made, I wouldn’t have noticed it,” Jelly said. “X-37 has been co-piloting for most of the voyage, checking over data to give me a second opinion. I have to say, your limited AI makes the most out of every bit of its processing potential.”

“Good to know. I thought he spent most of his spare time working on his next snappy comeback,” I said. “Which are all lame, by the way.”

“Shall we debate this issue?” X-37 asked.

“For seven hours? We better not. I’d like to get some food and some sleep, maybe a quick workout,” I said. “Let me know the moment you have something useful.”

I wandered the ship with no real aim in mind. There were several benefits to this. One, it was good to know the environment, whether it was on a ship or a planet or something else. Two, it helped me relax. I didn’t know if it was part of my personality or my training, but I hated sitting still. Only the rare occasions when I had both good companionship and the proper consumables could I truly relax.

The last place I’d seen Path was in the training room, of course. I checked in on him, and saw him sitting cross-legged meditating over his sword. Or taking a power nap. Or whatever.

I wasn’t in the mood to get thrashed again. There was still some tension from his actions in the debris field and we’d discussed this more than once. But all in all, he still wanted to teach me and I still wanted to learn. My encounter with Uriah had been a major wake-up call. Until then, I’d doubted any person could take me in single combat.

Which was stupid. My father taught me there was always somebody bigger and stronger and meaner. It was just a matter of time before that person showed up.

I backed out of the room and let the door close as quietly as possible.

A short time later, I located Elise on the observation deck. She looked like she had just showered and dressed for what we considered a formal dinner here on the Jellybird. Her jumpsuit looked new, and she’d actually dried and braided her hair. I almost backed out of this room as well, because she looked thoughtful and content.

“I like the observation deck,” I said, alerting her I had stepped into the room. There wasn’t a door to this area, only archways to the hallways beyond.

She turned to face me, then smiled, which surprised me. Apparently, I’d caught her in a relatively good mood. She waved a hand to one of the nearby chairs, inviting me to have a seat. “I’ve been looking back toward the debris field. Jelly has magnified and digitally enhanced the image, but it’s still crazy-far away. I’m always amazed how big a system is. Crossing one can take longer than traveling a slip tunnel, which I never expected when I was little.”

“How long have you been traveling slip tunnels?” I asked, sitting down. I started to reach for the cigar case but left it in my pocket.

“My father traveled a lot when I was young and brought me whenever he could. My mother traveled with us most of the time but not always. It’s hard to remember that far back,” she said.

I contemplated the starfield.

“Have you heard anything about my father?” she asked. “Not that I want to have anything to do with him.”

“Both Jelly and X-37 have standing orders to search any computer systems or data storage centers we come in contact with for mention of him,” I said. “So far, there hasn’t been any news.”

She nodded and studied the view. “I hate EVA suits.”

This made me laugh. “I’ve never met anyone who likes them.”

“There’s probably one freak out there that thinks it’s fun,” she said. “Kind of like there’s always someone who thinks sitting and meditating over a sword is a good time.”

“Path has his reasons. I don’t think he’s had an easy life. If discipline and quietude help him, I’m not the person to judge,” I said.

“That’s surprisingly insightful from someone like you,” she said.

“You think I’m judgmental?”

“You’re the most opinionated and foul-mouthed person I’ve ever met,” she said.

“But that’s not the same thing as being judgmental. As far as I’m concerned, people can live however they like so long as they don’t threaten anyone I care about. Then it’s irrelevant, because they don’t live much longer after that,” I said.

“How cheery,” she said.

“Path brought up a good point. Whether or not his actions were a justified lesson, I can’t really say. But it’s us against the Union. Neither of us should ever forget what that means, but we do. Because that’s how we make it through each day. But when the Union comes at us hard, we’re going to need everything we’ve got to survive. That includes technology, personal skills, and loyalty,” I said.

She focused on the stars. “You’re right. We should be training right now. Maybe you should be practicing with the mask. Tom said he can improve the weapons we have and build new ones. I should have a gun.”

I wanted to argue but I knew she was right. “You should have two guns, minimum. I’ll start teaching you how to shoot after the mission is done.”

“Really?”

“Sure, kid,” I said. “There will be a lot of things I need to teach you. It will take a lot of hard, consistent, and often boring work on your part. You have to train every day, give it your best effort. Treat every new skill learned like your life depends on it.”

“I can do that,” she promised.

OceanofPDF.com

20

We arrived a few hundred thousand kilometers from the second facility, slowing down as we approached the gas giant that was 1.5 billion kilometers from the system’s star.

The station orbited dangerously close to one of the gas giant’s icy rings. Long-range scans had shown no sign of other bases. Either they were cloaked or the second base was just as ruined as the first, but we were too far away to see the damage.

"And what about ships?" I asked. "What is the threat assessment?"

"I detect no enemy vessels," Jelly provided. "I'm running a secondary scan to be certain."

Time passed slowly. I was alone on the bridge, having sent Tom and Elise to their quarters hours ago to get some rest. Path slept whenever he wanted to, so I wasn't worried about him. Henshaw had been in one of his moods, rarely responding to hails and never initiating communication for his own reasons.

"Is Henshaw alive or even on that ship?" I asked.

Jelly answered, "The Lady Faith assures me he is alive and well."

"I need to close my eyes for a bit," I said. "Just alert me when we confirm there is a facility at these coordinates."

I leaned back in the captain's chair, sinking into the formfitting cushions.

I rested as best as possible, letting each muscle group relax until I was on the verge of going unconscious.

Then my thoughts and concerns blossomed in a series of what-if scenarios.

Sitting up, I opened the work screen and begin to plan the next mission. I'd gone through my gear several times. When I wasn't teaching Elise the fundamentals of marksmanship or getting smashed over the head with one of Path’s practice swords, I improved my physical conditioning. I also worked on skills I hadn’t used or practiced for a long time, like explosive breaching and code hacking.

Maybe I also read one of Elise’s books.

I couldn't bring Path on the next mission. My anger had abated and there had been no new problems, but all we had done was practice hitting each other. Putting my faith in him during a life-and-death mission would be reckless.

X-37 rang a quiet, pleasant chime in my hearing. "We are approaching what seems to be a space station, Reaper Cain."

"Any signs of activity?" I asked, sitting up immediately. The main screen and several secondary systems were alive with activity. Numerous lights and images scrolled left to right below the main holo displays. I found these display options less distracting, but there were still a lot of them. I really needed a larger crew to handle the ship, small as it was.

"None, Captain," Jelly said. "There is a residual power reading, but this facility has been off-line for some time."

I called Elise and Tom, then advised them to get ready for the mission.

"The way we discussed?" Elise asked.

"Yes, just like that. We'll meet in the shuttle bay for a personal inspection and to review the briefing," I said.

They were both waiting in the bay when I arrived, which threw me off my stride. I'd expected them to fumble around for ten or fifteen minutes at least.

"Tom and I have already completed a check of each other's stuff,” Elise said, her excitement evident. She was practically jumping up and down.

"What's going on, kid?” I asked.

"We're going on a real mission," she said like I was stupid.

"The salvage operation in the debris field was a real mission," I said.

"But this is a real mission. I'm armed and I helped plan it," she said.

"You better not use that gun unless there's a really good reason," I said. "Just because you can hit a target doesn't mean you know how to use that thing."

Path entered the bay wearing his extra vehicle activity gear, helmet under one arm. His braided hair had been tied back for safety reasons. He had also removed most of his piercings.

"You're not coming with us," I said.

"There is nothing for me to do here. I have Union training and fighting skills that will be useful if you encounter something unpleasant," he said. His tone was as calm and unassuming as always.

Elise and Tom watched and waited.

"He's not wrong," X-37 pointed out.

I turned the palm of my left hand up and then back down as inconspicuous as possible, a signal I'd worked out with X-37 for him to drop it.

Path noticed the movement and raised an eyebrow. "I'm surprised you don't use more nonverbal communication with your limited AI," he said.

"You’re not going on this mission," I said.

For a moment, I thought I would see the man's calm exterior break. He held his breath for a second, then released it. His loss of temper was so transitory, I wasn't sure if I had imagined it or if he'd actually started to lose his cool.

"Why do you want to go on this mission so badly?" I asked him.

"I don't like to be left behind," he said.

I understood that. I'd been on enough dark ops missions and in enough regular battles to know that a soldier who was fearless in a fight could still dread being lost or separated from his or her unit.

I wavered but caught myself before I reversed my decision.

Path relented, then assisted by double-checking everyone's gear. I monitored him closely, in case he decided to steal any more air bottles. Before long, we were on the shuttle and heading for the station.

* * *

The facility was buried in a shadow on the dark side of the gas giant. It maintained an orbit among one of the rings of ice particles. Several times, I lost sight of it and had to ask X-37 to work with the shuttle's camera systems to show me where it was. Neither the laser nor radar scanners had an easy time penetrating the active camouflage of the place. Details of what lay on the surface of the place were hard to come by. Determining whether or not it had power was easy by comparison.

"What disturbs me is that this camouflage maintains itself despite the lack of power," Tom said, checking screens next to his piloting station.

"Power sources can be concealed," X-37 advised.

Tom shook his head. He wasn't having anything of that argument. "To a degree. If this is active camouflage, it will require power to read our scans and fabricate an image of nothing."

"We’ll treat this facility like it is functional and staffed with security teams," I said.

The shuttle’s lights illuminated part of the hangar. Everything around it was sharp angles and gray steel.

"Definitely a Union facility. They've got no sense of style," I said.

"I think we could find a place big enough for the Jellybird to land," Tom said, studying the schematics as more and more of the station came into view.

"Too risky. We land in the wrong place with the Jellybird and we lose everything. This way, we have options," I said. “Better to just lose a shuttle instead of the entire ship.”

Tom piloted the shuttle with steady, by-the-book skill. His cautious piloting style irritated me. I was coming to realize, however, that every member of my crew had to play their part if we were going to stand up against the Union. We checked each other’s gear with special emphasis on oxygen storage and suit integrity. I manually inspected cameras we’d placed on each helmet. If needed, I could make X-37 tell me what my companions were seeing. They also had the option to share view screens, but I ordered X-37 to turn that function off for now. It was often disorienting without training and practice.

"I'm on final approach. I'm not seeing any problems." Tom went through his checklist again and again, continuing to make small adjustments when a lesser pilot would have just accepted a slightly rougher touchdown.

"You're good in noncombat conditions," I said.

"I've had plenty of time in the simulator," Tom said. "Touching down in three, two, one, we’re on the deck."

The shuttle settled into its magnetic landing struts. I gathered my team at the exit and held up one hand for them to listen. "I'll go first and secure the landing zone. Once it's clear, we’ll move to the interior and determine if there is reliable atmosphere and gravity."

Tom and Elise nodded. It wasn't quite the response I was accustomed to from my years in the military, but it worked.

With my helmet sealed and my magnetic boots activated, I worked my way free of the shuttle and looked around the hangar. The place didn’t seem designed for personnel transfer, but for the unloading of equipment.

"I'm not seeing anything that surprises me," X-37 said. "There does not seem to be power, aside from a single atmospheric generator."

“I’m surprised that’s still active,” I said.

“Such systems are the last to be taken offline and often use solar energy to maintain themselves,” replied X.

I led my team inside, carefully searching for traps or ambushes. The place looked abandoned, but that didn't mean it was.

"Keep your helmets on. There could be toxins in the air we’re not detecting, and we don't know if this is stable or not," I said.

“What if this takes longer than three hours?" Elise asked.

"We'll be back in the shuttle before then," I said. "No arguments. Just stay safe and do what I tell you."

"We're in this together," Elise said. “It’s not like you're rescuing me from Dreadmax. We'll do what you say but don't treat us like that."

I headed down the hallway without acknowledging her complaint. Bringing them along was probably a mistake. My theory was proven correct after I'd spent more time checking their positions than searching my own areas.

"Focus, Reaper Cain," X-37 said.

"What do you think I'm doing?" I asked.

"I thought you were acting like somebody fresh out of training with no mission or combat experience," X-37 said. “What you’re doing is not leading. You’re micromanaging them.”

"Smartass," I said.

We found the main laboratory and had no trouble gaining access because the doors had been blown off.

"Don't touch anything," I said. There were obvious signs of a fight—destroyed equipment and bullet holes in the walls. Something about the scene made it feel even more ghostlike and abandoned, like this was the wrong place to be.

X-37 analyzed each section of the room as I moved through it, and we compared conclusions. Elise and Tom crept through other areas looking at desks, scanning equipment, and operating tables. X-37 gave me updates so I didn’t have to rely on watching through their helmet cameras.

There were three blast doors in case one area of the station suffered a fire or decompression. Two were closed. The one we used to enter had been blown from the outside or possibly cut by some sort of powerful torch and then exploded with additional breaching charges. The other two entrances were untouched.

"I think I found something," Elise said, backing away from a table I couldn't quite see from where I was standing.

"I'm coming," I said. "What are you seeing?"

She pointed. "That."

Stepping around her, I saw the improvised device. It was about a pound of industrial explosives with wires running to a crude analog timer that displayed three seconds.

"Is that a bomb?" Elise asked.

"It is," I said. "And we're not going to touch it. Let's back out and we will review what X-37 recorded."

OceanofPDF.com

21

Elise, a breaching shotgun in each hand, stood guard while Tom and I conferred with X-37. The lights from her helmet cast harsh shadows each time she swept her vision across the corridor. I slipped out a handheld flashlight then attached it by magnet in a corner facing upward. The beam reflected off of the metallic surface, bathing the area in enough light to see by.

"Lay it all out for me, X," I said. "Is that a viable device?"

X-37 took longer than normal to confer with Jelly due to the distance involved. Before we had the ship, it was just me and my limited artificial intelligence embedded in my nerve-ware. Now that we had access to the much more powerful ship AI, they worked together more often than not.

"There is no evidence that the explosive charges are inert or disabled at this time," X-37 said. "However, they failed to trigger when we entered. This suggests the ignition device was set to the frozen timer and nothing else. Since the timer is analog, they must have anticipated a loss of power. Even so, I don’t believe the device is dangerous, so long as we avoid contact with it," X-37 said.

“What caused the timer to stop? It looks like it's been there a while," I said. “Months or even years.”

Improvised devices weren’t my specialty, though I was familiar with breaching charges. They were overlapping skillsets and similar tools, but when I built a device, I wasn’t planning on disarming it.

“Processing available data,” X-37 said.

I knew what he meant. “You could just admit you don’t have a clue.”

When we had been wrestling with this problem for several minutes, I started to worry about making mistakes due to mental and physical fatigue. It was slow, tedious work that we couldn’t afford to rush. I was distracted by the familiarity of the ghost station. The images I’d seen after using the Reaper mask had been indistinct, focusing on a female form moving through an unknown place. I never actually saw the hallway or the figure clearly during these nerve-ware induced visions.

After unfolding a multi-tool from my utility belt, I carefully touched wires, nudging them just enough to see if there were other ignition mechanisms beneath them—maybe a pressure plate or secondary connection point just waiting for my wire cutters to complete the connection as they sliced through multiple contact points.

There had been Reapers who preferred to commit assassination or other acts of terror with improvised explosive devices. It wasn’t my thing. I’d always thought it was a cowardly and imprecise method of attack, and that it too often endangered innocent bystanders.

The eerie feeling of déjà vu wouldn’t leave. To my already paranoid way of thinking, everything was a trap. I thought about Nebs and his hostility toward the program he'd founded. Had he been here at the end? Was he the one who ordered this place to be abandoned and scuttled? Did he order his best demo team to leave this bomb custom built for a Reaper like me? Had he kept my mother and sister hostage in this place hoping to lure me into a kill box?

Would he arrive with a strike team when I least expected it?

I pulled back from the device, then folded the small multi-tool and replaced it on my utility belt. Silence held the ghost station as I pondered my options.

"What do you want to do about this?" Tom asked, breaking into my thoughts.

"If I had my way, we’d just back out and leave. But we haven't found any answers," I said. “X, can you get into these workstations to retrieve data and images?”

"Absolutely," X-37 said. "If you could just turn them on, please."

“You’re such a sarcastic dick, X,” I said, realizing I was going to have to cross through the room and apply power to one of the workstations. We needed information from this laboratory. The terminals were too large to remove and I didn't want to tamper with the bomb in case it was resting on a pressure switch.

“Tom, hand me your tablet and cables,” I said.

He refused. “Sorry, Hal, this is something I need to do. It’s a technical process and will take some creative solutions.”

“Sure, but I’m not sending you in there to get blown up,” I instructed.

“Tom has the best chance of deactivating the explosive device,” X-37 said. "I may need to ask him mechanical engineering questions during the process, and you'll just have to call him forward anyway. Better for one person to go and make the connection."

“You have to let us be part of the team,” Elise said, still watching her zone as she spoke. “Why give us comms and helmet cams if you never allow us to do anything?”

“You’re not part of the team, you’re part of a field trip,” I blurted, instantly regretting the words.

She flinched, looking over her shoulder at me, but only for a second. What came next was possibly the most caustic stream of insults she’d ever delivered.

The problem was she was right, and I was being stupid. I liked to work solo except when I needed a team, and then I wanted a professional team, not people I cared about who had more good intentions than actual qualifications.

“All right,” I relented. “Tom can deactivate the device. Elise and I will provide cover and medical evacuation if needed. Don’t overextend yourself, Tom.”

“I won’t. I think it will be a simple fix,” Tom said confidently, sounding like he already had an idea of what he was going to do to render the device safe. “There are several ways to look for pressure switches and other spring mechanisms. Have I ever shown you my miscellaneous skills database?”

“No. Maybe we can talk about it at whisky and cigar time,” I said pointedly.

“Right. I’m stalling. Sorry,” Tom said.

I patted him on the shoulder. “Are we good, Elise?”

My tone probably could have been better, but I thought I was making progress. Managing a teenager was a lot harder than it looked.

“I’m not sure that’s exactly what I’d call it, but let’s forget about it,” she said, still sounding annoyed. “Someday I will be able to put you in verbal isolation. We’ll see how you like it.”

So we weren’t good, but we weren’t losing our minds either. “I hope we can all learn from this.”

“Such a jerk,” Elise snapped, her voice sounding incredulous.

Something about my nearly random statement made me want to laugh, and apparently it tickled Elise’s funny bone as well. She laughed but then controlled it.

“You’re such a jerk,” she said, but the venom was gone.

Tom moved into the room, taking his time as he examined the device from several different angles, then began a clever manipulation of flashlight beams. He changed his position many times and didn't seem to be in a rush, which, considering the nature of his task, was probably for the best.

I was able to watch via his helmet cam on my HUD. X-37 and Jelly were also paying attention, looking for a trigger that would kill us all.

The bomb was simple, resting on one corner of a workstation and held in place by a clamp. I wasn’t sure what Tom was thinking, but I thought un-twisting the clamp could be a trigger, as could moving it.

My experience also suggested that a good hard shake or a sudden change in the atmospheric pressure would set off the explosives. None of this would be an issue if we just left.

And then it hit me. The realization of what we were looking for and where it was made me want to throw up. “Tom, there’s a complication.”

“There would be,” he said, nervousness filling his voice. His hands shook slightly, though he closed them into fist to conceal the reaction.

“That bomb is attached to the workstation. Take a closer look,” I instructed.

“Sure. Why not? What is the worst thing that could happen?” he murmured as he edged his way beside it. On closer inspection, we both saw the slight difference between this workstation and the others.

“The top of this desk is actually a lockbox. Same material and size,” Tom said.

“Whatever we’re looking for is in that box,” I replied.

“Well, I see several problems with that,” Tom said.

“As do we,” X-37 announced, speaking for himself and Jelly. “There is the bomb that must be defused, the locks that must be opened, and the computer inside that must be powered and activated to learn its purpose. Most likely, it is a message box, a very powerful version with more data than even the Jellybird can handle.”

“I need more than that, X. Why would it have that much data,” I said, examining what looked like a security suitcase made from nutronium. One of my earlier missions had been to recover a similar case full of top-secret codes and technology I was never allowed to see despite risking my life to obtain it.

“Jelly and I believe there is more than just information in the message box—specifically, there may be a computer with software downloads,” X-37 said.

“What kind of downloads?”

“We have several theories but feel now is not the ideal time or place to discuss them,” X-37 said. “The situation is tenuous.”

“Obviously,” I said. “Maybe we could get some machine-gun-toting clowns and Union strike force to round things out,” I said.

“I don’t see how that would be helpful,” X-37 said seriously.

“I was joking. Let’s just ditch the bomb and take the box with us,” I said. “Can you do that, Tom?”

He studied something I couldn’t quite see on the station directly above our target. “Actually, that first step is going to be easier than I had expected. Someone left directions.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a trick,” I said sarcastically.

“Maybe,” he said, his tone contemplative. “This may be coincidence, but I think this is a message for you. Someone engraved several numbers I have seen in the footnotes of Reaper repair technical manuals.”

“I don’t see any numbers,” I said, searching for what he was looking at.

“Trade places with me. Examine this first lock but let your eyes travel past it, like it is the sights to one of your guns. You’ll see what I’m referring to,” Tom said.

A chill ran up my spine. Tom’s ability to search beyond the obvious clues seemed simple in hindsight, but I knew I would have only been looking at the device and not its surroundings. In every other aspect of my life I maintained an intentionally paranoid level of situational awareness. With this deadly puzzle, I’d gotten tunnel vision.

I peered over the locking mechanism and saw what I at first thought were standard serial numbers carved into the neighboring workstation. But the numerals were definitely from a Reaper manual. Furthermore, they didn’t really belong on the workstation—having been added to the desk’s normal identification numbers.

“Where did you find Reaper repair manuals?” I asked, distracted, still studying the clue.

“Not actual manuals, reverse engineered guesses several Gal-net conspiracy groups drummed up over the years. They have been surprisingly useful when working on your arm,” he said. “But that’s not what I’m concerned about.”

“Cut to the chase, Tom. Where are these instructions you’re hinting at?” I asked and was quickly echoed by X-37 and Jelly.

“If you look across the other lock on the box, there’s a strange, very personal warning engraved in the same way as the Reaper technical number. Feels like a family code,” Tom said, even more nervous than ever. “It’s hard to say why, but it just doesn’t fit and makes me think of riddles and jokes siblings share that are nonsensical to anyone outside their shared experience.”

“What is the message?” I was losing patience even as a feeling of dread grew through the scene, but Tom kept dancing around the answer. Looking over the box, I read it at the same time Tom said the words aloud.

“It says ‘you better not make me whistle twice when it’s time for dinner.’ Does that mean anything to you, Hal?” Tom asked.

“It does,” I said, instantly transported to my childhood. “Get the box and let’s go.”

I backed away and stood guard as Tom, X-37, and Jelly slowly went through the deactivation sequence. There weren’t obvious instructions as Tom had at first promised, but when the three of them checked each step, the riddles found near the box prevented them from making mistakes that would have gotten us blown up.

Someone had put a lot of work into this simple bomb to make sure not just anyone could take it.

“Who was the first girl you kissed?” Tom asked me, leaning over the increasingly complex trigger mechanism, adjusting the magnification on his visor with one hand and holding tweezers against a switch with the other.

“Really? That’s the password?” I complained.

“It’s a password,” Tom said. “And can you be quick about it? Typing in this micro-keyboard that you can’t even see without magnification is a tad on the difficult side.”

“Sandy Brecmeyer,” I said.

“Sandy is her real name or her nickname?” Tom asked, not sounding like he found the slightest trace of humor in the discussion. Holding himself bent over his work had to be hurting his back.

“Her given name was Sandra,” I said.

Tom breathed a sigh of relief as he did something I couldn’t see. “Finally.”

“You got it disarmed?” I asked, worried it would blow up in Tom’s face right when we all thought we had won.

“Yeah, safe as top-secret data case can be,” he said, implying that he didn’t think that was very safe at all.

“Then let’s go,” I ordered.

“There are several safety precautions I should take before we move it,” Tom said.

“Then take them. X, keep an eye on him. Let’s speed this up,” I said.

“What’s wrong?” Elise asked.

“I just want to get off this ghost station,” I said, evading the question.

Tom worked through each step of disconnecting the message box from the terminal, his patience serving him well when my rough-handed impatience would have gotten us all killed with a secondary explosive device concealed by the complexity of the first charge.

I heard a click then saw Tom carry the bomb to the next room and leave it there. He came back and hesitated before unclamping the briefcase-like box from the station. “There’s another message--a warning--that was engraved under the bomb. It says we need to go to a desert planet in the circumstellar habitable zone of this system.”

“That’s not really a warning,” Elise pointed out. “Are you sure the same person who wrote that also used the family code and Cain’s personal life questions?”

“It says removing the device has broadcast our position to the Union, and before you ask, moving the bomb turned something on,” Tom said. He looked more worried than I’d ever seen him. “We’re in serious trouble, I think.”

“At least we didn’t explode.” It was my best inspirational speech yet. “Let’s get back to the Jelly and see which ship is faster, the Jellybird or the Lady.”

OceanofPDF.com

22

We were turning away from the gas giant and its ice rings when the Jellybird’s holo display showed a slip tunnel barfing out a Union ship on the other side of the system.

“Jelly, what the hell is that?” I asked.

"That is a Union vessel, unknown class, possible a small carrier ship," Jelly informed me. “The basic shape and power signature are the same, but I have never seen one like this.”

The image was grainy as though something was interfering with the holo projection. I thought the shape resembled a carrier, but it was too small, according to the metrics Jelly was putting on the screen. There were no other ships around it like there would be if this were an entire battle group.

Tom stared in wonderment. "I've never seen anything like that, but the concept is brilliant."

"Tell me what I'm missing," I said.

"You can't just look at the images. Try correlating what you see with the statistical information Jelly has displayed," Tom explained, guiding me in his way to the answer.

I reviewed the numbers and made some inferences. "That carrier has smaller ships lamprey-ed all over its surface. That must reduce its necessary size significantly," I said.

Something wasn't right. I manipulated the images on my holo-screen, turning them this way and that. "How big are the fighters this new design is carrying on its back?" I asked.

This time, X-37 answered. "Actually, Reaper Cain, the smaller ships are not just on the carrier’s back. The entire surface of the mothership has mooring clamps. The fighters are one-third the size of a normal direct combat craft, which gives them almost no range and very little firepower.”

"That is my analysis as well," Jelly stated. "She'll have no range and very little ability to affect more than a small cross-section of this system."

"The strength of a force is relative. This isn't a battle carrier, it's a spec ops carrier. They're here to do commando missions. And compared to what we deployed with in my day, they are going to be like an eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room."

"Am I the only one that thinks we should be freaking out right now? You know, making a run for it," Elise ventured. "There has to be another slip tunnel in the system. I haven't stayed ahead of the Union for this long by fighting against impossible odds."

I shook my head. "Let's get an estimate on how fast it is before we start running. It won't do us any good to bolt if we’re just going to get run down. Whatever this thing is, it's new and that probably means it has the best of everything. All the latest and greatest tech."

"What are your orders, Captain?" Jelly asked.

"Head for the third facility. It's closer to an intercept course with the newcomers than I would like, but I don't see a better option. Elise did bring up a good point,” I admitted. “Are there other slip tunnel openings in the system?" I asked.

Jelly answered promptly. "There are two, but they are several weeks’ travel at our best speed. If the Union warship is even slightly faster than us, this could present a problem."

"Maintain an up-to-date course to each of the available slip tunnels, including the one the Union just came through. We might have to change course at a moment’s notice," I said, convinced we were finally on the right track. If the Union was showing up to stop us from going to the third station, there was a pretty good chance that was where we needed to be.

Elise looked unhappy but didn't argue. Tom didn't seem to have an opinion and was busily working through data and making notes. Path was on the observation deck meditating, and Henshaw was doing whatever he did by himself in his yacht.

My mind drifted. I had picked up two unreliable characters. They had a lot to offer, but I didn't trust them any more than I trusted anyone. For now, they’d better hope they didn't endanger Elise or Tom.

"I recommend you get some rest. There will be several hours of downtime as we begin our travel," X-37 said.

"Good call," I said, remembering the old soldier’s mantra about sleeping whenever possible. “But I’m pretty wound up. Might be awhile before I can shut down.”

"I can take the bridge," Tom offered, responding to what X-37 had said on the bridge comms.

"Then she's all yours," I said to Tom. The sight of the Union ship had my blood up. I was full of energy and wanted to exercise. I looked at Elise. "Are you up for a workout?"

"Why don't you just let your sword saint bonk you on the head some more?" she joked, then doubled down on her sarcasm. "Or have you forgiven him?"

"You don't know that much about Reapers," I said. "I don't hold needless vendettas because they take too much energy. Or I try not to.”

“Could have fooled me,” she shot back.

I crossed my arms, staring down at her ready for a discussion. “I’m a professional.”

“Clearly,” she said, not sounding like that was what she meant. “A professional at holding vendettas.”

“I just remember who needs to die and why. And then I make that happen. There’s a difference," I said as though I’d won the argument.

"Why can't I be a Reaper?" she asked, suddenly looking serious.

"I'm not even going to answer that. Even if the technology was available, I wouldn't let you do it," I said, just as serious. "Be something else. Be something better than that."

"I will," she asserted, standing ready for action, everything about her tone and her posture seeming like a challenge to my challenge.

"Let's get to the gym and warm up, then we can go over some firearms basics and hand-to-hand stuff. You need to be able to hold on to your weapon and still hit people with the other hand," I asserted.

For once, she didn’t have a snappy comeback and we strode to the gym in high spirits. I wasn't sure why, but I knew better than to take it for granted.

"You should try the mask again," she said, probably just making conversation.

"We'll see," I said.

* * *

When we were done with our training session, I sought Path but couldn't find him. Jelly eventually advised me that he had gone to his quarters to sleep.

"Any progress on the speed of the Union ship?" I asked.

"Unknown, but they are slowing for the first debris field,” remarked X. “It shouldn't take them as long to process the available data."

"Agreed. Will they catch us before we reach the third facility?" I asked.

"We have some time,” X-37 said.

"Great. I'm going to sleep and then grabbing some breakfast," I said.

"An excellent choice, Reaper Cain," X-37 said. "The rest of us will just continue to work."

I laughed and went to my room. It was small and plain, not a place I’d spent a lot of time when I wasn’t sleeping or grooming. Once the lights were off, I went right out, spiraling down into the land of dreams like an out-of-control void fighter.

Remembering the dark places my mind went during sleep was difficult, and for that, I was thankful. Choosing to focus on one memory or another could be controlled or at least managed. Dreams and nightmares, by contrast, always started the same.

I was always prowling the lowest level of Night City with my crew. We were like our own small gang, except the crimes we committed were laughable — underage drinking, loitering, and petty larceny if there was something we just had to have and couldn't pay for.

None of us ever said our comparatively upstanding moral code was to respect the hard-working people in our neighborhood. We were tough enough to steal from whomever we wanted, but I could never look at a shop owner in the eyes once I’d robbed him.

Not back then, before I became a Reaper.

The landscape changed as I slept more deeply, picking up traits from current events and mixing them into my old life. Then the buildings became cliffs, or nebulas, or black holes that sucked in light and souls in the way only a dream mind could see.

I separated from my friends, wandering alleys, and finishing off one last bottle of cheap brew. It was late, I was tired, and the only people still out were either up to no good or had no choice but to live on the street.

This was a sad place, but it was also warm. I'd been at peace—or close enough to it—during those rambling walkabouts, not ready to go home but without any place to be.

The dream changed and I tried to wake up. Sand blew in from beyond the city barriers, stinging my eyes and fingertips at first but then flowing like an unstoppable river. Vehicles and portable kiosks that had been stowed near the alleyways were swept away and destroyed.

Not long after that, it seemed as though the city had never been there and only part of me cared to remember it.

"They say you should never look back, but that's a lie," a familiar voice in my head whispered.

I could see the speaker, even though I knew this was impossible. X-37 appeared as a younger professional, perhaps in his late twenties. He wore a meticulously pressed civilian uniform with a wide vertical stripe.

"We're going to have to agree to disagree on that one," I said. "If I look back, I might as well quit now."

"There are some things you should remember, like your mother. She's still out there,” he said, gesturing to the ever-changing landscape around us. “I'm just a limited artificial intelligence, but even I can infer that she needs you."

"Well, where is she? Let's go," my dream self spat out, even more of a jerk than normal.

The extraordinarily helpful dream assistant disappeared as though he'd never been there. Because he hadn't. I wasn't even there. These were just random brain waves and my guilt from too many missions gone horribly wrong.

I woke up in the exact same position I had lain down in. Bracing myself for a flash of pain from my left arm and a wave of static from my eye, I realized neither of those things were happening.

"Progress," I said.

"Problem?" X-37 asked.

I climbed out of bed and started getting cleaned up. "Yeah. You're a shitty dream guide. Next time, why don’t you actually do something useful like show me some magic secrets or something."

"What exactly are you talking about, Reaper Cain?" X-37 asked.

"Nothing. Forget it," I said, looking at the time. "Did you wake me up?"

"I did," X-37 said. "There has been a development."

"Station three?" I asked, trying to remember the estimated time of arrival calculations we made before I'd racked out.

"No, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. "Elise and Path are in the training room."

I threw on my clothes and headed into the hallway, cursing under my breath. "What the actual fuck? Why didn't you wake me up before they killed each other?"

"They haven't killed each other," X-37 said.

"You know what I mean. We're still in the middle of a mission. I can't let them go at each other and have someone get hurt," I said.

Jelly either couldn't or wouldn't give me any updates, so I ran down the narrow hallway until I reached the room we had converted to a sparring and exercise room. "Jelly, I've had just about enough of your shit. Open the door."

"Elise and Mr. Paavo requested that they not be interrupted," Jelly said.

"To hell with that!" I pounded my fist on the door. "Open up right now! I swear I'll kill both of you if you killed each other! We're still on a mission.”

"Please calm down, Captain. I'm opening the door now," Jelly promised.

The door slid sideways and I rushed in—stopping when I saw which way the action was going.

Elise drove Path backward with a flurry of slashing lunges. She had a wild look in her eyes, color filling her cheeks, and sweat dripping from her hair. When she spun to dodge one of his counterattacks, she sprayed me with droplets.

Path sidestepped her, parrying her latest attack and shoving her toward the wall.

Elise caught herself before the collision and turned, pushing off the wall with one foot to launch herself at the psychedelic sword saint.

I crossed my arms as she chased him round and round the room. Finally, they stopped. She leaned on her knees and panted, which I knew was a big deal, because I had tried to match strides with her on the treadmill and had never been able to do it. They'd been at this for a while.

"Feel better?" I asked.

"Sure," she said, probably meaning anything but what she said.

"Learn to compartmentalize it. Put it away. Save it until you need it. There will be a time and a place for a reckoning, and this isn't it. I don't trust Path, but I also understand his claim," I said. “He believes you need to learn to fight.”

The man in question approached, tucking his practice weapon behind him, locking eyes with me. "It's been a while since you and I crossed practice swords."

"Don't push your luck, mystic," I said. "We're getting close to the third station. It needs to be a hit-and-run mission. Grab whatever we can and get out before the Union gets here. Both of you get cleaned up and meet me on the bridge."

"Yes, Captain," Elise said haughtily, twisting the words so it sounded like I was doing her a favor rather than her obeying an order. Because, teenager.

“X, have we made any progress on what we recovered from the second station?” I asked once I was away from Elise and Path.

“We’re working on it, Reaper Cain,” X-37 promised.

OceanofPDF.com

23

I arrived at the bridge before the rest of the crew. Tom had taken some much-needed down time while he could. Jelly had been cruising along on her own, not requiring human assistance during the simplest part of the trip. She was in constant communication with X-37, who would’ve updated me if something needed doing.

The room lights were low, the bridge silent, and the viewscreen split to show the facility we were approaching beside the more distant view of the Union Ship. The captain was taking it all over the system, and his actions suggested he was very confident it could handle us before we escaped.

Which pissed me off, if I was being honest. Cocky bastard.

"What exactly is that ship doing?" I asked.

"The unknown ship is working the system on a three-dimensional grid, possibly checking what we checked, but also leaving markers and or relays," Jelly said.

I fired up one of my best cigars and went over checklists. Being a Reaper wasn’t all glamour and high-speed fights.

The administrative routine was a good time to gather myself and think about what needed to be done. The situation had become more complicated than I liked.

I’d been doing solo missions for years before getting thrown in prison. The bomb incident had bothered me afterward. Tom and Elise had both been at risk. Thoughts of what would have happened if I hadn’t accepted help from Tom were a constant reminder that I needed help. Reapers were trained to work solo more often than not, but it had always been stressed that there were some missions that required a team.

I still felt reluctant to endanger them needlessly. I knew the game better and had learned what to look for from watching Tom work. Nothing scared me more than watching Tom or Elise die. They were the closest thing to family I’d had for a long time.

So this time was going to be different.

I expected my team to argue with me, including my not-quite-as-loyal-as-he-should-be limited artificial intelligence.

The door opened. Elise, Tom, and Path arrived almost at the same time. They waited for me to begin the briefing, probably suspecting what I would tell them. None of them were dumb and they all had good instincts. We spent a lot of time together on the ship and knew each other well.

“Jelly, are there any last-minute updates before we begin?” I asked.

“Yes, Captain. It seems the unidentified Union ship has completed its operations near the second facility and is headed this way. The speed of the small carrier is, how should I describe it in layman’s terms, alarming,” Jelly said.

“Keep us updated,” I said, then addressed Elise and Tom. “X-37 and Jelly have provided a mockup of what they think we will find on the third station. Their analysis suggests all three stations were built along the same blueprint. Since the second station was mostly intact, this should be less exploration and more room clearing,” I said.

Elise crossed her arms, already giving me a challenging look.

“The bomb incident was an unnecessary risk to the entire team,” I continued.

“Here we go,” Elise said scornfully.

Tom looked worried.

Path, well, he was Path. Henshaw was still in his cabin. I assumed he was lounging about as a drunkard but had no evidence this was actually the case. All I knew for sure was that the ocular engineer had been keeping to himself since our last encounter.

“I’m going alone. No matter what you think, there’s a good reason for this,” I said. “I need someone on the ship when things inevitably go wrong and the Union gets here ahead of schedule. I can’t count on Henshaw to safeguard both ships, even if he wasn’t a lying snake. The man has no tactical experience.”

Elise said nothing. Her gaze stabbed into me and she kept her teeth clenched. Self-control was nearly as foreign to her as it was to me.

“I don’t see why one of us can’t come with you,” Tom said. “Two sets of hands could be useful. Especially if you need to carry something or take apart more explosives. It would be logical to assume there will be at least one more device on this facility.”

“Agreed,” I said. “But the last one was straightforward and only served to hide a message. I think I can handle it. Stay here with Elise and Path, and outfit them for whatever they need to help me when I call for them.”

“Oh, you’re going to call for us? How magnanimous. You trust us to come save you?” Elise asked, sarcasm dripping from every word.

I finished the meeting and told them to get out. Nothing about what needed to be done had changed. I needed my space before going into hell.

“You’re quiet today, X,” I said as I headed for the shuttle.

“I’m just taking it all in. You may not know this, but it is extremely entertaining when you make bad decisions,” X-37 said.

“That sounds like something I would say,” I murmured, climbing into the shuttle and running through flight activation checks.

“It is, Reaper Cain. We’re kind of stuck together,” X-37 complained. “Your bad decisions affect both of us.”

Before long, the ship was ready. “What’s on your digital mind, X?”

“I’ve been in deep contemplation of the message we found on the second facility,” X-37 said. “There are very few data points, but my analysis suggests this trip to the third facility is unnecessary.”

“Maybe, but we’ll only have one chance. The Union will be here before we know it, and if there was something important here, then it will be beyond our reach at that point. Why would they build three stations if they only needed two?” I argued.

“Knowing the Union as I do, it’s equally likely they had three identical stations, any one of which could have operated independently. We are risking our lives to check out a redundancy,” X-37 said. “The message you recovered advised you the answer was on the planet serving the station, not the station itself.”

“I thought the same thing, but I don’t know what to do when we get there,” I pointed out. “Someone is leaving us clues and we need to find all of them.”

“Then you must carefully consider what I’m about to say next,” X-37 said. “I believe you should bring the Reaper mask and the stealth armor with you. You took it when you were dealing with Henshaw but didn’t use it in the gladiatorial fight.”

I interrupted, “I thought I would need it to get back to the Jellybird, but that wasn’t how things played out. And I was even less confident I could use the mask then.”

“No need to explain, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “But if what I suspect about the messages is true, the Reaper mask and the stealth armor will be part of the final solution. This is the end game.”

A chill went down my spine when he said the end. “Who do you think is sending me the messages and why do you think I should bring the mask with me when I can’t even use it?”

I knew the answer to this question, but it was good to keep my limited artificial intelligence honest. And maybe he would come up with something I’d missed. That was one of his main functions, in any case.

“I believe the messages are from your mother,” X-37 said, surprising me with his bluntness. “The images are female. The elaborate multistage revelation of clues suggests careful planning and total dedication to the process. Had this mysterious benefactor taken any shortcuts, the Union would’ve already found our destination. Arriving there with them already waiting would’ve been a bit awkward, even for you, Reaper Cain.”

I weighed each word X spoke. Hope and dread struggled for control of my emotions. Apparently, I hadn’t known my mother well. She’d always been like the sun to me when I was young, but now I was learning she had skills and resources beyond what I had suspected my father to possess. The long game she had apparently played boggled my mind. How had she recruited Byron Thane II to her purpose? How had she guided him toward me so that it would be delivered? Had she suspected I would kill him to take possession of the mask, and if this was the case, what type of person was she?

“My analysis suggests that someone wants you to use the mask. It wasn't delivered to you by accident,” X-37 said, breaking the chain of my increasingly dark thoughts. “It has performed more reliably each time you dared use it.”

“It wasn't delivered. I took it,” I reminded him.

“Of course, Reaper Cain.”

“You probably think you’re clever for a cluster of computer-enhanced nerve-ware,” I said.  I was still deciding how I felt about this new topic. X-37 had confirmed my suspicions but hadn’t given me the tools to deal with what it meant. There were places in my soul I didn't want to go.

“All of this, however, leads us to a much larger question,” X-37 said. “If your mother was merely kidnapped by agents of the Union, how would she have the ability to set something like this in motion unless she was more than you’re telling me?”

“How can I not be telling you something?” I said defensively.

“I can’t read your mind, Reaper Cain, and your emotional output is uneven—irrational to be honest. I detect dishonesty but have marked several indicators that you are not doing this intentionally,” X-37 said, echoing one of his common sentiments.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I demanded.

“You may be lying to yourself,” X-37 explained.

I wished there was a physical version of X I could punch. “Whatever, X. Don’t quit your day job. Your psychoanalytic skills suck.”

“Then explain why I am wrong,” X-37 said, refusing to back down from my churlish tone. “What prepared—or provoked—your mother to create this grand plot?”

“I don’t have any answers,” I stalled.

“Which only means she kept her vocation a secret. It seems your family has a history of this behavior,” X-37 said. “Regardless, whoever this person is, she has set a very narrow path for you to follow. One step in the wrong direction will lead to disaster.”

“Thanks, that was helpful,” I said, then steered the shuttle toward the darkened facility where it orbited a desert world.

* * *

The hallway curved ahead of me, following the shape of the station. "Tell me what I'm looking at, X."

"We never went to this part of station two," X-37 explained. "We're going to cover a lot more distance on this away mission. You'll need to move faster. Jelly says that the Union carrier is accelerating toward our position at maximum possible speed."

I ran at a brisk pace, aiming my HDK at intersections before reaching them, then angling out into the hallway to give myself a better view of what was inside before I passed the open areas. It was a technique we in the RC called cutting the pie. Simple, effective, and it worked on the move if you knew what you were doing.

The trick was to see one slice of the next room at a time—as quickly and accurately as possible.

"Good news, Reaper Cain. There is some residual power on this facility. Should make things much easier, including piggybacking on their security nodes. Scanning for enemy units," X-37 said.

"Why would there be power?" I asked, suspicious of any good fortune.

X-37 didn't hesitate to answer. "Because someone activated it by remote beam. The Union stealth carrier should have that capability."

"Are they using it against us?" I asked, not slowing my pace. No matter what they saw, speed was still the primary tool in my toolbox right now.

“Unknown. The third door on the right leads to the interior,” X-37 advised.

I cleared room to room, moving quickly but not rushing. This was different from searching rooms with a team. This was running and gunning. I couldn't control territory I had taken. Instead, I checked over my shoulder often—not wanting to be the Reaper who let an enemy sneak up on him. X-37 did his best to help me stay alive by monitoring my feed and marking areas of potential danger.

“You have been searching for hours. Union troops will be deploying to the station soon,” X-37 said.

"Where are Jelly and the crew?" I asked.

"Unknown. I believe they have gone dark and moved out of the area until we really need them," X-37 said.

I had already searched the laboratory that resembled the one from the second facility. With the exception of a few specialist tools I gathered up for Tom, it was a disappointing haul.

The only place left to search without going room by room were the dorms, storage areas, and comm room. It only had a small workstation and I wasn't hoping for much. I had already searched the station bridge and Reaper laboratories. There was less than nothing. I wasn't sure what they even did for the program on this facility.

"I told you this was a dangerous waste of time," X-37 said.

"Not helpful." There was no way to explain to my limited artificial intelligence that my gut told me there was still something there.

"I can't stop you from being irrational," X-37 complained, “but I can inform you of such.”

Thinking about the message that had been left under the bomb on the second station, I got an idea. “X, you’re fired.”

"You can't fire me. I'm part of you," X-37 said.

“Still fired.” The message had been don’t make me whistle twice for dinner.  I realized in a flash where the next clue would be.

“This conversation is beneath me," X-37 continued, “and we are running out of time."

“I’m hungry. Which way is the cafeteria?” I asked.

X-37 let out a faux sigh. "I am sending the coordinates to your HUD now, and I would also like to advise you that Union troops have boarded the station. How hungry are you? Because this really isn't a good time."

"My mother used to whistle twice to call me to dinner," I said, already headed toward the station’s cafeteria.

"Why didn't you say so?" X-37 asked. "In that context, it is obvious where the next clue should be."

"Where are the Union troops?" I moved quickly, expecting to be challenged each time I reached an intersection. X-37 put up icons on my head, warning me each time I nearly encountered one of the patrols.

"Good news, Reaper Cain," X-37 said. "None of the teams are moving toward the cafeteria. Apparently, they're smarter than that."

"I'm embarrassed for them. Any good soldier knows to look for food first," I joked, feeling a better mood despite the unrelenting pressure of the situation.

"I'm glad you're amused. I must advise you that we are running out of time,” X-37 said, then displayed several dots on my HUD indicating the increasing number of enemy troops on the station.

"Don't worry, X. We've got this," I assured him, heading for the one place I knew my mother would hide a message just for me.

Running between empty tables, I made for the dessert section. I wasn't sure how old the treats were, but they seemed to be sealed in their containers.

"You're not actually going to eat one of those?" X-37 asked.

"I should, but I gave up sweets on New Year's," I said, then lifted the chocolate chip cookie jar over my head. I slammed it down, watching the contents scatter. The delicious smell was tempting, but I remained focused. It wasn't just my life on the line now. Elise and the others were counting on me.

Amidst the sugary confections was a small data stick. “What do you think of that?”

X-37 processed the image. “It should be a match for the processor we recovered on the second facility,” X-37 said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have a plan to get you off this station before several squads of Union soldiers close in around us.”

I picked up the data stick. “What’s your plan?”

“It starts with an escape pod or a shuttle, whichever we can find first.”

OceanofPDF.com

24

The captain of the strange Union carrier was thinking several steps ahead of what I might have expected from my previous adversaries. Could he have bulldogged us on the Jellybird and had his way? Sure. Was he trying something devious instead? Absolutely.

“I think this character wants more than a kill or a capture,” I said.

“Of course. The most likely scenario is that he or she wants something from you that you don’t have yet,” X-37 agreed.

Nothing could ever be easy.

“Who do you think he is, because I have my theory?” I asked.

“There is insufficient data. I don’t do hunches and emotional outbursts,” X-37 said.

“Are you giving me a tone? Talking down to me?” I asked, hurrying through the launch bay. All systems were operating on trace power, one notch above standby mode. My LAI had promised we could avoid detection by enemy ships until long after I boarded a shuttle and escaped.

“No, Reaper Cain. Who am I to judge your propensity to make wild-ass guesses with absolutely no basis in logic?” X-37 said, mimicking one of my favorite phrases.

“Let’s just call him Nightmare, because that’s probably who it is. He wants us to do all the work.” I believed the captain of the carrier was the cloaked figure from the gladiator match who had spec op commandos as bodyguards. More importantly, he had control of a special operations carrier, a class of ship I hadn't known existed until recently.

The most recent report X-37 had forwarded me from Jelly’s sensors indicated it had very small fighter ships stuck all over the exterior of its hull. These sleek vessels wouldn't have much range or firepower but would be deadly for covert operations. I suspected they also doubled as quick insertion craft.

With the number of Union soldiers currently searching for me on this station, I estimated they had a company of spec ops troops. That was enough to win a war in most places.

None of that was my main problem.

"X, why is my escape shuttle floating away?" I asked.

"Two things: Jelly has located the identifying signal for the ship, indicating it is called the UFS Nightmare. More importantly, it seems the UFS Nightmare caused all shuttles—including the one you arrived in—to be released prior to your arrival in this bay," X-37 said.

"The ship is called Nightmare?" I said, thinking about the name of the robed figure. "How unoriginal."

"There's a certain logic to it. Think of them as a brand name rather than a person or ship," X-37 said. “I’ve found one hundred and nineteen references in my database of captains adopting the same name as their ship.”

"I still think it’s lame. Remind me to tell this guy he’s an idiot if I ever come face to face with him,” I said. "But thanks, I'm sure that will be helpful later." I did a quick self-check of my gear and determined I was as ready for a spacewalk as I ever would be. Spacewalk, space jump—whatever.

"Would you like me to calibrate trajectory?" X-37 offered, predicting my intent.

I slipped inside the airlock and sealed the door behind me. There should have been a door to the shuttle in front of me, but I knew that when it opened I would see empty space and the shuttle drifting very slowly away.

"I'm going to eyeball it," I said. "What I need from you will be specific instructions on how to get inside safely."

"I'm pulling up the instructions now," X-37 said. “The hull appears to be a standard Union work craft without much need for security protocols. If a person has access to the shuttle bay, they have access to the shuttles and escape pods. Shall I provide the station SOP regarding this matter?”

“Stop yanking my chain, X. You know how I feel about rules,” I muttered, bouncing on my toes nervously.

Once my suit was sealed and the atmosphere vented to prevent explosive decompression, I opened the external door and braced myself for the icy blackness of space. Holding the rails and keeping my feet planted, I had one last chance to change my mind.

For someone who was as afraid of heights as I was, the view made me feel a little squishy inside. It was different from standing on top of a building or a cliff, but still uncomfortable. Thirty thousand kilometers below, the desert world was yellow and orange with a few veins of red. In other circumstances, it would've been glorious. I'd have enjoyed contemplating it over a glass of whisky and a cigar.

All I had to do right now was jump from this perfectly good station to a possibly derelict shuttle floating farther and farther away.

Counting down from five to calm myself, I squatted deep, then jumped toward my target. Sailing through an environment completely devoid of atmosphere was quiet and peaceful. I checked the area around me and saw that all of the other shuttles had also been released from their moorings.

"Make a note, X. Whoever's after us is thorough and thinks outside the box," I said. “Seems like he really wanted to trap me on the station.”

"Agreed," X-37 said. "I have some good news. You will reach the shuttle. And even better, it is not complicated to operate the airlock. It was designed for this type of contingency."

The shuttle was right there. The amount of time it took to cross the distance was disturbing because it felt like I was always almost there. And then I hit it and locked on with boot and glove magnets.

X-37 coached me as I crawled around to the airlock and operated the simple mechanisms. As promised, there were no security codes to enter or other anti-theft mechanisms.

Inside, I powered up the shuttle and did an abbreviated systems check. Moments later, I was coasting away from the station on minimum power to reduce the chance of detection.

"Nicely done," X-37 said. “Please remain within the cloud of jettisoned life pods.”

“Roger that,” I agreed. As my heart rate came down and I was safely away from the facility, I went over the ship’s functions more carefully. The planet and the station seemed to rotate, one in front of me and one behind me. I leveled off and kept the true course to avoid the nausea-inducing sensation while remaining in the drifting cluster of small ships for better concealment.

"It's nice," I said.

"It would be considerably nicer if you had a way to land on that planet," X-37 said. "Because this vessel wasn't built for planetary missions."

I read through several menus. "It has to have an emergency rating. All Union vessels are required to be able to function as life pods, up to and including an atmospheric entry."

"Of course. But the landing will be hard," X-37 warned. "The shuttle itself will be a total loss, which by Union specifications indicates it will be no more than forty-nine percent salvageable."

I tried to raise the Jellybird without success. X-37 did the same.

"From what I can monitor of the encrypted Union comms, I believe the Union troops have completed their search of the station and are now looking to the drifting shuttles and escape pods. Please keep in mind I don’t actually know what they are saying; my conclusion is from the patterns of speech and an algorithm comparing room clearing times with what I assume to be an elite group of soldiers," X-37 said. "I don't recommend changing course or drawing attention to yourself."

"So we're going down," I said. “Like a rock.”

"Correct. You will probably wish you’d died afterward.” X-37’s tone was distracted and I understood he was aggressively searching for solutions.

“Probably,” I responded.

“No matter how I run the numbers, this is going to be rough,” X-37 said apologetically.

I listened to my limited artificial intelligence, telling myself over and over again that this was not the same thing as being in a high place. I could still fly the ship away from the plane until the gravity took hold. When that happened, all bets were off. The view was probably worth dying for though and provided some distraction.

Even with the corrections I'd made, the shuttle slowly rotated. The powerless, unmanaged shuttles and escape pods spread slightly as the planet pulled on them. Lights came on all throughout the station, section after section.

I saw the UFS Nightmare clearly for the first time. Our earlier observations had been from a great distance when its captain either didn’t care about being seen or had been trying to mislead us. What I saw now worried me, because the ship had remained nearly invisible as it made its final approach to our location. The UFS Nightmare pulled out of stealth mode—appearing much closer than I’d expected, and I understood its name.

The ship was unusual, especially with the placement of its fighters and other small ships attached to its hull. What made it frightening was the size of it coming out of stealth mode. I'd never seen a ship that size concealed so thoroughly. This was something different from the Union I remembered. Apparently, they'd made advances while I was locked away on the Bluesphere Maximum Security Prison.

"I think that ship is going to be a problem for us," X-37 said.

"Honestly, we’ve been lucky. If Briggs had been operating from this thing, he probably would've caught us on Greendale. That thing has a lot of personnel and equipment to throw at a problem," I said. "We need to start planning our landing."

X-37 provided a list of safety checks that needed to be made. I took some time getting the shuttle as squared away as possible. Every time I checked the viewscreen, we were closer to the planet and picking up speed. I also saw that the Nightmare was sending out patrols of the area, probably looking for the Jellybird and checking the escape pods they had released.

"You should be experiencing the first layers of atmosphere now," said X-37.

My entry into the desert planet went from resembling a lotus dream to an amphetamine-inspired nightmare as the shuttle was punished by each successive layer of atmosphere. Some of the heat shields broke off, but most of it remained intact.

"I'm gonna have to steer," I said.

"I'll assist you as best I can," X-37 said. “Unless you want me to take the controls.”

“Not a chance, X. No offense,” I grunted, already straining to control the ship.

“None taken,” X-37 assured me.

The LAI linked into the shuttle’s controls and projected vectors onto the screen that I should follow. These were slightly different from what the shuttle suggested, but I trusted X-37 more. I did as he instructed and understood immediately that I'd been seen.

Rockets reached out from some of the small fighters patrolling the area above the planet. They stripped down. I twisted right, then left, and then changed my vector. I only had so many options due to the demands of reentry and the increasing gravity.

One of the rockets clipped my wing, sheering half of it away. The control shook my hands as I fought to keep the vehicle on course.

"Talk to me, X," I said through clenched teeth.

"Hold this vector," X-37 said. "I'm plotting contingencies for future equipment failures."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means the wing is going to come all the way off soon," X-37 said.

I fought for altitude, keeping my steering as erratic as possible to avoid future rocket strikes. Juking right and left, I searched for a landing field near enough the canyons to provide a hiding place. There weren’t a lot of options.

"They're tracking us and will hunt us once we hit the ground," X-37 said.

“How’s the wing?” I asked. “Give me a status report.”

The ship dropped twenty meters before hitting more turbulence. The impact rattled my teeth. Relying on the strength of my cybernetics would only work for so long. I was finding muscles I didn’t know I had.

“Impact imminent!” X-37 warned.

OceanofPDF.com

25

A deafening klaxon woke me up, which was good, because I was already choking. Smoke, dust, and other particulates commonly associated with a shuttle coming apart filled the air. X-37 wouldn’t stop yelling at me.

My right forearm felt like somebody had beaten it with a hammer and the impact had cranked my lower back badly. When the adrenaline of this confrontation wore off, I wouldn't be able to walk for days. Hopefully, I wouldn't need surgery this time.

Rolling forward to a sitting position, I waved one hand for him to shut up. Even if he didn’t see it, he knew my every move and what most of the gestures meant. “Alright! I’m up. Put a sock in it!"

"A sock? Really? How many times do I have to explain that the only one putting a sock any place would be you?" X-37 elaborated. "I have no physical mass to speak of."

"How could I forget. Because I’d really like to kick your ass right now if you had one. Do you think flying a shuttle to the surface is easy?" I asked.

“That was your best landing to date, Reaper Cain,” X deadpanned. "The only part I didn't like was when we almost died."

“I nearly died. You don't have any mass or actual sentience,” I corrected, still dazed. A river of spots ebbed and flowed around the corners of my vision. It was different from the misery I'd suffered on Greendale, but still very unpleasant and probably the result of some serious blunt-force trauma to my head.

Staggering to my feet, I checked myself for injuries and grabbed my gear. The stealth cloak bundle slipped from my shoulder and tangled around my left arm, nearly causing me to throw it away in frustration.

It was hard to think clearly. My arms and legs felt like they were made of lead. Where was everyone? How could I have endangered my friends like this?

X-37 kept telling me that I had been alone and that I would be better served by fleeing the crash site. He also recommended more than once that I use the cloak to disappear.

Suddenly, I wished I had practiced with the tricky device. X-37 had harassed me about becoming proficient with it. Elise had teased me, calling me the only Reaper left alive who couldn’t use one properly.

Who needed a stealth cloak? It was just one more thing to carry. By the time I needed one, I would already be gone—vanished from view of my victims like the angel of death. Or that was what I told myself.

It took me several minutes to reorient and remember what I was doing.

“I have the key, X, but no way to access the data box we recovered on station 2,” I said.

“I started pulling the encryption key while you were taking your post-crash nap. I’m streaming a large amount of information from the Jellybird, despite being unable to contact her directly. She hasn’t left this part of the system,” X-37 explained.

“I feel like death,” I muttered.

“Yet you are alive,” X-37 said. “Information updating now. One second. Okay, two seconds.”

“I hate you, X.” I twisted at the waist, popping my back into place and ignoring about a hundred warning signals from my body.

“Bad news, Reaper Cain. We can’t unlock the data box remotely. There is too much information to transmit and process. However, I now have a location where this can be done in reasonable safety. The coordinates are now designated as the tech shrine on your HUD.”

“Tech shrine?” I asked, confused.

“We will learn more when we get there,” X-37 assured me.

Checking to be sure I had all my gear, I strode toward the canyons, breaking into a steady jog once I was able.

"X, can you tell me where I am and how to get to these tech shrine coordinates? The terrain looks hostile—not a fan of all these canyons and arroyos. I really want to find out who I need to kill for getting me into this," I said, then stopped to vomit between my boots.

"Whenever you're done, I have made contact with Elise," X-37 said.

I moved into the shadow of a narrow ravine, wiping my face with my sleeve. "How can you have contact with Elise? We couldn't even find her outside the station.”

"Apparently, Jelly decided to land the ship while you were searching the third facility and she was evading their extraterrestrial patrols,” X-37 said.

The tactic made sense. If I'd needed an immediate extraction from the station, there would have been problems. But she’d managed not to get caught, so that was a serious bonus. The Union carrier either hadn't been able to look into the canyons from orbit or hadn't anticipated such a move.

"How far away as she?"

"Elise and the Jellybird are thirty-seven kilometers northwest through hard terrain," X-37 said as though this was good news.

"Tell Elise, and Jelly while you're at it, to stand aside and wait for my call," I ordered. "I want them to remain hidden."

"I think you should talk to her yourself," X-37 said. "My connection isn't the best."

"Did you just use deception? That has to be some kind of violation. How can I have my own limited artificial intelligence lying to me?" I said as I navigated to a new section of the maze.

“It was more of a minimization," X-37 rationalized in a low voice. “Why do I have to be in the middle of your drama with Elise?”

"I'm just messing with you, X. I trust you with my life," I said, meaning every word. And why wouldn't I? It wasn’t like I had a choice.

A flicker of a light from beyond the next corner of the canyon maze gave away my enemy’s position. I was surprised they made such a mistake, but anything could happen. In their defense, I picked up even the lowest levels emitted by gun-lights with my Reaper eye.

I changed courses, checking my back trail nearly as often as I checked where I was going. Looking up to the cliffs was increasingly important as well.

“Put Elise on the channel,” I said.

"Jelly already patched me in," Elise said. "We can be at your location in minutes."

I could've answered her but waited several heartbeats to avoid giving away my position to the spec ops troops working their way into the ravine. I had nearly missed them, which meant they were good.

"Talk to me, X," I whispered.

"I detect three full squads of commandos," X-37 said. "There are no individual or unit identifiers on their gear. Possibly spec ops or dark ops. Perhaps something else. There's insufficient data to know for sure."

I quietly withdrew from my position, sinking deeper into the shadows and finding a new branch of the maze to traverse. "Elise, stay clear of this area. I'll explain later."

Her response was serious and tense. "Alright but keep me updated or I'm coming after you."

I signaled X-37 to temporarily exclude Elise and the rest of the team from our communications. "Make sure you let Jelly know what to do. She'll have a hard time getting out without getting shot down. The moment they leave the ground, the Union will swarm them with those small fighters. Be sneaky, don’t get her destroyed."

"Understood, Reaper Cain," X-37 said. "I have sent the necessary communications to the Jellybird. She wants me to warn you that Elise is very close to making poor decisions and using override codes she shouldn’t know."

I muttered curses under my breath and wished I had a cigar. It didn't seem like the best time to chastise my LAI for letting me forget such a crucial piece of survival gear. I'd been consuming fewer and fewer, because after the Premiums, the rest of my stash tasted like dead animals. If I was ever going to quit the vice, now was probably the time.

From my new position, I saw the commandos work. They were strangers. Even without unit markers, I thought I should be able to identify them by the way they moved and other tactical habits. But these people were completely new. I was both relieved and worried that Briggs was not among them. We weren’t friends, but I still hoped he might have figured out the Union was using us all like disposable tools. Killing him before we had a chance to work out our differences would be stupid. The more I thought about our last encounter, the more I was convinced he had let me go when he could have sealed my fate with a word.

"X, how much time do you think I have before they find this position?" I asked.

"About 492 seconds," X-37 answered. "Plus or minus .00432 seconds."

I unrolled my stealth cloak, adjusted the gear that would need to remain under it, and put it on. Each section had to be adjusted in a certain order. I followed every step, not being proficient enough to know the shortcuts.

"All systems are functional," X-37 promised.

I sat and breathed and soaked in the night air for several moments before attempting to move. It would be hard to know if I was doing everything right until it was tested. And if I was wrong, then I was probably dead or captured. Game completely the fuck over.

"I only see two squads," I said as I belly-crawled to the edge of the ridge. The stars visible from this planet were white and yellow and dense from horizon to horizon. I felt like I was a target. X-37 kept conversation to a minimum. It wasn't necessary, but we had a standing agreement that less talk was better when stealth was of the utmost importance. He could talk as much as he wanted without alerting our enemies, but it could be distracting. It was also unfair that I couldn’t defend myself verbally when he got in one of his moods.

The two squads cleared an area then regrouped. They put out guards seemingly without having to be ordered. Before long, a representative of the third squad made an appearance. I saw the man moving through scrub grass along one edge of the canyon, nearly invisible even now.

"X, can you listen in?" I asked as I zoomed in my vision for maximum clarity.

“Certainly, Reaper Cain,” X-37 responded.

Every one of the spec ops commandos had their helmets down. In a regular military unit, they might remove helmets or raise visors in a secure area, for variety if not for relief. I suspected they were more comfortable than I was in this environment.

The air was already getting hot despite being the middle of the night. Moisture evaporated from exposed skin. I could hear night animals in the distance and felt like they were watching me. In the immediate vicinity, however, the landscape was as silent as the moment before a blade struck.

"I've analyzed all possible data from this vantage point," X-37 said. "I'll need to know your intentions if I'm to help assist you plan your next move."

"We only have one choice. I'm just trying to figure out how to get there. We need to go to the tech shrine and learn the truth," I said, having wanted to say the truth about something important, but I wasn't sure how to phrase my thoughts. X-37 and I had talked about the very real possibility that the person leading us to this location was my mother.

Would I find her there? Would I find my sister? Would the secrets I had to face destroy me?

"Get me to the tech shrine. We'll gather what information we can and exfiltrate from the area. Then we can contact Elise and Jelly and make our way off the planet. I want you to be planning a way to deal with the carrier and its fighter ships."

"I can also help you assess terrain and monitor movements of your opponents," X-37 said. "Like we did on Dreadmax."

"Fine, but I need to know our long-term escape plan is solid. I can't spend time worrying about getting hosed by a squadron of mini-fighters. I'll need all my concentration just to stay one step ahead of these soldiers," I said.

"Now would be a good time to move," X-37 said. "My analysis suggests less talking and more action."

I didn't answer. I just moved, working my way to another eroded gully where I sat in the shadows and listened to be sure I hadn't been followed. I scanned the area with my ocular sensors.

Hot damn! James Henshaw, you the man! I nearly grunted the exclamation, managing to keep it internal. X-37 knew I was excited but couldn't know exactly what I had thought.

"Is everything okay?" X-37 asked.

I waited until I knew it was safe to speak, then answered, "Henshaw did us a solid. I've never been able to operate with such visual clarity and power."

“I am exceedingly happy for you, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said, sounding neither sincere nor insincere.

When I was sure it was safe to proceed, I adjusted course and moved out.

Things started to happen fast. My first priority was to escape. At every junction, I evaluated which direction would be the least likely way for the Union to be searching, then ran that way—gliding through the night despite how my feet had pounded the treadmill when I ran next to Elise on the Jellybird. This was the work I was made for.

I swam through underground streams to emerge in new sections of the harsh terrain. I climbed over spires. I walked. I ran. Sometimes I climbed sheer cliff faces.

X-37 and I barely talked. Occasionally, he asked me to look at the sky so he could get his bearings and continue to work on his plan to leave the planet and the system beyond.

My evasion of a vastly superior enemy force equipped with state-of-the-art technology went well, until it didn't.

I found myself in the mouth of the cave. A short search of its depths demonstrated how shallow it was. Fate had often been cruel, but this felt like an insult. I was getting tired and had to restrain a frustrated laugh. The place offered an illusion of safety but was most likely a trap, a place to get stuck and rest when I should be on the move and ready to fight.

"You had better use that stealth cloak like it was designed just for you," X-37 said.

"This isn’t a bad cave. I could live here and be happy," I grumbled. Fatigue crept into my limbs. I pushed it away by force of will. X-37 recommended I eat, but I just sipped from my water pack and focused all of my mental power on what I needed to do to get out of there.

There were three basic options. Do nothing and hope they passed by. I could creep past them when they seemed to be unaware, maximizing the effect of the stealth cloak, and get around their patrol. That didn’t mean I could find my objective, but I definitely needed to sneak past them. Or start fighting.

One of my only poor training evaluations had been that I tended to take the lazy option to get things over with quickly. Even with my short fuse, I knew there was no way to shoot my way out of this corner.

"Any advice?" I kept my voice so low, it was almost unrecognizable as human speech. For my limited artificial intelligence, however, it was understandable.

"Stay low," X-37 said.

“Easy for you to say.” Crawling slowly to avoid making any more noise than I had to, I kept every part of my body touching the rocky surface. The tactic required patience that was against my nature, especially when I was banged up and desperately anxious to learn the secrets of the tech shrine. The nearest I passed to the Union super commandos was twenty meters, but it felt like they were walking over the top of me.

Stopping frequently, I allowed X-37 to listen for things I missed. It was difficult to turn my face upward for a decent view of the area. We had to settle for slow twists side to side.

“They think they’re close to finding you or they wouldn’t be stopped here,” X-37 observed.

I wanted to shout that they were close, but didn’t. Minutes felt like hours before I finally worked my way beyond them. Standing with difficulty, I looked back the way I’d come, barely able to believe I’d low crawled so far.

Too exhausted to run, I marched toward my objective.

OceanofPDF.com

26

I reached my destination during the darkest part of the night. A dome of silence encapsulated the area. None of the local wildlife made a sound. If there were insects moving about, then they were tiptoeing like thieves.

The last several hours had required more patience and stealth than I had exercised for a long time. Even my instructors from Reaper school would've been proud. Well, not extremely proud, but not totally frustrated with my impatience either.

In my defense, I'd changed since meeting Elise and Tom. Something about surviving death row had altered the way I viewed the galaxy. Life was short and I had things to do, mysteries to solve, and scores to settle.

I didn't have time for this shit. Only the fact that I was facing Union spec ops units kept me in check. Elise and the others were counting on me. I’d dragged them halfway across the galaxy and attracted the wrath of the worst killers in the Union.

These new soldiers were different. I studied their equipment as I crept closer to the perimeter they had established around the tech shrine—a tower-like structure that gleamed against the dark terrain. Of course that was what the third squad had been doing while the other two had been hunting me. I should've known they had unraveled their own clues and guessed where I would be going.

Their gear, what little I had seen of it, reminded me of Marley Callus on Dreadmax. The man had been a force of nature and claimed his kind of soldier replaced me and the other Reapers. I’d thought that was at least partially true—and now I knew he hadn’t been bragging. The Union was treating me like last week’s garbage because they had replacements for what I was.

"I hate to break bad news," X-37 whispered in my ear. "But the other two squads have arrived and have set up an outer perimeter. You're essentially caught between two rings of highly trained mystery soldiers. Further database searches have revealed no origin for this unit and no oversight provision."

I didn't answer. What would be the point? My enemies had all the best tools and no rules to hold them back. Of course. Because that was just my luck. Why should I catch a break?

Thoughts of my sword fight with Uriah came to me as I waited out the danger. In a way, it was no different from what I was facing now. The slightest mistake would be fatal. There was only staying alive and looking for an opportunity to win that mattered.

"Since you are unable to talk without giving away your position, I will make certain standard assumptions," X-37 said, setting up the tactical briefing for what had to come next. "There are three squads that I will designate Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie. Charlie squad is the one that disappeared and moved ahead to secure the area around the tech shrine while Alpha and Bravo were hunting you."

I tapped my thumb and forefinger together twice to indicate yes.

"Further analysis: Charlie squad is lightly armed. They seem to be made for speed. Probably why they were sent ahead. From what I can determine, the heavier weapons have been shifted to Alpha and Bravo squads, granting them extra firepower at the cost of speed. Escaping this ring you've gotten yourself trapped inside will be difficult. On the bright side, perhaps you can work your way past them to enter the final section of this labyrinth."

X-37 had a way of ruining my day without even trying.

"I do have one further observation, which doesn't really help you now but might be useful in the future," X-37 said.

Now he was trying to piss me off.

"You shouldn't have come alone. With Elise and the others, you would have had more options,” X-37 said. “It’s always better to have someone watching your back.”

“You know better than that, X. They would have been a liability. These new Union jerkoffs are too good for amateur hour,” I grumbled.

“My analysis suggests you’re just being a stubborn asshole,” X-37 responded.

I could feel my heart pounding, and it had nothing to do with my annoying LAI. Using my Reaper training combined with the lessons I'd learned from Path, I steadied my nerves and waited.

“You may now communicate with me verbally. They have set up their perimeters and are conducting sensor sweeps in other areas. You don't have long before you'll have to stick a sock in it again," X-37 said, tongue in proverbial cheek.

"We're not leaving until I get what I came for," I said. "It's actually easier to go forward than back. You said so yourself."

“I agree… grudgingly,” X-37 said. "I recommend that you power down your stealth cloak while you can. It's not getting recharged from your movements or solar absorption, and as long as you remain motionless, you should be invisible."

I tapped the cuff of my sleeve, turning off the device.

I didn't feel any different, which wasn't reassuring. That was my main problem with the stealth cloak. I couldn't tell if it was on or off most times. The design allowed me to see my limbs, for example, to keep me from feeling disoriented or losing my balance. Not knowing if it was actually working, however, made me feel naked.

Events connected in my mind. My journey, I now realized, had started long before I was a Reaper. Life had taken me down a hard road and separated me from everyone I loved.

Now I was close to a resolution. I could know the answers if I refused to look away from the truth. If my parents had been more deeply involved in the Union conspiracies than I had realized, I was about to find out things I might not want to admit.

OceanofPDF.com

27

Something happened out of my view. I could tell by the way Union soldiers were acting. They tightened their security and adjusted their positions.

"X, please tell me Elise isn't doing something stupid," I said.

“Not by herself, Reaper Cain. She has someone with her. Path, I believe," X-37 said. "They seem an odd couple to team up after their recent disagreements. Would you like me to share their helmet camera feed?”

I wanted to say yes but knew I didn't have the resolution or screen space to see much of what they were doing. Or if I did see through their eyes, I would be handicapped on what I could see with my own vision. At this point, it wasn't worth the risk.

"They are moving rather well, compared to civilians. I don't know how they will fare once they run into the hidden sentries of the Union forces," X-37 said.

I groaned. "I don't suppose we can talk them out of this."

"Not likely. However, there is a way for you to see what they're doing and possibly benefit from the reckless but very brave and loyal actions," X-37 said.

I had a feeling I knew what he was going to suggest, and the idea made me sick to my stomach.

"Put on the Reaper mask. I'll try to monitor the settings to minimize its effect. If used properly, I believe it can boost my platform, so to speak, in your awareness. I can extend imagery out from where you would normally see it and give you a clearer resolution of what you're viewing in real time and through the camera feeds."

“I’m still not sure I can use it properly,” I reminded X.

“Don’t sell yourself short. My evaluation of your most recent attempts to use the mask show a significant improvement over the time you nearly died,” X-37 assured me.

“That doesn’t mean I know what the hell I’m doing. You want me to cross my fingers and hope for the best?” I asked.

“While it is true that hope is not a strategy, I must point out you will never use the mask if you are waiting for complete mastery of the device. You know this,” X-37 chastised me.

“Check yourself, X. You’re getting that tone again. Like you think you’re the boss of me or something,” I said, not thinking about the implications of what I was saying until the words had left my mouth.

“I would never consider such a thing. I am your LAI and only designed to serve you to complete whatever mission you embark upon,” X-37 said. “My apologies. Sometimes I mimic your mannerisms and my meaning is misinterpreted.”

“You think I can use the mask without getting killed?” I asked.

“I do, Reaper Cain.”

I hesitated.

“We discussed this eventuality, Reaper Cain. The mask has been easier for you to control each time you put it on. I have also detected security code commonalities with the mask, the data box from station two, and the activation key from station three. Give the mask a try. It’ll be fun.”

I laughed without much humor; glad I hadn’t totally ruined my LAI’s attempt to talk like a real person. “That sounds fantastic," I said sarcastically, not believing him for a second. The first time I tried to use the mask, I nearly threw myself out of the airlock without knowing what I was doing. This didn't seem like a good time to take needless chances.

"We have both made progress with the mask," X-37 repeated.

"Really? Because it still scares the hell out of me," I said.

"I'm afraid we are approaching the point where risks will need to be taken. Or you can just sit back and let fate have its way with you," X-37 said.

"Remind me to reset your metaphor and idiom database. Mimicking my speech is one thing, scaring the hell out of me is another." I searched for a better position, hoping to either be able to go to the aid of Elise and Path or get past the inner perimeter to reach the tech shrine. Neither seemed possible.

"I resent that, Reaper Cain. I worked very hard to assimilate your personality while still functioning rationally. It wounds me that you would want to reset my humor files,” X-37 said.

"I'm definitely removing any of the moodiness algorithms from your software," I said, settling down into a squatting position where I had a good view of my objective. The darkness closed around me, but I felt like I should be activating the stealth quote again soon.

"Like you could," X-37 said. "Put on the Reaper mask, I dare you."

Something was wrong. "X, you don't seem like yourself."

"There is a rogue snippet of code that I missed when we deciphered the last message on the third base," X-37 said. "It's tagged sister’s dare. I've been resisting the urge to push you harder by calling you names and making rather juvenile jokes about your manhood."

"Tell me that again, the part about how it was tagged in the code?" I demanded.

"I can't find it now, but when I can grab hold of the data stream, it is clearly designated as some type of dare from someone known as sister."

"Alright, try not to lose it next time you run into it. In the meantime, double check your own security. I need you at one hundred percent. It's nearly game time. And if you can, tell Elise to march back to the ship and wait for me, or take the ship back in the space and wait for me, or do anything but come up here and get herself killed. Path can do whatever he wants. He’s still on my shit list.”

"I will relay all of those various non-focused messages to your friends," X-37 said. "If you wear the mask, you may communicate with them more directly. You will have greater range and a stronger connection. You will also be able to link to their sensory inputs to a certain degree and see what they're saying."

Shaking my head in weary frustration, I pulled the mask from my gear and examined it. Holding it in both hands, I thought it looked like it was watching me, waiting for me, holding secrets that I needed to know.

Images of what had happened to Thane when his mask went off-line made me flinch. Elise really hadn't been joking when she said she was wondering if this thing would melt my face. It didn't take much of the right type of acid to do a lot of damage to eyes and facial nerves. But how the mask killed, if it did, was by suffocation.

I slipped it on and waited. My heart pounded and I fought to control my breathing. For several long moments, everything was darkness. Then came a flash of blue that reminded me of nearly jumping off the ship.

When the visual sensations receded, I saw the canyon in a whole new way.

Above me, where I could glance up and see details, was a detailed three-dimensional map of the entire maze. With a little effort, I was able to zoom in and see right where I needed to go. I also saw my enemy units marked as known threats, or suspected threats where there apparently wasn't perfect information. Elise and Path were easy to find as green dots.

"Okay, so I didn't die. Can you give me the camera feeds?" I asked.

"Stand by one moment," X-37 said. "You should be getting the feed from Elise's camera. I don't recommend trying to watch both her and Path at the same time. There should be an icon you can look at for only a fraction of a second longer than normal that will activate a camera switch between their units."

The ocular manipulation of control screens wasn't new. I just hadn't expected it from the mask. If I could master the use of it, this would be a powerful tool.

Heartbeats later, I saw the world through the camera Elise was wearing on her helmet. She was moving through a canyon. I glanced up at the three-dimensional diagram the mask provided of the maze system and got a bead on her location. Seeing it on the map was different from knowing what it looked like on the ground.

"This thing is pretty nice. I wish we would've had it functional before now," I said.

"It does seem to be working well the closer you get to the tech shrine," X-37 said. "At least that is my perception. I'm continuing to run tests and measurements to see if this hypothesis is correct."

"Cain for Elise, how do you copy?" I asked.

"Cain? You sound like you're close," she said, sounding surprised. “The connection is almost better than it is on the ship.”

"I'm wearing the mask," I admitted.

I could tell she flinched because her camera angle bobbed.

"Is that a good idea? Never mind. I'm with Path. We're coming to help you," she said.

"I understand," I said. "X-37 let me in on your little plan. The best thing you can do, honestly, Elise, is take Path back to the ship and be ready when I come running. I can't do my job if I have to see the two of you every time I turn around."

She answered me with profanity and cold logic.

I waited until she was done ranting. The Union troops had moved closer to me again and I needed to be quiet anyway. So it was easier to let her talk. Some of what she said made sense, but some of it was just her pride. She was a hothead, annoyed at me for taking what she considered an excessively direct course of action.

"The way is clear for you to talk," X-37 alerted me.

"Elise, can I talk?" I asked.

She ended her rant. "I thought we lost you already and I was just venting. Sorry. You can forget about half of what I just said."

"I had to be quiet to avoid getting detected by Union troops. You might want to consider your own noise discipline as you get closer to the tech shrine."

She spoke more softly, despite the sound muffling capabilities of her helmet. "That's a good idea."

"I've already given X-37 orders to focus on planning our escape from the planet. If I'm asking him to do that, can you accept that I need you to focus on getting away rather than coming to help me?"

"I wish you would stop treating me like a girl," she said. "You can't do this by yourself."

"She is correct," X-37 said privately.

"You're right, Elise. So let's do this together. Let's work as a team. Go back to the ship, get everything ready, and start building contingency plans for things that are going to go wrong no matter how much we plan for them."

"Hold on. I see the first Union soldier.” Her camera showed a man crouched by a boulder with a complicated-looking array of scanners mounted on a tripod. She backed up. "I can't get past that, but I have a better idea."

"I don't think I'm going to like your idea," I said.

She laughed under her breath, clearly pleased with herself.

"I blame this on you, X," I muttered.

Elise spoke before my limited artificial intelligence could respond to my jab. "Path, I can't see you. Are you here?"

She turned her camera and eventually located the sword saint, standing still as a statue in one of the shadows cast from the maze canyon walls.

"I am here," he answered.

"Okay, good. X, I need your help for this part," she said. "I need you to broadcast some kind of signal to convince them Cain is with us. Maybe replay one of our arguments or something. Make them work for it so they believe they hacked into our comms without us knowing it. Then we're going to lead them away so Cain can get into that shrine."

"I can do that," X-37 said. "It sounds like fun. With the increased range from the mask, I should be able to maintain this for several kilometers from where you start."

"Perfect," Elise said.

The next few minutes were surreal as I watched, through Elise's camera, how she baited a squad of Union soldiers and then retreated into the canyons. Path never showed himself. I had to admit he was a natural at stealth. X replayed an argument I'd had with Elise over a less secure radio frequency and I could tell the Union heard it.

Soon all but a few of the security team around the tech shrine were in pursuit.

"They're not going to commit to this unless they think it's really me," I said to X privately. “Snippets of garbled radio traffic won't fool them for long."

"Agreed," X-37 said. "You should flip over and watch Path’s camera feed. He has killed two of the Union commandos with his blade. If I'm interpreting their encrypted radio chatter correctly, they are already attributing the deaths to the Reaper blade."

I shuddered at the thought of being hunted in the night. It was a good thing for my enemies to feel. Maybe I liked the idea more than I should. This might actually work.

I moved carefully to the entrance to the tech shrine complex. It was a mixture of natural rock and clever construction from several technological eras. I could see the main building over the tops of some of the rocks, but it was farther away than it seemed. Once I got past this checkpoint, I hoped the remainder of the mission would be easy.

Two rock towers created a kind of natural gateway. I passed through without incident then stopped watching the camera feeds for the moment. I needed to pay attention to what I was doing. X-37 gave me concise updates on the progress of the running gun battle. My respect for Elise went up when I realized that she had brought more ammunition than most civilians would think necessary for a mission. It also seemed like she had convinced Path to carry extra magazines, even if he didn't want to use firearms for himself.

Muzzle flashes dotted the darkness, reflecting up from valleys and canyons to illuminate the night sky whenever they engaged each other. The sound of the battle seemed distant and unreliable, like the noise often came from more than one direction due to echoes and raw distance.

"Put your long-term planning on hold for a second and help me monitor my environment. I need to pick up the pace. It won't do us any good if Elise and Path get caught before I get this done."

"Of course," X 37 said.

I took off at a run, weaving downward through the twisting stone trail in search of the heart of the shrine. There were pillars lining the trail that looked ancient but were infused with advanced technology. I could see heatsinks and antennas woven into the rock.

This planet was far beyond Union-controlled space or even the Deadlands, but somebody had been here before us. I wondered if that was the reason they placed the secret Reaper facilities in the system or if it was what had destroyed them. I couldn’t help but wonder who had made them.

I needed to focus on why I was here. There was a mystery to solve and the clues all pointed in this direction.

Several hundred meters beyond the entrance that the dark ops troopers had been guarding, I found the strangest valley I'd ever seen. It looked as though a lava flow had created a huge bowl deep in the ground. It had cracked and split apart over time, leaving what looked like a footpath over an abyss.

"Each of those sections are the top of a spire that has been carved flat," X-37 said. "Since I know how you love data, I can tell you that most of the steps that I have measured thus far are less than a half meter across with a five-hundred-meter drop between the spires. It seems there was some sort of geological incident thousands of years ago."

"You know how I feel about heights," I said.

"Which I still find irrational," X-37 said. "My advice is to hurry up and get it over with. What's the worst that could happen?"

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28

I tried to jump across the first gap but couldn't make my feet move. Above me, the stars seemed to start turning like the ledge I was standing on was swaying from side to side.

"Take a breath, Reaper Cain," X-37 said. "It will get easier the more you do it."

"I doubt it," I said. "I've been dealing with this my entire life. There isn't much that scares me, but once I fall, I won't have any control over what happens."

"Yes, that is a problem." X-37 beeped a few times, indicating he was searching for a solution, which made me laugh. My limited artificial intelligence might seem heartless and uncaring, but he was trying to solve the problem of gravity so that I wouldn't be afraid of plummeting to my death.

"Check on Elise while I do this," I said, then jumped to the top of the first spire. It seemed like it was smaller than the others, requiring me to land with my feet very close together and my hands out for balance to keep from tipping over into the abyss. To make things worse, I didn't have any room to make a run at the next jump.

"Would you like me to release endorphins that will control your bladder?" X-37 said.

I started laughing, but it felt more like crying. "Do whatever, X. But if I had to choose, I would like to have my hands steady over dry pants."

I flung myself to the next ledge and landed on my hands and knees, looking over the edge of the spire into blackness. In the distance, I heard gunfire of an increasingly violent battle between Elise, Path, and our enemies.

"Perhaps I can do both. I'm attempting to regulate your hormones and adjust the sensory input of the mask to make this easier for you," X-37 said. "By way of update, Elise and Path are still alive. They seem to have greatly angered the Union commandos, however."

I climbed to my feet and jumped to the next spire before I could talk myself out of taking action. This one was wider and gave me more room to run before my next leap. Which was good, because the distance between spires was getting greater and greater.

"For the record, X, I find this really annoying. Why can’t I just fight a big monster or maze boss? Maybe solve a Randandoo Puzzle or something to prove my worth. Twisting an eighteen-sided puzzle to make each surface a uniform color didn’t seem that hard right now—not compared to my fear of heights. Did they build it this way on purpose as a security measure, or did some idiot think this would be funny?"

"Unknown," X-37 said too brightly. "You are nearly thirty percent across the spires. I should warn you that the available surface to land on becomes larger but rougher as you progress."

"Good to know." I felt like I was more than a third of the way across. X-37 did things like this sometimes, making things seem harder than they were so that I felt relieved when I finally succeeded. It was like somebody's kid programmed half of its artificial psychology.

"I think you can handle it from here, Reaper Cain," X-37 said. "I'm going to resume my planning of our escape from the system and monitor Elise and Path. If you're interested, she has dropped two Union commandos and Path has killed eleven. They are very convinced a Reaper is toying with them."

"How many do they have left?" I asked, doing the math as a way to distract myself from the next jump.

"I forgot to tell you. The Union teams received reinforcements from the carrier,” X-37 admitted in a rush. "But how are you doing? Do you need help calculating your next leap across certain death?"

Was X trying to distract me from certain doom?

"No, I'm good. Get back to work and I'll let you know if I die," I said, then jumped three spires one after another, hoping that some momentum would get me through this before I had a nervous breakdown.

I would rather be in a sword fight with Uriah and three others like him than continue to jump across these windy gaps. The air had a way of grabbing me at exactly the wrong time and stripping away my confidence. Then, when I struck my landing zone, the impact felt even harder for being unexpected.

Reaching the other side almost came as a surprise, but suddenly I found myself on solid ground once more. The doors to the tech shrine loomed higher than I had anticipated. The strangeness of the terrain made getting a proper perspective difficult until you were close to your objective.

Something hissed at me. Seconds later, I saw three serpent-like things—long lizards with no legs or arms—emerging from the shadows, slithering through the air as they hunted me. I couldn't see the parts of them that were still on the ground and assumed they were very long and relatively thick, probably almost as solid as my right forearm.

“Fucking lizards! Not a fan of armless, legless lizards!” My voice went up higher than I would have liked as I realized they were all part of one creature.  “But after what I just went through, this is like actually a relief," I said, snapping out my blade and getting my act together.

The rest of the creature showed itself. I made a quick adjustment then turned and ran away. There wasn't a lot of space for me to evade the monster, but I needed time to think.

"You did say something like you'd rather fight some local creature than continue on the agility course," X-37 reminded me. "A quick check of Union and Deadland databases shows no match for whatever this thing is. It does look hungry, if that helps."

"It doesn't help!" Turning to face its charge, I retracted my blade and swung up my HDK. Firing the weapon would alert the Union of my presence and ruin everything Elise and Path had done to get me here.

There wasn't much of a choice. I opened fire on eight feet of slithering animal tentacles that were chasing me. Every three or four shots, I retreated a step. I reloaded two magazines before dropping the thing to the rock surface we stood on.

Each of the serpent-lizards had an eye above the mouth. I thought it looked blind—all milky and disgusting—but it had somehow chased me this far. "X, can you tell me if there are any more of these things?"

"I didn't detect the first one," X-37 said, halfway answering my question. "Two squads of the Union reinforcements have been deployed to investigate the gunfire."

There wasn't time, but I indulged myself with a view of Elise's camera. She was breathing heavily, shooting, moving, and reestablishing her cover just like I had taught her. I was actually surprised at how tactical her movements were.

Maybe she was a natural or just had a really great teacher. On-the-job training suited her well, apparently.

I couldn't determine exactly how much ammunition she had remaining, or if she was wounded. To see her clearly, I would need to look through Path’s camera and it didn’t appear they were near each other now, which was good. If they bunched close together, the Union would just drop a grenade on them.

With effort, I put aside thoughts of my friends and moved to the final portal in search of the secrets that haunted me.

Something hissed, filling the air with a dreadful sound I was too familiar with at the moment.

I stopped, turning slightly to see one of the rough passages opening near me. Above, bright stars cast down their light to create disturbing shadows on the monster.

This cluster of monster tentacles was twice the size of the first. Its bulbous head had writhing, fleshy tendrils, more horrible than anything I’d yet seen.

Every part of its surface was a writhing mass of vine-like organisms—with mouths full of razor-sharp teeth. It shambled forward, leaving a path of slimy venom behind it.

“What the—” I started to yell.

“Use a grenade!” X-37 shouted. “Do I have to throw it for you?”

“I wish you could!” I didn’t carry much ordnance like that, and it definitely wasn’t my go-to combat modality, but thankfully I’d packed a few in my kit. Retreating and angling away at the same time, I yanked a grenade from inside my coat and hurled it into the thing’s mouth.

Then I just ran, not caring which direction I was heading. As long as it was toward the center of the tech shrine complex, it had to be enough. Silence followed the explosion and I imagined the creature’s massive head being splattered across a canyon wall. I didn’t look back, focusing on running when all I wanted to do was stop and breathe.

I’d gone nearly fifty meters before the thing roared again, its voice distorted by the damage I’d caused it with the grenade. The fact that it wasn’t dead made me want to curse.

The monster wasn’t fast. I heard it screeching in pain and eventually lost it, nearly losing myself as well. A clean kill would have been better, but at least I’d slowed the thing down enough to escape.

Each time I approached my destination, I was forced back twice as far as I’d come. Everything on this planet was against me, from the wildlife to the terrain. Or that was what it felt like. The morning stars began to fade, creating a new level of darkness just before the dawn.

“You’re going to make it, Reaper Cain. My analysis of the maze shows you are definitely getting closer,” X-37 said.

“It sure as hell doesn’t feel like it. This is like trying to take out a high interest loan,” I complained.

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29

The final barrier swung smoothly aside despite its age and ancient design. I'd been able to see the tower above the maze walls as I made my approach. The diagram the Reaper mask had provided promised that nothing was between this point and the tower in the center of the entire complex.

Entering with a sense of reverence, I swept my gaze over the scene to give X-37 a chance to record and process information. Sunrise hadn't arrived, but it was coming. There were hints of light reflecting everywhere—that sort of predawn haze that tricked the eyes until it was time for the sun to dominate the horizon.

The rock formed a bowl around the sleek hybrid tower at the center of the maze. The building was a perfect blend of ancient and innovative technology. I spotted rust-free alloys and solar panels that could gather energy. These were arranged between elaborate stone carvings that showed monsters with tentacles feeding on smaller, six legged animals that traveled the maze in a herd. There were mosaic tiles on one section and something like prefabricated plastic on another.

Birds hid themselves in scrub brush where they sang sadly sweet melodies. A breeze touched my skin. No one would suspect the place had been built for violence until they examined portholes I assumed were there so defenders could aim weapons. Other signs of it being made for defense were less obvious, like the way the area around it had been cleared of rocks, plant life, or other debris. Nothing could approach the place without being seen.

Standing in the center of the natural amphitheater, I saw how the place had been designed to keep intruders out for thousands of years. Without our advanced technology, the maze itself would've been enough to keep us from finding our way. The gates had been constructed to repel invaders with only a small force of defenders. I thought monsters must have been imported to the various sections of the maze and left to repopulate the area or wander away as nature called them. There didn’t seem to be a natural reason for the planet to produce so many predators in one place. Carvings on the walls and the exterior of the tech shrine suggested I was probably lucky to have come the way I did. Some of the creatures in the carvings and faded paintings appeared diabolically strange and dangerous.

What I realized then was that there must have been two civilizations on this planet. One had been technologically advanced, and the other less so.

Inside this tower, I would find answers of a different sort.

The journey to this place had been long and dark. The sun was rising and the sight of it stole away my breath. I had explored enough worlds to know that spring in the desert was beautiful. But it was still a desert and I was still alone.

"See anything that I’m missing, X?" I asked.

"No, Reaper Cain," X-37 said. "The instructions were to find the sanctuary and enter.”

"What if she's in there?" I asked.

X-37 took longer than normal to answer. "I don't think she will be there. It's more likely she left you a message or another clue."

I grunted. Another clue was the last thing I wanted.

The tower was glorious, an elegant design that could grace the prow of a starship as easily as the center of a palace. In flight, it would look one way, but pointed toward the sky as it was, I saw it differently and wondered if it had been a launch rocket before being permanently affixed to the maze floor. Everything about the area suggested this was an ancient place. Soft blue light glowed from the frame of the doorway.

"What do you think, X?" I asked, pretending more confidence than I felt. There was no detectable danger on any of my sensors, but my gut told me this place wasn’t safe. I wasn’t about to let my guard down, but neither did I want to go slow.

"This is the center of the tech shrine. You will find answers here or you won't," X-37 said. "I don't believe we have a lot of time before the commando teams finish with Elise and Tom and head our way. My concern is we will find more information than we can analyze on scene."

Activating the Reaper mask, I checked on Elise and Path. They were making good time, leading the Union commandos farther and farther away. My heart raced when I realized she was favoring a wound in her side.

Path cut down two of his adversaries, then rushed toward Elise. A bullet struck him, driving him to his knees. Both camera angles displayed confused images as their wearers fought to survive. Elsie sprayed her HDK on full auto, forcing back their attackers. They leaned on each other and staggered up a set of natural stairs.

“I have to do something, X,” I said.

“Check your tactical display. It isn’t as bad as it looks on the camera view,” X-37 said.

“Not as bad?” I shouted, cursing myself for not getting control of the girl and the sword saint.

“Calm yourself, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said sternly.

I was about to abandon my mission to go and help them, when I heard her.

“We’re almost to safety, Cain. If you can hear me, meet us at the Jellybird!”

X-37 knew which camera view I was fixated on. "There's nothing we can do for her right now, Reaper Cain. Trust her decision. Stop treating her like a child.”

“She is a child!”

“With a machine gun and a lot of ammunition. We can’t help her from here. There is nothing for us to do but continue,” X said.

“Let's get this done with," I snapped, then entered the tower.

A single computer terminal waited for me in the center of a large room. Climbing to the dais, I knew I was at my destination.

I stared at it as the sounds of combat continued in my earpiece. X-37 lowered the volume, but it still tortured me.

Screams and explosions filled my awareness. “What the hell are you doing, Elise?”

“It’s not me, it’s Path. He can’t get free of them. Or maybe they’re trying to get free of him. Hard to say!” Elise yelled, then fired a stream of bullets toward a vague target that appeared to be a Union commando.

“Listen to me if you can, Elise,” I said. “I am in the central tower. I’ve made it. Don’t take any further risks because you’re trying to pull them away from me. Just get to the ship.”

A long pause followed. I started to pace, wanting to go forward and learn the secrets I had long desired answered but also desperately needing to see Elise and even Path to safety.

“Okay, Cain,” Elise said. “We’re trying to break contact and get out of here. See you at the ship.”

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30

The sounds of battle dwindled. Light shone down on the terminal before me. X-37 nagged me to get this over with. With fewer explosions to cover the sounds of local wildlife, I heard the tentacle beast screeching in the wrong direction from my location. It was either as stupid as it looked or having a grenade tossed into its mouth had ruined its sense of direction. The victory felt thin and abstract. I wanted out of this place and off this planet. The sooner I poured myself a glass of whisky and fired up one of Henshaw’s cigars, the better.

I powered down the stealth armor and reached for the mask.

A soft voice interrupted me, a voice that instantly commanded my attention because I recognized it as the most important woman I’d ever had in my life. “You’ll need to leave the mask on.”

Nothing could make this moment more serious, more momentous, more…

“Is that your mom?” X-37 asked. “Because I’ve never actually heard her. You don’t exactly talk about her much.”

“X, I’m going to kill you,” I said. “Now is the time you mimic my shit talking? Really? Nice timing, X. I’m trading you in for a new model the first chance I get.”

“Touchy, touchy,” X-37 shot back. “And you can’t trade me in, Reaper Cain.”

I ignored my LAI and listened again for the voice, stepping closer to the terminal and trying not to succumb to needless emotion. I needed to stay sharp and make good decisions. This was probably a trick.

“Your limited artificial intelligence will make this easier. I see you brought the key to the data storage but not the actual unit. That will make things a bit slower,” the voice said.

I could almost touch the terminal now, but didn’t see a reason. “Bringing the data drive on a dangerous reconnaissance mission didn’t seem like a good idea.”

“Of course not,” said the voice of my mother.

“Are you a recording? A mockup?” I asked, referring to advanced messaging devices that had been popular in the Union ten or twelve years ago. They’d gained some traction with the military, then proved to be too expensive and fell out of favor.

“Something like that, but don’t turn away. I have information you need,” she said.

These types of devices did more than just replay words. They could maintain a conversation within certain parameters. In short, it was going to tell me something and answer my questions if I asked the right ones.

“I’m contacting your limited artificial intelligence and requesting assistance in linking with the data device you left on your ship, which fortunately is within range of this procedure,” the voice said.

I walked around the terminal, studying the area for lack of something better to do. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see her. Would an image of what she had looked like when this was made comfort me or upset me?

I didn’t know.

“You’ll need to dock the mask with the terminal,” she said.

I was too tired to argue, so I stepped near the terminal, bowed my head, and waited until the mask linked up.

A dreamlike image of my mother appeared and she began to tell me a story.

* * *

“Your father and I were proud of you when you graduated from basic training and amazed at how well you did in spec ops,” she said.

“I don’t want to hear this,” I muttered.

X-37 kept silent for once, and my mother’s voice hesitated only slightly.

“You must, Halek,” she said.

I let out a long breath and waited.

“We followed every mission you ever went on, staying out of your career and your life as you had told us to when you left,” she said.

I really didn’t want to think about that day. There had been shouting and harsh promises that I’d never return to Night City.

“Your father and I had our own careers. Things took a dark turn. Threats were made. They took your sister first, keeping her from us for almost six months before we found her and got her back,” my mother’s voice said. The emotion seemed real, but I knew it wasn’t.

“Your father and I made a pact. We took precautions. We made plans. We secured alliances, and then we had to make hard decisions,” she said. “All three of us would’ve been captured if he hadn’t fought them. The promise they made when the bargaining broke down was that they would always torture two for the compliance of one.”

I wanted to throw up. I’d heard of the tactic. During one of our rare team parties, several of the Reapers swore never to use that tactic. I learned later that only three of us had stuck to the agreement. There were plenty of other ways to gain compliance or force a confession. Why take hostages when the pain could be applied directly to the target? Few people could resist torture, despite what the action-holos depicted.

Thinking of what had been happening to my mother and sister made me want to scream in rage and charge headlong toward the Union soldiers still hunting Elise and Path.

“But we got away, for a time. They caught me next, then your sister. Before long, we escaped again, and again, and again. That seems to be our life. Escape and evasion. If you’re listening to this message, however, it means that I failed to contact you and that we are likely dead or in their custody.”

My knees went weak. I nearly fell away and broke the connection between the mask and the tech shrine terminal.

“I found this place and hid tools you might use to help us—and failing that, get revenge,” she said. “By now, the data device is opening up to your limited artificial intelligence and your ship computer. You will find significant upgrades to all of your Reaper hardware and technology that can be fabricated if you find the right materials and tools. You’ll need a talented crew, someone who can build anything, and an army. It seems like an impossible task, but it is the only way left to do it.”

My blood iced. This was what she was going to leave me with?

“I love you, Halek. So did your father. As long as I live, I will seek you and your sister. I will do anything to make this galaxy safe for you. If I have already failed, then please forgive me.”

I could barely hear the last words with the blood roaring in my ears.

“Jelly is sending us a message, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “She sends her compliments and requests your presence on the ship—like yesterday if not sooner. Elise and Path are in serious trouble.”

I stared at the ancient terminal as its power went off. I heard X but couldn’t bring myself to respond.

“She’s gone,” X-37 said. “And she wasn’t really there in the first place, if you want to get technical.”

“I don’t want to get technical, X. I want you to shut the hell up.” I stepped back and removed the Reaper mask. The moment it came off, I knew I had all the answers I was going to get there. Sure I could seek more of the residual images that had led me there, but my gut told me they would be wiped once the message box finished installing Reaper upgrades and data packs. That was where I would need to look for answers and it would take a while. “All right, X. Going after Elise and Path. Try to keep up.”

“I go where you go, Reaper Cain. But I think I take your meaning,” X-37 said.

OceanofPDF.com

31

Avoiding the creatures of the maze was harder than I anticipated. My grenade driving off their boss had brought others out of their holes. My guess was that lesser predators had been wary to trespass in the tentacle monster’s domain. Now they were fighting over scraps, probably hungry enough to eat a lone Reaper. At many intersections, I was forced to alter course, often climbing over tops of walls or through narrow tunnels to get where I needed to go. In other places I had to work with X to decode high tech barriers, traps that would cut me in half with spring-loaded blades or blast me with enough energy to cook my bones. As always, the place was a mixture of high and low tech dangers.

Both options promised to be easy solutions to maze navigation, but never were. Reach a dead end? Just climb over it. Arrive at a modern blast door at the end of a subterranean passage, just hack the security code with the help of an LAI.  Traveling in a straight line was more difficult than it should be with all the tools and skills I had at my disposal. Mazes sucked.

X-37 helped. Which basically meant I would’ve never escaped without his constant guidance.

We found Elise and Path less than a hundred meters from the Jellybird, but with their backs to the wall of the maze. One of the officers was shouting orders, demanding they reveal my hiding place.

“What a douche,” I muttered.

“I was going to call him an overly efficient and energetic officer of the Union spec ops community,” X-37 said.

“Seriously?” I wondered.

“You never get my jokes,” X-37 complained.

“Tell one that’s funny,” I suggested.

“Maybe later. I have something more important than your entertainment. Jelly says the Union force has a team at the center of the tech shrine now,” X-37 said.

I snapped my fingers. “They just missed us.”

“What’s the plan?” X-37 asked.

I powered on the stealth cloak and slid the Reaper mask into place. “Let’s see how this works when I have three camera views to guide my movements.”

“I bet you can’t get within knife range,” X-37 challenged.

“You know I can,” I said, creeping forward.

It was a matter of following the terrain, pausing when Union troops nearly stumbled upon me, and then singling out small groups to take out with my blade and pistol.

I took out the first fire team without incident, but the next was able to send up an alarm. The entire spec ops platoon mobilized and began searching for me. I pitched my last grenade as a distraction, then jumped the other direction into a machine gun nest they had set up.

Blood spurted into the air as I went to work with my blade. Their armor was good, but I was working myself into a rage. The slaughter was seemingly caused by an invisible blur of vengeance. The effects of the stealth cloak didn’t last long after things got messy, but I had already hit them with a healthy dose of shock and awe. Even elite commandos had a line their courage couldn’t cross.

The combat zone I’d selected would look like the spokes of a wheel from above with the main action in the center. I slipped into one of the spokes and wiped blood from the stealth cloak. Being invisible made things so much easier.

“That’s not necessary,” X-37 advised. “The cloak will adjust if you just stand still for a moment.”

I did as my LAI asked, but knew it wasn’t going to work. Two of the commandos followed the bloody footprints I left on the ground.

“Why is he just standing there?” one of the commandos asked, edging forward with his gun up and ready.

“Archangel Five, we have him in a side passage. All units respond to my location,” the second commando said.

The cloak flickered. I dropped low and moved sideways just as the first commando fired.

He was too close for his own good. I lunged forward, swinging my blade upward as I moved. The sharp edge slashed through his groin and up his abdomen. I spun away as Archangel Five fired at where I logically should have been to cause the injuries to his friend.

One bullet grazed me, but the rest pounded into the armor of my first victim.

The Archangel Five shuffled sideways, seemingly searching for my stealth cloak.

I dropped and rolled.

He fired.

Three additional commandos rushed around the corner.

Already a step to one side of the one shooting at me, I sliced off his head then dropped to my stomach immediately. Archangel Five was zero now.

The three newcomers fired.

I scrambled toward them like an enraged animal on all fours.

One man recognized the blur of my stealth cloak and kicked out with his boot right before I reached the group. A half second later he aimed his rifle downward and opened fire, nearly blowing off his own toes and sending gravel fragments into his teammates.

Rolling sideways, I slashed the back of his lead boot, neatly severing the Achilles tendon.

He collapsed.

I snatched his rifle, came to my feet, and leapt over him to attack the other two—stepping on one man’s shoulder to propel myself up to a rocky ledge where I watched and waited.

It was easy to see from this close proximity they wore Union spec ops gear. It was sleek and the way they moved, I thought the armor was enhancing their strength. On their breastplates was an icon resembling an angel.

“Archangels down! Archangels down!” one shouted into his helmet comms.

The other switched his rifle to full-auto and sprayed a line in the air where he thought I was.

I aimed the stolen rifle but it wouldn’t fire.

“Don’t tell me you have your hands full at the enemy ship! We need help now! We are heavily engaged with our primary target! Respond immediately!” the commando shouted loudly enough that I could hear him through his helmet. Or maybe he’d forgotten to turn off his external speaker. My ears were ringing, so it was hard to say what I was actually picking up and what I was guessing at to fill the gaps. Combat could be like that, an exercise in painful reality and mind twisting illusion.

The two commandos—archangels or whatever they called themselves—backed toward the wall, aiming their weapons in front of them.

When they were near enough, I dropped down and slashed through both of their necks in one sweeping arc of my blade. The bodies pitched forward. I considered stealing their weapons but already knew I couldn’t use them.

“Elise, get to the ship. Now,” I ordered, retreating from a new Union pincer attack. “How many of these commandos are there, X?”

“Fewer than there were before,” X-37 said. “Fourteen on the planet, more than enough to kill you if you slip up.”

I exited the wheel shaped section of the maze and faded back in the shadows, looking for a way to the ship. I minimized the HUD view of what my friends were doing nearer the Jellybird and listened to X-37, turning when he advised me to turn. Every five or ten meters, I took cover, looked behind me for pursuit, and then resumed my desperate dash through the confusing landscape.

My reward was the sight of Elise running up the ramp of the Jellybird. Right behind her was Path, holding a spot on his shoulder that was leaking blood. He started walking backward to check for pursuit.

“Get on the ship,” he said, voice loud enough to be heard but not emotional enough to be called a shout.

“I’m going to the weapons locker for more ammunition!” she yelled back, her voice sounding dry and faint due to the distance between us.

Path was clearly wounded but he held his sword in one hand at the top of the ramp, ready to take all comers. Reaching across his body to hold the shoulder wound emphasized that he didn’t have much fight left. The injuries I was able to see were numerous and there were probably more that I couldn’t see.

I made a move for the ship, hoping I wasn’t drawing my pursuers after me. Just because I hadn’t seen any Union commandos for a while didn’t mean they weren’t coming—and if they were, it was a good bet they were really pissed off.

“Jelly has advised she is ready for liftoff. We agree that their small arms fire will not damage the ship,” X-37 said.

“You’re sure?” I asked, picking up the pace.

“Reasonably sure,” X-37 said. “Jelly also has used her sensors to determine they are regrouping. Unless you want to stay on this delightful planet, it’s time to make a run for it.”

“You don’t have to ask me twice,” I said, then darted toward the ramp. Maybe Elise could smoke me in the gym, but I doubted anyone could’ve caught me when I was running for my life. I hit the ramp hard, slamming my feet on the metal.

Diving, rolling, I came to my feet inside the ship. Elise and Path blocked any possible pursuit and closed the ramp.

“Get us out of here, Jelly!” I ordered, running for the bridge. “X, it’s time for that brilliant escape plan you’ve been working on!”

“I’m way ahead of you, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “Everything has been set in motion. All we need to do now is evade a few of the Union fighters while Henshaw and the Lady Faith do their part.”

“You put our fate in the hands of an untrustworthy gambler and a pleasure yacht? What the hell am I paying you for, X?”

“I’m ignoring that question,” X-37 said. “Henshaw is a master of deception, as you have so succinctly mentioned. He’s a genius with ocular engineering—a master of manipulating visual imagery.”

“I don’t get your point,” I said, taking manual controls from Jelly. “This is going to get rough. All shields forward.”

I rammed Jelly’s heavier shield against the shield of the first fighter to intercept us, sending it pinwheeling through the upper atmosphere. Others vectored in on us with more caution. Jelly fired at them with her anemic point-defense system.

“We really need to work on that,” I said. “How much can a few more auto-cannons cost?”

“Henshaw’s plan should be taking effect in moments,” X-37 said, ignoring my speculation about upgrading Jelly’s firepower.

“And what exactly is that?” I asked, picking the best course I could find and pushing the engines hard.

“Well, as the Lady Faith explained it to the Jellybird, the ocular engineer is sending out messages to anyone in the spec ops carrier group who has any type of ocular modifications. He’s also worked out some hacks that will trick their computers briefly,” X-37 explained.

He didn’t have to finish. I saw the fleet drawing into a defensive perimeter, with a few even firing at enemies that weren’t there. I adjusted my plan and headed for the nearest slip tunnel.

“Cain for Henshaw, can you read me?” I asked.

“I can read you loud and clear, Hal,” Henshaw responded, sounding tired and not at all happy with what he was doing.

“Is it too early to say thanks?” I asked, running to my flight checks as I spoke.

“Not at all. Thank me anytime you like,” he said.

“You don’t sound excited about it,” I observed.

“I’m not, but it’s the right thing to do. I’ve chosen sides, and if this doesn’t prove which, I don’t know what else to do to prove I’m not a total rascal,” Henshaw said. “They are starting to unravel the problem I caused them. They won’t be able to operate at maximum efficiency, but they are on their way to catching us. The Nightmare is fast. Let’s hope her crew doesn’t crack the sensory illusions I hacked into their computers any time soon. The Lady Faith assures me she has the speed to escape unless they find a miracle in their favor and they start after us sooner than anticipated. I can’t speak for the speed of your ship.”

“I think we’ll squeak by,” I said, tracking rockets as they were fired from the carrier. Some of them seemed not to be directed at imaginary enemies now, but at us despite the impossible range. Someone was taking a desperate shot because it was all they could do. “It’ll be close, but we will see you at the slip tunnel. After that, we can talk about future alliances.”

OceanofPDF.com

32

The whisky burned as it went down. Stars pretended to be motionless just a few billion light years from the observation deck. Smoke from my last Starbrand Premium drifted toward the ceiling of the observation deck.

“You’re drunk,” X-37 accused.

“You’re fucking brilliant. How did you figure that out?” I asked, taking a pull on the cigar, causing the ember to glow red.

Elise, Tom, Path, and Henshaw were on the Lady Faith eating a twenty-seven-course meal, or something near enough to be no different. For all his moodiness, Henshaw knew how to celebrate once we were sure we’d escaped.

I thought about my mother, my father, and my sister. It was nice to think they were alive and happy, and I was nearly drunk enough to believe it.

One was dead, brutally murdered by a cabal I hadn’t known about and didn’t understand now that I was onto them. They’d created the Reaper Corps, used us, then killed, imprisoned, or banished us all.

They had my mother and sister hostage. Sure they’d escaped a few times, but no one could evade the Union forever.

Not even the last Reaper.

Sooner or later, I would have to fight. And to do that, I needed a crew. I needed a fleet. I needed an army.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying the Starbrand Premium,” X-37 declared.

I believed my limited artificial intelligence this time. He had a habit of nagging me about health issues but maybe he’d figured out that I needed to decompress, put things behind me, and just forget about what I was for a while.

“Thanks, X. You’re the best semi-imaginary digital friend a person could have.” I slurred the words.

“Promise you won’t get angry with me,” X-37 said.

“I can’t imagine what you could do to make me cross with you right now,” I said, staring at the star field and thinking about everything I’d learned.

“There’s a case of premium Starbrand cigars and a whisky closet behind a hidden door to the captain’s quarters,” X-37 said.

“What?” I jerked upright, slamming my feet on the deck. “How long have you known this?”

“Since we boarded the Jellybird. I thought you were trying to quit both vices and didn’t want to tempt you,” X-37 said.

I relaxed into my chair, chuckling under my breath. “This wasn’t a bad day, X. Let’s do it again soon.”

* * *

Keep reading for book four, WINGS OF THE REAPER.

For more updates on this series, be sure to join the Facebook Group, “J.N. Chaney’s Renegade Readers.”

OceanofPDF.com

Wings of the Reaper

OceanofPDF.com

Book Four of The Last Reaper Series

OceanofPDF.com

1

I understood the nightmare wasn’t real. The uprising on Carson’s World had been settled after an intense six-month battle against Sarkonian trained insurgents and regular military troops—most of which I’d missed after losing my arm on a bridge to Jeppa, a mining center where the unrest had started.

 Surviving the physical wounds had been hard enough. Facing what I had done, or more importantly, what I had failed to do, made the days long and lonely. My convalescent time was occupied by regret but also hope, because a tough, well respected lieutenant named Briggs had visited me and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

The sound of the Union artillery hammering the bridge haunted me at night. Worrying about the future tortured me all the godsdamned days.

I knew this wasn’t real because X-37 was with me, and the battle for Jeppa had been before the Reaper Corps. Jeppa had led me—or pushed me—into the program.

“It’s time to wake up,” X-37 advised.

“I can’t let her go,” I argued. “She has two little girls. They need her. We caused this. Jeppa is our fault.”

“My analysis gives her children a very reasonable chance for survival given the dynamics of this situation. Well over twenty-eight percent,” X-37 advised. “Let the woman go. You lack the strength to hold her for much longer and neither of you can survive the fall. Make a decision, Halek Cain.”

Artillery shells screamed down, slamming into the Jeppa side of the bridge. The woman from Jeppa stared at me without saying a word or begging for help. She was just there, seeming unreal and insubstantial.

Like my conscience.

“We are going to emerge from the slip tunnel without you on the bridge, Reaper Cain. Please rouse yourself or I will do it for you,” X-37 demanded.

“Get off my ass, X. I’m up,” I said, rolling out of bed and scanning my surroundings for threats until my brain caught up with my body.

“Very good, Reaper Cain. When you are done being a paranoid slacker, I will send a message to Jelly that you are on the way to the bridge,” X-37 said.

* * *

Emerging from the slip tunnel amazed me and filled me with hope every time. Even when I was being hunted by the most dangerous, most powerful psychopath in the Union.

Given the people I had associated with before getting betrayed and sentenced to death, that was saying a lot. Vice Admiral Nebs wasn’t going to quit until I was dead and all of my friends were captured for some dark Union purpose.

“I’m an asshole, X,” I muttered as I searched the navigation console for the next slip tunnel.

“Are you expecting me to argue?” X-37 asked. “It will take some time for me to gather evidence to contradict that statement. Unless of course you expect me to agree with you. If that’s what you want, I can gather plenty of data in a surprisingly short amount of time. Three or four seconds should be sufficient.”

“I see two slip tunnels within reach,” I said, ignoring my limited artificial intelligence and concentrating on the holographic readout. In Union space, and most of the Deadlands, the entrances to slip tunnels were well documented. Out here, we had to detect them through sensor readings.

X-37 had been with me for most of my adult life, since I’d left Union special operations, dark ops to be specific, and volunteered for the Reaper Corps. I’d been required to make sacrifices and do things that still haunted me.

“You should leave astro-navigation to Jelly and me,” X-37 advised. “If you do the math, the slip tunnel at location Delta-079-000-982 is nearly twenty-four hours farther away than Delta-079-000-979. They are also in different directions from our current location, forcing us to choose now rather than later.”

“Whatever,” I said. Our recent adventures had exhausted me physically and emotionally. I’d been spending far too much time on the bridge, barely allowing Tom to take a shift. He argued that Elise could take a turn. There wasn’t much during this part of the trip that couldn’t be handled by Jelly and only required a human as a safety check, someone to come wake me up if the wings started to come off or we were attacked.

Tom was right. X-37 was right. Everyone was right. This part of our escape was nothing but grinding it out and staying ahead. We should all be training for the next fight and resting as much as possible. But sleep wasn’t my friend.

About a week ago, I had introduced each member of Team Cain to ship-to-ship battle. We were still testing for aptitude, rotating through the assignments. Everyone needed to be multifaceted in the event I was no longer on the ship.

Nebs and his stealth carrier group were never far behind. A small mistake would result in our capture or destruction. Going head to head with squadrons of fighter jocks would get us killed quickly, despite how easy the holo movies made it look. But we would have to fight some— hopefully not much, like for thirty or forty seconds at most if I got to choose. 

It was quiet on the bridge now and I enjoyed watching the walls of slip tunnels. The holo view was smaller than on the observation deck, but equally high resolution. There was time to think, which was a good thing and a bad thing for a man who had been the Union’s ultimate assassin and enforcer.

It was hard not to regret some of the decisions I’d made. Youth, pride, and angry frustration at the state of the galaxy had provided me with a false sense of immortality. Believing I could make a difference was perhaps the most disappointing thing I’d ever done. Because that led me to becoming who and what I was.

“Unreasonable moodiness detected,” X-37 said.

“Now you’re just making shit up,” I countered.

“I dare you to prove me wrong,” X-37 said.

“Come on, X, we talked about this. You don’t understand what a dare is or how to use them,” I said.

“On the contrary, I have looked up the word and documented references to it in every known language. It is entirely reasonable that I understand its meaning and historic examples of its usage far better than you could if you dedicated your entire life to it,” X-37 said a bit pompously.

“How long did that take?” I said, suspecting what the answer would be.

“Eight minutes and two seconds, if you want to be exact,” X-37 said.

“And you’re still a dumb machine,” I said, closing out my workstation and sending a query requesting Tom and Elise report to the bridge.

“Are you attempting to hurt my feelings?” X-37 said. “Analysis of your tone and word choice indicates you are an offensive jerk-wad, but I should remind you that I am incapable of feeling emotions.”

“By that logic, there’s no need for me to apologize,” I said.

“And yet you have done that very thing three times since I was installed in your nerve-ware.” X-37 made a sound that was like someone leaving a mic open—one of his quirks I interpreted as an expectant pause, him waiting stubbornly for me to answer.

“Has to be more than three times,” I muttered.

“You are an asshole,” X-37 said like he was diagnosing a personality disorder or reading an instruction manual.

“Did I hurt your feelings, X?” I said, mentally shifting away from a conversation that was going nowhere.

“Of course not. I was merely reminding you of information you need to remember,” X-37 explained.

“Well, good job. Mission accomplished,” I said, stretching the kinks out of my back.

“The mechanic and your protégée are approaching the bridge,” X-37 advised. “I’ve been spying on them through Jelly’s internal surveillance system and they clearly agree with my assessment of your personality.”

“Does Jelly know you’re doing that?” For some reason, the thought of my people talking candidly about my asshole-ishness hurt more than it should.

“She does not. I would appreciate it very much if you didn’t tell her,” X-37 admitted.

The door to the small, cockpit-like bridge opened. Elise and Tom entered looking clean and refreshed.

Elise plopped down into the copilot chair. “I don’t know, Tom. With the Reaper hogging the bridge, I’m starting to enjoy all of my free time.”

She had started calling me Reaper instead of using my name. I wasn’t sure how long it would last, because she had tried several other nicknames during the last week and a half of evading Union stealth carriers.

“I can’t disagree with you, Elise. I’ve completed almost all of my side projects and feel more rested and well fed than I ever have in my life,” Tom said as he reviewed our flight logs. He turned to me. “We should head for the slip tunnel at Delta-079-000-982. We’ve been able to increase our lead slightly with each jump. The ship specs don’t show it, but the Jellybird is slightly faster than these carriers. Our lead will build up over time.”

“And get wasted the first time the Reaper makes one of his stupid mistakes,” Elise said. “Because he is a stubborn jerk who knows everything, apparently.”

I turned my captain’s chair to face them and crossed my arms, staring at them until neither of them looked like they were going to interrupt me with one of their increasingly annoying comments. “I can take a hint. And this bridge is starting to feel like a prison cell. One of you can have it for a while, as long as you keep us headed deeper into the area beyond the Deadlands.

Elise stared back at me, her tough girl act as good as ever. Tom looked worried but didn’t say anything. He’d already made his concerns about heading so far into unknown and uncharted regions of space clear. While there were raw materials aplenty, we didn’t have the ability to process many of them. In his opinion, which he had articulated very reasonably many times, we needed to find an outpost in the Deadlands where we could resupply and refuel without being betrayed to the Union.

I didn’t take the bait. Instead, I watched them without showing any emotion. X-37 had frequently advised me what kind of effect my dead-eyed stare had on most people.

Elise wasn’t just any teenage girl, but a runaway test subject who had survived more dangerous situations than many soldiers faced in a full career. She was average height for a young woman her age and was going through a short hairstyle phase with a lot of spikes and random colors. I thought Path might be having an effect on her fashion standards.

The sword saint was perhaps the oldest member of my associates. He was calm as a warrior monk on the inside and a psychedelic punk rocker on the outside. He had more piercings above the neck and glow strips in his hair than I’d ever seen before encountering him on Roxo III, a tube world station that was probably falling apart by now.

At the moment, it was just me, Elise, and Tom on the cockpit-style bridge of the Jellybird. Tom was infinitely more clean-cut than when we’d first met. He kept a conservative hairstyle and well-pressed jumpsuits normally issued to ship engineers. The only thing unusual today was that he didn’t have his tool belt.

Without any of his normal distractions, he began to fiddle with his hands and look away from me. Elise resisted longer, staring me down like she could do this all day.

When she finally broke, it was with all the teenage theatrics I’d come to expect from the girl.

“Oh, you’re so annoying! None of what I just said even bothered you? Did you learn that in the Reaper school or are you just normally that difficult?” Elise complained.

“For the record, we are in total agreement on the best tactic to escape Nebs and his stealth carriers. If something serious happens, you know I’ll listen to reasonable suggestions,” I said, stretching my arms above my head before letting out a long sigh. Then I dropped my hands abruptly into my lap. “Now that you mention it, I could use some time in the gym and then some sleep.”

“I’d be more than happy to take a shift,” Tom said, like the entire encounter had been preplanned. He took a seat, logged into one of the workstations, and immediately pulled up several view screens and holos that I was familiar with.

“The bridge computer is far more powerful than what I can access in my quarters,” Tom said. “If you have just a moment, I can update you on our progress with retrofitting a stealth cloak to the Jellybird.”

I faced Elise while Tom was getting set up. “Do you think I’m an asshole?”

Elise laughed and it warmed my Reaper heart. “Of course. But you’re our asshole.”

I had no idea what that meant but felt everything was okay between us—as okay as it ever would be.

Elise plopped down in a seat where Tom couldn’t see what she was doing, then rolled her eyes several times and jerked them toward Tom like I was supposed to get some sort of message.

“What?” I mouthed the word quietly.

She nodded her head more insistently toward Tom, then put on her angel face and quiet demeanor when he turned to look at her.

“Are you two up to something?” Tom asked, a half smile on his face, like he almost got the joke but wasn’t quite sure what was going on.

“I think Elise is going through second puberty,” I said.

She grabbed a datapad from one of the workstations and hurled it at me. I caught it easily and set it down.

Tom pulled up the schematics for the ship stealth mode interface and started to explain each detail. Elise pointed under my jacket where I kept the stealth cloak concealed. I knew what she wanted and it had nothing to do with Tom’s discussion. The stealth cloak and the stealth mode of the ship were totally different technology.

She was up to no good, hatching pranks and plots to keep life on the ship interesting. Because it could get pretty dull traveling slip tunnel after slip tunnel.

I drew my hand horizontally through the air and mouthed the word, Enough.

Elise crossed her arms and sat back like only a teenager could.

Tom continued to talk, noticing none of the interplay. “Henshaw’s design is surprisingly simple despite its brilliance,” he said. “Even so, I’m just a mechanical engineer with a reading habit and the compulsion to tinker with things. Look here. This graph you’re seeing right here displays the probability of success on a first trial.”

I watched the holo and listened carefully. Tom was a lot smarter than he would admit.

“That doesn’t look promising,” I observed.

He shrugged awkwardly. “But there is a chance. When we first started experimenting with this, it seemed impossible with what we had to work with. I’m telling you, the man is truly brilliant. When this goes live, it will be one-of-a-kind. Like I said, his design is complex in its simplicity.”

“Great,” I said.

“You don’t understand,” Tom said emphatically. “The more unique it is, the less likely the Union will be able to figure it out. They won’t be able to see through it.”

“Now that’s something we can use,” I said.

Tom almost blushed at the praise. “Well, that’s if we can get it online. Go on, get out of here. I’ve got the bridge. I can just review some notes and make a few sketches while Jelly does most of the hard work navigating the ship.”

I patted Tom on the shoulder as I stood to head for the door. “Let me know if you need me.”

Elise fell in beside me, swaggering with her usual overconfidence. The moment the door closed behind us, she spun to confront me, laughing as she pointed a finger and leaned forward slightly. “You chickened out. I thought you were going to do the prank.”

“Whatever,” I said waving her comments away.

“I would’ve thought a Reaper could pull off something like this easily,” she said. “Maybe you’re scared to fail, afraid to look like a dummy.”

“Yeah, that’s it. Terrifying. Absolutely shaking in my boots that have left more bloody footprints than you can count,” I said, holding forward my right hand, which was as level as any sniper could want in such an appendage. My cybernetic left hand was an even steadier shooting platform.

“I still say you wimped out.” She walked slightly ahead of me, something she did often when she didn’t think I could keep up with her. “If we’re going to train, let’s train.”

I didn’t respond to her comments. She’d see what it was like when I pulled the prank.

OceanofPDF.com

2

The more Elise rushed, the slower I moved. I was actually in a good mood, despite her attempts to antagonize me. Nebs hadn’t caught us yet, and I knew more about my mother and sister than seemed possible only weeks ago. I didn’t know when I would see them again or if they were still alive, but I knew more of the story and could feel a plan growing in my subconscious mind.

Maybe it was a lie just like everything else I’d been told about her situation, but the truth was out there and I was going to find my mother and my sister and protect them from the Union no matter the cost.

The door to our training room slid open. We’d been improving the place ever since taking possession of the Jellybird. There were still only two treadmills, but I had supplemented the basic resistance machines with some extra ship parts I’d converted into a decent weight set. None of it was pretty, but I was now able to push my muscles to their limits on a regular basis.

Accepting the fact that I was fighting a one-man war against the Union was very motivating. I didn’t have allies, I had people I needed to protect.

X-37 had nearly convinced me this was a flawed assumption. His analysis suggested I was defaulting to habits and training that were now irrelevant—but what did he know?

Maybe it was her youth, but Elise was even more fanatical about training than I was. She didn’t seem to fear anything. Full contact sparring matches with Path, heavy weightlifting or grappling lessons with me, or even riddle contests with Tom or Henshaw—Elise would accept any challenge or dare. Sometimes I wrongly assumed she had no fear.

I went to the small locker room and changed into workout gear—something I could run or fight in comfortably while still resembling our tactical equipment—and thought about some of our more dangerous scrapes. Assuming Elise was fearless in all situations was a mistake. We had nearly died several times since we’d met, and I knew what terror looked like on her face.

She probably recognized what I looked like when I was ready to piss my pants—an expression not many people witnessed and lived to tell about. I tried not to think about fear during a mission, but I was still human, even if parts of me didn’t look it.

It was time to get busy, so I focused on what needed to be done. Returning to the training area, I directed Elise toward the virtual shooting range on the starboard wall.

“Let’s start with a sidearm, then an HDK, and then practice transitioning between the two weapons,” I said, laying my jacket, Reaper mask, and rolled up stealth cloak on a table for later in the session.

She nodded seriously and went to the gun locker. After typing in the combination with practiced efficiency, she reverently removed two of the handguns we used on the virtual range. I had drilled her in safety from our very first lesson. She treated these weapons as though they were real. Wanting to learn and in love with shooting, the girl didn’t joke around or argue with me when we were handling weapons.

“What are the five principles of marksmanship?” I asked.

The weapons were on the equipment bench now, slides locked back to show they were unloaded. She stood attentively, but not at attention like a soldier would stand.

“Stance, sight alignment, grip, trigger pull, and follow through,” she said.

“Good. And what’s follow through?” I tested her.

“Not jerking the gun toward the next target prematurely. Holding it on the target until the shot has actually been fired,” she said, chin held high. “The time needed for this is almost imperceptible but very important for accuracy.”

I picked up the first weapon and examined it carefully, checking the slide function, trigger mechanism, and the magazine feed. That done, I made sure the slide was locked back so that it was obvious to anybody even vaguely familiar with firearms that it was unloaded and there was no bullet in the chamber. Placing it on the table felt good—a routine I had followed for all of my adult life.

Elise nodded crisply, then stepped forward to check her own weapon. She moved with the precision of a professional soldier. When she was done, I held out a hand and she placed it in my palm. I checked it again.

She had been impatient with these procedures when we first started practicing with guns. Now she respected them and I could imagine her teaching somebody else in the same manner. She would never be as big or strong as I was, despite her impressive athleticism, but with the right training and application, weapons helped her level the playing field.

I gave her permission to fire on the virtual range and observed her technique. I noticed bruises on her forearms and one on her temple from her sword practice with Path. The man was slightly under average height and very lean but could do a lot of damage with a practice sword.

She fired two rounds, checked her accuracy, then repeated the procedure until I told her to move on to the next drill. With the marksmanship fundamentals well established, she performed tactical exercises—double taps, head shots, and precision shooting to the hip area—shooting the pockets we called it. The fastest way to incapacitate a soldier, no matter what kind of armor they were wearing, was striking them in the hips with a supersonic projectile. The victim of such an attack might not die but definitely wouldn’t be walking or running anywhere soon. There were a lot of arteries in that area as well, so it was often more deadly than a torso wound.

Elise was a tough kid. I hated that she had to be that way. This was a young person who had never known a real childhood. Her father had subjected her to experiments, claiming it was needed to cure a childhood illness, but I had my doubts. One thing my insomnia-driven pondering had convinced me of was that Doctor Hastings would have put her in the program with or without an illness to necessitate it.

The man had wanted his daughter to be stronger, faster, and smarter than anyone in the Union. What I couldn’t decide was whether or not he wanted this to satisfy his ego or make her bulletproof in a harsh galaxy that gobbled people up like they were nothing.

She finished with the handgun, disassembled it for cleaning, then looked at me curiously. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, you are definitely improving,” I said, then waited for her to finish cleaning and reassembling the handgun.

When she was done, I took my turn on the virtual range while she watched me and coached my mistakes. She was surprisingly mature about this. Outside of the training area, she was constantly busting my chops. In here, she was serious and professional—not childlike in any way.

“I know your shots are right on target, but it looks like you’re milking the trigger and squeezing too hard with your grip like you’re always telling Tom not to do,” Elise said.

“Thanks,” I muttered, then worked earnestly to improve my technique. I was a damn good shot, but that didn’t mean I could afford to get sloppy in training or in real life.

We finished with handguns, did the same thing with HDK rifles, then worked on transitioning between the two and performing speed reloads.

“That’s enough for today,” I finally said. “We need to stow these guns and do some conditioning.”

“What about the mask and the stealth cloak?” Elise asked. “Maybe if you practice putting them on more smoothly, you’ll be able to do the prank.”

“You’re obsessed with pranks,” I said.

“You started it.” She was already laughing in anticipation of the prank. She seemed to be far more into it than I was. Sure, I loved a good laugh, but I didn’t think ghosting around Tom and moving things was going to be that funny.

I had started it. I’d snuck up behind Path and startled him, something no one had believed possible. It was one of the few times I’d seen him unbalanced. He’d laughed afterward, and that was worth it.

The sword saint was always relaxed and easy to be around but seeing him belly laugh was a rare treat.

“Fine,” I said, putting on the jacket to practice drawing the mask from inside of it with my right hand and the tightly rolled stealth cloak with my left. I slipped the mask over my face and spun out the cloak at nearly the same time, disappearing with almost flawless precision as my vision turned blue and a half-dozen tactical readouts enhanced what I could see.

“Not bad,” Elise said. “You’re getting better. Now give me ten more reps.”

“Anything for you, kid,” I said, smiling stupidly as I repeated the procedure over and over—draw the mask and cloak, activate it, put it away, and start again.

She wouldn’t let it go at that. Before we were done, I had to demonstrate the amazing accuracy and speed of shooting while wearing the mask. The interface between my mask, Reaper eye, and the weapon was thrilling, even for someone like me.

“Heart rate elevated,” X-37 advised.

I squinted my left eye slightly, paused, then blinked, practicing a new non-verbal communication X was supposed to interpret as “no shit.”

“Are you winking at your LAI again?” Elise asked.

“No,” I lied.

“Well, whatever you’re doing, it’s weird. Like you have a twitch or something,” she said.

“It’s not a twitch,” I said.

“So, you are talking to X,” she asserted. “Maybe you should stick to the hand movements to covertly talk to X.”

I slaughtered several targets as they popped up on the virtual range.

Elise clapped her hands enthusiastically after I mowed down two, three, and four waves of digital enemies in one of the more advanced training scenarios.

“I wish I had a mask like that,” Elise said. “And some cybernetic enhancements.”

“No, you don’t, kid,” I said.

“Stop calling me a kid.”

She was right. I needed to break the habit sooner rather than later, but I wasn’t going to admit she was right—not yet anyway.

OceanofPDF.com

3

“At least you didn’t lose your eye,” Lieutenant Briggs said, leaning to one side to examine the fresh vertical scar down the left side of my face.

“What do you care? You’re not even fucking real,” I grumbled. “X, make him leave.”

“This is your nightmare, not mine,” X-37 responded. “I have attempted to regulate your sleep eleven times already, but your body has adjusted to even my most aggressive methods. I’m afraid you’re on your own.”

“All right, then,” Briggs said, standing abruptly from the cheap hospital chair and drawing a combat knife from his belt. “I’ll have that eye now.”

“Not until you tell me what happened to the woman.” It was a stupid thing to say. I couldn’t move or resist him and this had already happened years ago. Dreams were screwed up like that.

“Doesn’t matter,” Briggs said, pushing on my forehead to hold my head against the hospital bed pillow. “You’re mine now.”

“She had two little girls!” I shouted as light drained from the nightmare room.

“Your heart rate is increasing, Reaper Cain. It won’t be long before you wake up,” X-37 promised.

“Yeah, right after he stabs me!” I couldn’t move because this was a dreamscape spiraling into imaginary violence.

“He never stabbed you in the eye in reality. You signed on the dotted line, Reaper Cain. Doctors removed your eye, not Briggs and not shrapnel,” X-37 said, his voice calm and distant through the veil of the nightmare.

The blade lashed toward my face as I cursed at Briggs to just fucking stop.

* * *

I had spent a lot of time in solitary confinement in the Bluesphere Maximum Security Prison. It was the worst kind of punishment—complete isolation with thoughts of my death sentence to keep me company. Training and experience had prepared me for the ordeal. During my years in the BSMP, I’d constructed a fantasy existence with very strict rules to prevent insanity.

There had to be rules to keep things from getting too crazy. Back then, I had my real routine that the guards forced on me, but also my own inner life. Some of the staples of this existence had been reading an imaginary book—actually holding up my hands and pretending I was flipping from screen to screen while my mind invented fictional stories or nonfiction articles—pretending to eat regular meals that didn’t taste like paste excreted from the prison wall dispensers, and every evening I sipped imaginary whiskey and smoked cigars.

I wasn’t crazy at all.

After Dreadmax, I had found cigars on Gronic, Roxo III, and various Deadlands shitholes the residents claimed were frontier towns or cities. The Gronic Fats had become a favorite of mine, better than many Starbrand fakes. Then, sadly, I experienced my first real Starbrand cigar courtesy of James Henshaw. 

This ruined me forever. Now I lived to find something as good. 

Henshaw had been an unwitting provider, not realizing how many Starbrand Premiums I had stolen from him until much later.

We were far beyond even the Deadlands now. Once or twice we had descended to the surface of unexplored planets and gathered raw resources, including more than one plant that resembled tobacco. X-37 and Jelly scanned all of the organics we harvested down to a molecular level. There was a lot of variety in what humans could consume, but that didn’t mean the options were unlimited. Maybe there wasn’t good tobacco on every world suitable for human habitation, but there was usually something close.

Which was interesting.

I snatched up a few plants whenever I could. As a novice tobacconist, I had a lot to learn. Making my own cigars, I now realized, was a lot harder than finding good paper or manufacturing a suitable substitute. Tom had been instrumental in that process, which had taken weeks to learn. 

Long story short, making a single cigar in the middle of an uncharted region of space was a ridiculous amount of work. But that was what I did with my free time in slip space. Training and mission planning first, then cigars.

“Are you paying attention, X?” I said, not looking away from the synths-paper I was rolling around the tobacco I had dried during our last slip tunnel jump.

“I’m always paying attention, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “If you want my advice, I think you should move your fingers closer to the end of the paper and pinch more tightly before beginning the rolling action.”

I tried what he said and it actually helped. We fell into a rhythm and I relaxed. That was the real reason I went through all this trouble. I needed to quiet the primitive part of my brain. Path had meditation, I had cigar production.

Thoughts came and went without my interference. I found myself wondering about Bug, the kid who had been on the other end of the speaker boxes on Dreadmax. He’d been in a surveillance tower and had access to cameras. Probably saved my life more than once.

I still wasn’t sure exactly what Bug looked like. He’d once told me he was fifteen years old, but he sounded younger. Not long ago, during one of my low periods, I spent several days with X-37 reviewing my memories and his compressed files of our time on Dreadmax. We came to the conclusion that Bug and some of the other children from the security towers had made it onto the Bold Freedom.

It didn’t matter. He was probably running with street gangs on some Deadlands planet like Gronic by now.

“How are you doing, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked. “Your biometrics indicate I should check on you.”

“I was just thinking about Bug while I roll these cigars,” I said. “You have a problem with that?”

“I have no problems, as you well know. I am here to serve, to monitor your welfare, and to maximize your performance and recovery through hormone manipulation,” X-37 said.

“Sure, but I like to pretend I can kick your ass when I’m annoyed with you,” I admitted, finishing off the last cigar of the day.

“Foul language and violence do seem to be your go-to solution for most problems,” X-37 pointed out.

Putting away my project, I left the workshop. “I can’t remember the name of the captain of the Bold Freedom. Do you think he kept the ship in one piece long enough to find a new home for innocents of Dreadmax?” I asked.

X-37 paused for an usually long time, several seconds at least. “It seems unlikely they found sanctuary. Even if they were innocent of any crime, they are a black mark against the Union. They would be rounded up and eliminated.”

X was right, I knew he was. It was naïve to think differently. The Deadlands were technically outside of the Union’s control, but there were bounty hunters and special teams to handle that sort of eventuality. The captain of the Bold Freedom wouldn’t be able to go to any known settlement.

It didn’t matter. I had my own problems to deal with.

* * *

“Jelly is asking if Tom can take a break and get some sleep,” X-37 advised me through our private channel. “She assures me that there are no actions or navigation problems requiring a human pilot to evaluate.”

“That’s fine, X. I don’t really want anyone but me changing our course anyway. The only reason I assigned Tom or Elise to the bridge was so they would learn what to do if something happens to me in the future.”

“A wise policy, Reaper Cain,” X-37 agreed.

“Cain for Jelly, can you tell me where Elise and Tom are now without violating your privacy protocols?” I asked.

“Certainly, Captain,” Jelly said. “Elise has been sleeping for almost two hours and Tom is on his way to his quarters, presumably to do the same thing. He keeps yawning. I don’t have access to his biometrics as X-37 does to yours, but evidence suggests he will be in dreamland soon.”

“Good,” I said, heading toward my new destination. “I’ll be on the observation deck. X, I want to go over the data from the storage unit we recovered from the tech shrine.”

“Of course, Reaper Cain. I have continued to decrypt the data as you requested. If you would sleep more, I would have more uninterrupted time to work on this project,” X-37 said.

“Yeah, I know. When we’re done, I’ll let you take another crack at putting me to sleep for a full six hours.” Once I was on the observation deck, I went to the small cabinet on the stern side wall and brought out a box of cigars, a bottle of whiskey, and two glasses.

I poured two fingers worth of the whiskey into one glass and put the other on the table just in case I had company. It made me feel less like an alcoholic.

Jelly, without my asking, displayed the star fields of this system. While X-37 was decrypting the data box my mother had left for us as the ultimate collection of clues, Jelly was constantly scanning the stars and trying to find reference points. We were mapping a new system far beyond the Union-controlled space, the Sarkonians’ sphere of influence, or even the Deadlands. In other circumstances, it would feel like quite an adventure.

No one was meant to come out this far.

I smoked one of the last Starbrand fakes, not really in the mood to deal with my poorly wrapped and often crumbling attempts at a homemade cigar. My inventory was dwindling. I had a few Gronic Fats I’d acquired between Greendale and Roxo III and three Starbrand Premiums.

Whiskey was easier to store and synthesize. I sipped slowly, not wanting to get too drunk or run out of booze. Private time on the observation deck was meant to be relaxing. Getting hammered wasn’t what I had in mind.

“What do we know?” I asked, confident that X-37 understood exactly what I was asking.

“In review, your mother works or worked for the Union, probably as a scientist or project leader. I conducted a side query and believe I now understand why you were unaware of your mother’s true importance at the time,” X-37 said.

“I joined the military as a teenager,” I said defensively. A sip of whiskey, a pause, and a long draw on the cigar helped me keep control of my temper.

“Of course, Reaper Cain. Cluelessness is apparently very common to teenagers. This was an obvious fact once I analyzed something tagged as social media in the archives. Nevertheless, I was challenged to find out exactly what she did for the Union. The only mistake they made in hiding her activities was erasing them completely. That in and of itself is suspicious,” X-37 said.

“It wouldn’t be noticed unless somebody with your processing power and hacking techniques was looking at the data,” I said.

“Compliment detected,” X-37 said.

“Don’t get a big head, X. Tell me more,” I demanded. The star field on the holo viewer never moved, but it was still spectacular to watch. It felt like the entire universe was looking back at me.

I tapped a few controls on my chair and moved the holo so that I was in the middle of it all.

“She left us some very formidable tools, access codes to facilities that don’t appear to exist in any record I have access to, and dossiers on people we’ve never met. There is a considerable amount of information on how to weaponize the mask and use it for a variety of missions,” X-37 said.

I thought back to the first time I had used the mask and how it nearly killed me. We had argued about why it had been designed that way and finally concluded that anyone without a limited artificial intelligence to assist them, and nerves of steel, would die if they attempted to operate it.

Byron Thane II had been an exception, because apparently my mother had contacted the angry young man and used him like a tool. He had thought he was going to kill me, but all he’d really been was a delivery tool for my mother. She’d been playing chess while the young man, the son of one of my rivals, had been playing checkers.

There had been subroutines in the operational programming significantly dumbing down control mechanisms for the mask accessible to Thane II.

The reason the mask had nearly caused me to jump into the void was that I had of course refused to read the instructions, a point that I argued, but that X-37 claimed he could prove with measurements of my eye movement at the time.

“None of this tells me what I should be doing now,” I complained. “The sooner I can rescue her, the sooner she can tell me the rest of her grand plan to thwart the Union.”

“You are assuming she is still alive,” X-37 said.

I didn’t respond, deciding that sipping what was in my glass and finishing the cigar was a better use of my time and less likely to cause me to say something I would regret.

“The first thing we need to do is avoid capture by Vice Admiral Nebs. I would advise gathering resources, establishing a safehold where we can rest and repair ourselves between engagements, and then finding where they are holding your mother and sister if either of them are in fact still alive,” X-37 said.

I stood up, cleaned the whiskey glass and the ashtray, and put them away. “I was hoping we would come up with something new.”

“It does feel like we’ve had this conversation approximately twenty-seven times,” X-37 said.

“I’m going to take a shift on the bridge,” I said.

“Perhaps you should sleep like the rest of the crew,” X-37 said.

“I’ve slept enough today.” I took my time moving to the hallway, neither looking forward to a shift on the bridge nor dreading it. The routine was easy. Travel in the slip tunnel almost never lasted longer than two or three days, but each of those jumps added up and felt like a lifetime.

Even when I was a regular soldier, life had been mostly boredom. One day after the next, there should be more than enough time to rest and figure out riddles. I was more than a bit frustrated that we hadn’t lost Nebs yet.

OceanofPDF.com

4

Jelly played music that she informed me previous captains had enjoyed during long stretches in slip tunnels. Some of the melodies sounded familiar, synthetic instruments and syncopated bass lines. Others seemed to be performed by musicians blowing into reed pipes and stomping their feet.

“Give me something new or turn it off,” I said. Tom and Elise had both slept in, apparently. I shouldn’t be angry, because I’d chosen to take a double shift on the bridge. They probably didn’t even know I was here.

The sound of a large orchestra warming up came from the sound system. After a few moments, I realized this was actually part of the performance and that the melodies were merging to form a more and more powerful piece. The experience was intriguing and kept me occupied for longer than I realized. Before long, the music was thrillingly martial—it made me want to wade into battle and crush my enemies.

“Jelly, can you mark that as a preferred soundtrack?” I said. “It’s very inspiring once it gets going.”

“Of course, Captain,” Jelly said.

“Thanks,” I replied, then took off my jacket. I examined the two pockets that I had sewn on the inside, one for the mask and one for the stealth cloak.

“That is fine work,” Jelly said. “If this Reaper business doesn’t work out, you might find work as a seamstress or a tailor.”

“Did you just make a joke?” I asked.

“It was an attempt. Captain. X-37 has been instructing me,” Jelly admitted, sounding more embarrassed than I thought a ship AI could sound.

“That wasn’t bad, but between you and me, X-37’s humor could use some work. You might look for a better mentor,” I said, standing and putting on the jacket then inserting the mask and the rolled-up stealth cloak into the concealed pockets.

“Truly? That was my assessment, but I didn’t want to be rude,” Jelly said.

“Ahem, you know I can hear both of you,” X-37 said.

“Chill, X. I’m just pulling your chain,” I said, knowing what would come next.

“I will add chain-pulling to your list of human colloquialisms that make absolutely zero sense given the context of this conversation,” X-37 said.

I laughed. The familiarity of our banter was soothing and I didn’t know what I would do without X.

For the next several minutes, I practiced taking the mask out of my jacket with either hand. I did the same with the stealth cloak, unrolling it and re-rolling it several times. Then I moved about the room, practicing shoplifting various items that were magnetized to the workstations.

My old friend Grady had thought my adeptness at thievery was disgusting, but he didn’t know how much practice it took to be good at pilfering. Jelly could tease me about being a seamstress or a tailor, but if I really had to earn a living without violence, I would probably be a pickpocket.

It was a useful skill. More than half of the cigars I had smoked in my lifetime had been acquired in this way.

“You seem to be improving, Captain,” Jelly said as she watched me move about the cockpit. “Even though my sensors are more acute than the human eye, and my processing power many times faster in most cases, all three of your covert item acquisitions were undetectable until I reviewed my short-term memory.”

“Four,” I said.

“Excuse me?” Jelly said. “Are you attempting to convince me that you have pocketed a fourth item that I didn’t observe?”

“He has one of the smaller data slates tucked into his side trouser pocket,” X-37 tattled. “If you look behind work terminal four-nine-bravo, you will see one of the micro devices is missing from its charging station.”

“Ah,” Jelly said almost forlornly. “You are a master thief, Captain.”

“That’s not really a compliment, and I was going to put it back. Technically, it’s not stealing if I don’t intend to permanently deprive you of it. And this is my ship, so I can take whatever I want.”

“That is a rather thorny legal question, considering I have been stolen multiple times and used against my own creators,” Jelly said.

“You could still be in the service of the Union, just waiting for some piece of Trojan computer code to turn you against me,” I said, almost feeling guilty for the accusation.

“I can assure you that will not happen,” Jelly said, and if I was interpreting her tone correctly, she sounded more than a bit put out by my words.

“I can vouch for the Jellybird,” X-37 said. “I have not only made a detailed study of every line of her code, but also reviewed key points on a regular basis to make sure she is not compromised by Union malware.”

“Good to know.” I wasn’t convinced. X-37, after all, was also a product of Union scientists.

“Paranoia detected,” X-37 said like it was some sort of public service announcement.

“Piss off, both of you,” I said, then immediately had a powerful revelation. It was me against the Union.

I probably shouldn’t have relied on X-37 or Jelly, but I did. As X-37 had pointed out many times when he was in psychologist mode, doubting him in particular was just going to make me crazy.

In truth, I had enormous faith in Elise and Tom and even the other members of my team—Henshaw and Path. The latter two had given me reason to suspect them, but that was mostly in the past. With them, I was in a “trust but verify” mood.

It was something I had to move beyond. The Union was unstoppable. I couldn’t stand against them by myself. I couldn’t resist the Union’s might, even with my friends and the two ships we had access to, to help me.

I needed to build an army and a fleet. The idea wasn’t as crazy as it sounded, because I had not only been trained to do exactly that but had done it on more than one occasion. There had been three missions in which I had been sent in to destabilize governments so that the Union could establish control after local rebellions.

“You seem to be calmer now,” X-37 observed. “Should I be worried? That normally means you’re going to kill someone or blow something up.”

“Nope. I just had a moment of clarity. We’re going to need a bigger ship—several bigger ships to be specific.” I didn’t have a plan yet. It was more like I had updated my private mission statement.

My short-term goal was to get away from Nebs. My five-year plan, for lack of a better term, was to rescue my mother and sister and see what they could tell me about the Union. But in the end, my long-term plan, my life’s mission, had to be total war against the Union.

“I hate to interrupt your delightful mood, but Tom and Elise are asking if you will join them for dinner,” X-37 said.

“What? Okay, sure,” I said. “Jelly, is there any reason you need me to stay on the bridge at this moment?”

“James Henshaw is attempting to hail you from the Lady Faith,” Jelly advised.

“In that case, advise Elise and Tom that I will be joining them for dinner and will get back with Henshaw later,” I said.

“The hail is marked as mildly urgent,” Jelly explained.

“Yeah, well, I’m mildly uninterested. Whatever he has to say, it will wait,” I said and went to the galley. All of a sudden, I was very hungry.

Conspiring to destabilize the Union by building an army to engage in guerrilla warfare worked up an appetite.

OceanofPDF.com

5

The Jellybird emerged from the slip tunnel. Several tense intervals passed before Henshaw piloted the Lady Faith out of the shimmering aperture behind us, immediately accelerating and veering away as we had planned.

“Jelly,” I said, “deploy the sensor relays. Make sure they are concealed.”

“Concealed, in this circumstance, is not a precise term, Captain,” Jelly said. “What we are actually doing is operating them on an ultra-low power mode.”

“That’s what I meant, Jelly,” I said, smiling because the ship’s AI was always so respectful and polite. Maybe being a captain of a ship wasn’t that bad.

I was impatient to get going but let them finish scanning the area for debris or ambush. It had not taken me long to convince the others this was necessary as part of our standard operating procedure. Since I had already performed this maneuver and knew it was unnecessary for Henshaw, watching him go through the steps was tedious.

But no one would learn anything if I just told them it was clear every time. Because I always went first, just like when we cleared rooms or searched a new world or went through slip tunnels. Going first into the breach was my right.

No one understood how to take these risks better than me and I couldn’t let them go ahead of me to get themselves killed.

Some people claimed all slip tunnels had the same appearance, but I thought they were unique, each a bit more miraculous in their own way.

Maybe I was a romantic, an artist trapped in a killer’s body. 

“Hail the LF,” I said.

“Right away, Captain,” Jelly responded. 

“Henshaw here. Are you receiving my transmission?” the ocular engineer and owner of the Lady Faith asked.

“I hear you clearly. You don’t have to raise your voice,” I said. “We are only detecting one slip tunnel anywhere near enough to reach before the Union catches up.”

“If the Union can find us this far out,” Henshaw said.

“We discussed this. Just because we didn’t see them as we neared the last slip tunnel entrance, doesn’t mean they weren’t right behind us,” I said. “Plot parallel courses two hours to the next slip tunnel. Let’s call it a race.”

“The Lady Faith is one of the fastest yachts in its class. I believe that this contest is undignified,” Henshaw said, moderating his voice to a more reasonable level now. He’d owned the ship for a long time but rarely piloted it himself. “You can just advise us to accelerate to our best speed. It doesn’t have to be a competition.”

“Whatever works,” I said. “Speed is our only option right now. There’s one slip tunnel. And when, not if, the Union shows up, you’ll wish that you’d started accelerating the moment you left the tunnel.”

“Now that is a rational argument. I don’t understand why you must call it a race,” Henshaw pouted.

“He doesn’t want to lose,” Elise said, sitting up from the copilot seat where I thought she had been asleep.

“That is not true,” Henshaw said. “But if I did desire to participate in a race, it would be a sanctioned event with rules and referees.”

I listened to Elise and Henshaw go back and forth but watched the holo display and checked the Jellybird’s instruments. There were dozens of things that the ship did automatically, but I still needed to know about.

My early training, long before I became a Reaper, emphasized being prepared for the worst-case scenario. Few ships were piloted without help from an artificial intelligence, but there were scenarios when it became necessary. It was good to keep up my skills.

I went so far as to make calculations by hand. Not my strongest skill set by any stretch of the imagination, but it could be done.

After a time, I realized the conversation between Elise and Henshaw had ended and she was looking at me expectantly.

“Well, shouldn’t the Union carriers be through the tunnel by now? I think we’re in the clear. He’s trying to convince me that they can operate inside the tunnels with their cloaking devices on,” Elise said.

I knew a lot more about the darker aspects of the Union fleet and their technology than they did, and I didn’t want to talk about it. 

There were, however, some things my friends needed to know. “It’s possible to operate a ship inside the slip tunnel, but the technology is very rare.”

“In that case,” Elise admitted, “it may be wise to be paranoid.”

“Paranoia is never wrong,” I said, only half joking.

“If you’ll allow me to finish,” Henshaw said. “I will admit that we should be cautious, but it still seems a good deal of time has passed since we entered the system. If we did manage to lose the Union carriers on that last tunnel choice, then we should be in the clear for months at least.”

“Do you have any tricks to detect them while they are in stealth mode?” I asked.

“You know I’m working on several theories,” Henshaw said in a lecturing tone. “But the only one I know would work right now would require us to slow down.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

“It’s extremely complicated. I can send you over the algorithm code for your review,” Henshaw said.

“Do that. I’m sure X-37 and Jelly would love to take a look at them, and Tom,” I said.

Henshaw smirked somewhat condescendingly. “Tom is very good at what he does. But these calculations are complex.”

“Fine,” I said, considering whether or not I had any other options. “Tell me when you have something that works at full speed. In the meantime, the last person to the slip tunnel entrance buys everyone else Starbrand cigars.”

“When you put it that way,” Henshaw said, but didn’t finish the statement.

“Captain, it appears the Lady Faith has been holding out on us. Her speed is increasing dramatically,” Jelly said.

“Can you beat her?” I asked.

“Of course, Captain,” Jelly said.

“Then get to it,” I said, and watched the readouts change. It was tempting to take manual control just for grins, but I didn’t. After several tense moments, I grew accustomed to the acceleration and leaned back in my captain’s chair, interlocking my hands behind my head.

Eventually, Elise grew bored and started playing a puzzle game on a tablet Tom had given her. She seemed determined to unlock each level of the game faster than he had. Henshaw was wrong to underestimate Tom, I thought.

Surprisingly, I found my thoughts clear. There was no compulsion to remember my dark past or worry about the future. Such moments were a gift and I valued them.

It couldn’t last forever, of course. The trip to the next slip tunnel was long, but we were going as fast as possible.

We took turns on the bridge, Tom spending his time communicating with Henshaw about the stealth mode, then reporting to me through detailed reports. They had decided that the Jellybird was the better option for testing stealth mode. The Lady Faith wasn’t as durable and had a smaller power plant.

We kept busy. I even let Elise have a solo shift. Everything was fine until I relieved her.

The door slid open and I entered the bridge area. Elise sat up, pretending she hadn’t been about to doze off.

“I see you managed not to fly us into a black hole or get us caught in a Union ambush,” I said.

Her expression changed at my flippant remark. I had to give her credit for not flying off the handle. I had sounded like a dick.

“I’m glad you have so much confidence in my ability,” she said sarcastically, clearly not meaning a word of it. “To be honest, I thought manning the helm would be hard. What do you even do when we’re not here?”

“Important ship piloting stuff,” I shot back, pretending to be annoyed. I wasn’t. 

She hesitated. “Now you’re just messing with me.”

“Yeah, something like that,” I said.

“I made a log entry. Nothing seen or detected. After the Jellybird completed her scans, I checked them manually as well. You made it sound like the calculations would be difficult,” she said, not actually seeming to be talking trash this time. She’d switched into her “take me seriously” mode.

“Okay, show me,” I said, then looked over her work. It was top-notch, detail-oriented, and recorded in chronological order.

When we were done, she turned her chair so she could face me and held my gaze. “You’re going to have to trust me more. You and I, we’re in this to the end. You know what I’m saying.”

I understood her statement. Neither of us could escape the Union, not really. Tom, Henshaw, and Path might fade away with hopes of hiding from Union operatives. The Dreadmax mission had shown me how far they were willing to go to take out Elise, and I’d only made things worse.

“We’re liabilities to the Union,” I said.

“So, what are we going to do about that?” she asked, sounding confident but looking slightly more vulnerable than normal. It was an odd combination, but I understood it; she was trying to appear braver than she felt.

“I’m working on it,” I said, and was surprised when she didn’t argue.

* * *

We arrived at the next slip tunnel with no sign of Union pursuit. “Jelly, broadcast an all hands to the bridge, please.”

“I have made the broadcast,” Jelly said seconds later. “Omitting the message to you, of course.”

“Thanks, Jelly. You’re the best,” I said, continuing to study holographic displays and sensor readings. My unscientific gut instinct told me we had not lost the Union. Nebs was a vice admiral in charge of a handpicked special operations group. Or at least I thought it was safe to make that assumption given my prior experience with him and his people. It was possible we’d lost him during our ever more frequent slip tunnel jumps, but I just didn’t feel like we’d escaped.

“Bring Henshaw and Path online as well,” I said.

A moment later, the ocular engineer and the sword saint appeared on a holo representing the bridge of the Jellybird, which was extremely comfortable-looking, I thought.

“I assume you’ve made a decision,” Henshaw said. He looked tired but not in a way that was hungover or unhappy.

If what Tom told me was correct, that both of them were spending a lot of time working on design, implementation, and small improvements to stealth mode for first the Jellybird and then the Lady Faith.

I was glad they were so committed to the project because we needed every advantage we could get.

Tom and Elise arrived, both of them in fresh jumpsuits and looking like they had taken the time to get squared away. I had everyone on a strict water rationing for showers, but by alternating those with sonic cleansing, we were able to look and feel presentable most of the time.

That might not always be the case this far beyond the Deadlands.

“Everyone was part of this decision,” I said. “When it comes to the Union, we can’t take chances. That means we have to know where they are.”

Elise shook her head. “But all we will do if we wait is confirm to them that they are still behind us. Why not just make the leap and keep them guessing?”

She wasn’t wrong. But like my other observations, I felt like instinct was guiding me. I needed to know if Nebs was behind me and how much of his carrier group he still had with him.

“There are only so many slip tunnels, even this far out in uncharted space. What happens if they somehow got ahead of us to another part of the network? What if they have technology we don’t know that allows them to get ahead of us and we emerge into a trap?” I asked.

Elise had a quick answer. “That’s why we do the evasive maneuvers and take the precautions you taught us. I don’t see how waiting now does us any good.”

It was hard to answer because she wasn’t wrong and my instincts shouldn’t be allowed to override logic. I took a second to formulate my response. “Now that we are at the entrance to the slip tunnel, we can disappear almost instantly. What I want to see is all three of Nebs’s carriers and related ships emerge from the tunnel. Then I will know where they are. It will influence my decision the next time we arrive at a nexus.”

No one said anything. I could see each of them considering my logic.

“And yet we had to participate in your unnecessary race,” Henshaw said. “I am not normally one to advocate rushing forward blindly, but I think we should leave the system now.”

I looked at Tom and then Path, the only two who had not voiced an opinion. Tom seemed embarrassed and shrugged, indicating he agreed with Elise and Henshaw. Path held my stare for a long time.

“There is no reason for us to stay,” Path said.

“What about you, X?” I asked, knowing that my limited artificial intelligence would reply on the open channel for this question.

“We can’t strike a target we cannot see. I advocate we wait. There is no Union ship on record fast enough to catch us with the lead we have established in the system. How that will translate after the next slip tunnel jump remains to be seen. I’m with you, Reaper Cain.”

“Well thanks, X,” I said, but then doubted myself. There had to be a reason I was so set on watching the sensors we had deployed around the slip tunnel exit. Maybe I thought they would come with ten ships instead of just three. Maybe I hoped they would never come. Maybe I was hoping we were done with running from the Union.

“I thought we agreed you were going to share some of these responsibilities with us,” Elise said, having become the spokesperson for the others.

“I said I’d think about it,” I said.

“You promised. Now you’re going back on your word,” she insisted.

“Would you like me to review the conversation?” X-37 offered.

“No,” Elise and I said at the same time.

I stood and used the small amount of available space on the bridge of the Jellybird to pace. I wasn’t normally this indecisive. Having to consider the input and feelings of others was a lot harder than it should be.

Facing my friends and allies here on the bridge and in the small holo view from the Lady Faith, I put my fists on my hips and gave them a hard look. “Let me shuck it down,” I said. “I’m struggling with this decision, but it isn’t a debate I can win with logic. If you trust me, then go with me on this. We wait until we see who comes through that slip tunnel, then we get out of here.”

One by one, they nodded.

“What do you need us to do?” Elise asked.

“Everybody monitors one of the concealed sensor relays we left behind. It’s going to be a long shift, but I think we all agree it demands our utmost attention,” I said, feeling like I was giving a debrief to actual soldiers.

I wasn’t, of course. I had a runaway girl, a mechanic, an ocular engineer with a gambling problem, and a sword saint who acted like a monk and dressed like a punk rock star.

Not exactly the crew I would pick to fight someone like Vice Admiral Nebs and his special operations group, but they were all I had.

* * *

The UFS Nightmare came first, blasting straight out of the tunnel and stopping abruptly to deploy its small ships. The micro fighters, which lacked the range of true void combat vessels, spread out to form a sphere around the carrier.

Just when I was starting to get a feel for their formation, the UFS Darklance and UFS Black Wing emerged almost simultaneously and took positions on the right and left flank of the Nightmare. Their own ultra-small fighters deployed, turning their ship of the line type deployment into a three-dimensional formation with defensive spheres of the little fighters.

“Jelly, we’ll follow behind the Lady Faith. It’s time to go,” I said, already having seen most of what I needed. Before the words left my mouth, the small ships were returning to their carriers.

With no imminent battle, they would land on the respective ships, and then the carriers would go into stealth mode. If the small ships had stealth capability, we wouldn’t have seen much of this deployment.

That was information I would need in the future.

“X, I need you to log everything about their movements and deployment abilities,” I said.

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 promised. “I will add it to our tactical database for future encounters with Vice Admiral Nebs and his special operations group.”

Henshaw looked at me as things quieted down, his face flickering slightly in the holographic image. “Was the risk worth it?”

“I think it was,” I said, knowing that Henshaw would not answer me because the Lady Faith was entering the next slip tunnel now.

In a surprisingly short amount of time, all of the micro fighters docked on their Union carriers, which then disappeared.

“I do not believe they detected our sensor relays,” Jelly said.

I nodded. “That’s really good news. Let’s activate our stealth cloak and see what happens.”

“Is now really the best time for a test?” Jelly asked.

I looked at Tom. “What do you think?”

He shrugged, barely moving his shoulders and looking away in a manner that was more humble than doubtful. “I think it will work. We put a lot of effort into upgrading the algorithms. It should take them multiple exposures to our technology for them to break it.”

“Then let’s see what we can do,” I said. My only regret was that I hadn’t put Elise and Tom on the Lady Faith before sending her through the slip tunnel. Promising myself that I would manufacture some reason for both of them to be on the other ship in this type of situation in the future, I took manual control of the Jellybird and piloted away from the slip tunnel.

“I’m as curious as you are, Reaper,” Elise said. “But I don’t like this.”

“We’re not going far,” I promised.

“There is good news and bad news,” Jelly said. “It does not seem they detected the Lady Faith before she jumped. The bad news is that they are bombarding this area with sensor inquiries, suggesting they may be looking for us despite the stealth cloak.”

“Let’s make our way to the tunnel entrance. I want to drop our cloak and slip through with as little exposure to Union scans as possible. Maybe we can have the best of both worlds,” I said, feeling slightly like my decision had been vindicated. All three of the Union stealth carriers were here, which meant I didn’t have to worry about flying into an ambush when we exited the next tunnel.

OceanofPDF.com

6

On the second day of our most recent evasion of Vice Admiral Nebs, I met Elise in the training room. The room felt small after such frequent use. We needed to get onto a planet or even a space station to stretch our legs. I was seriously getting cabin fever.

“Is something on your mind?” X-37 asked privately.

“I’m feeling restless. Ready for a mission, any mission. Nothing against the Jellybird, but I’m feeling boxed in,” I said.

“I would’ve thought this would not be a problem for you after so much time in solitary confinement within the Bluesphere Maximum Security Prison,” X-37 said.

“That’s different,” I said

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 agreed.

I switched into my workout gear. It wasn’t the same as what a civilian would wear, because we also needed to perform tactical drills, then hit the range.

The fabric was tough, breathable, and easy to work with. I was able to sew on pockets to replicate our tactical gear and reinforce places that we destroyed during our hand-to-hand combat training—knees, elbows, and collars mostly. My outfit was dark gray, almost black. Elise had a closet full of these modified uniforms that she’d tailored once I showed her how to do it.

Today, she wore a blue variation to match streaks she had put in her hair. I didn’t have her fashion sense, nor did I care about such things. There wasn’t much I could do about my hard face with its vertical scar traversing one eye. In a crowd, with the right clothing, I could hide my augmentations for a time.

Union wars had scarred a lot of people over the years. My mangled face didn’t draw attention unless someone was looking closely.

“Are you ready?” Elise challenged when we met next to the treadmills and weight machines.

“I’m always ready,” I reminded her.

“Except when it comes to pulling the prank on Tom,” she disagreed as she did some warm-up exercises.

I stretched, trying not to feel old. Age wasn’t a problem; it was the mileage. “I’d completely forgotten about that. You need to be patient. Good pranks can’t be rushed.”

“Whatever,” she said. “You should’ve just let me do it. It would have been hilarious. Maybe I would’ve surprised even you.”

“Doubtful,” I said, thinking she was getting cocky. “Let’s do a run and then work on your strength. After that, I have some surprises.”

“Surprises?” she asked, looking slightly nervous. We’d been training together long enough that she understood my gut-check workouts were always brutal.

“Marksmanship first,” I said, giving her very little instruction at this point. We’d been doing this every day and I expected her to know the drill like the back of her hand, which she did.

She nodded curtly, then went straight to the gun locker. I watched her observe every safety procedure and noted her meticulous attention to detail. She was a teenager, still a kid to me. Her professionalism when we trained like this, however, warmed even the darkest parts of me.

At the same time, I was sad that this was her childhood. She was preparing for war, I thought, but then realized that wasn’t exactly right. She’d been at war since her father put her in Union experiments. 

She’d been at war, but she’d been unarmed and alone. Now she had one Reaper with a bad attitude and some friends to watch her back.

I steered my thoughts away from that topic. It wasn’t a good idea to train angry.

Elise finished checking the handgun then put it on the table with the slide locked back to show me it was empty. I gave her the briefest nod and she continued.

One of the things we’d been working on was our nonverbal communication. Just as I was developing new and improved methods for communicating silently with X-37, I was also doing this with Elise. As much as I resisted, there seemed no way we wouldn’t be working as a team in the future. I needed to stop worrying about ruining her life.

Even if I had an army at my command, Elise and I would be the tip of the spear—because we were the ones the Union really wanted.

I wanted to curse or maybe burn down a cigar or two.

Elise finished with the HDK rifle and tactical gear, laying it all out for my examination. I noticed she had included the stealth cloak.

“Are you sure about the cloak?” I said, watching for her reaction. “It’s difficult to use. You’ll have to go slow so you don’t shoot yourself while trying to make it function.”

“I know, and I know to treat the range like we’re using real bullets,” she said. “But you always tell me training is where we learn. I’d like to try this now rather than in the middle of a real operation when our lives are on the line.”

I let the moment draw out then motioned for her to continue.

“Jelly, can you time this?” she asked. “If I can measure it, I can improve it.”

“I am currently engaged in a difficult computation for Henshaw and Tom. Please ask X-37 if he’s able to do this,” Jelly said.

“That is no problem,” X-37 said. “Anytime you have your earbud in, I can perform many of the functions I do for Reaper Cain, except directly modify your biometrics.”

Elise laughed nervously. “I just need a timer this time, X. Thanks.”

“On my mark,” X-37 said.

“Hold on,” I interjected, pointing at Elise. “Go to the other side of the room and lie down like you’re sleeping. X will give you an alert, and then you can start the clock.”

Elise went to the other side of the training room, sprawled out on her back, and closed her eyes.

“X, give her enough time you can surprise her,” I ordered.

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said, then flooded relaxing music through a public address channel that nearly put me to sleep.

A minute or two later, X-37 blared an alert tone through Elise’s earbud. “Alert! Alert! Scenario on!”

Elise sprang to her feet and sprinted to the equipment table. She geared up in the exact order that I had taught her: lightweight body armor, gun belt and tactical vest, and weapons.

Even without X-37 telling me her time as it progressed, I was impressed. She was quick and agile, also benefiting from an unusual amount of confidence for someone her age. She seemed to know she had trained hard and what she could do.

My job was becoming more and more to warn her what she couldn’t do. I’d learned the hard way to respect my own limitations and she needed to learn the same lesson before overconfidence got her killed.

“The drill is weapons transitions, starting with handgun and switching to the HDK,” I said. “Accuracy still matters, so don’t go faster than you can make the shots count.”

Pistol holstered and the HDK firmly attached to its tactical sling, Elise stepped onto the firing lane and waited for the command. There were three possible targets in the simple scenario. X-37 would activate them at random. Some would have holographic bad guys armed with a variety of weapons. Others would be innocent civilians.

Elise hadn’t appreciated my emphasis on target selection until I explained that we worked like the Union. We didn’t want to mow down innocent civilians during a gun battle in a public place.

The first target, an armed man in generic tactical gear, flashed to life. It brought up its weapon to aim at Elise.

She moved faster than the holo. “Threat left!” she shouted, firing three rounds a fraction of a second later. “Threat down,” she reported as the antagonist fell.

I watched with my arms crossed, evaluating her overall performance but also small details like her stance, her grip of the weapons, and how smooth the transitions were when she ran out of ammunition or had a malfunction.

On the range, I would put her up against any well-trained Union soldier, maybe even a spec ops commando. Real life was different. I hoped her new skills would never be tested, but I knew it was inevitable.

As soon as the firearms portion of our session was done, I directed her to disassemble the weapons and leave them on the table to be cleaned later. We went immediately to the treadmills and ran hard for three kilometers.

We hit the weight machines and the modified free weights I’d created from ship parts. She was smiling and enjoying the hard work when I threw in today’s surprise. Between each set, we ran wind sprints on the treadmills.

“I love it!” Elise exclaimed, sweating profusely but smiling like she was racing a hovercraft instead of getting her butt kicked in the gym.

“Bullshit!” I grunted.

Her response was unintelligible, but I thought she was having a blast—which was solid evidence she was nearly as crazy as I was.

An hour later, her expression was less flippant and her trash-talking less frequent. No matter how bad it became, she never complained and I never doubted she would finish the workout.

* * *

I limped away from the harsh training session, trying not to show how banged up I felt. It was nothing I wasn’t used to. Even when I was young, I didn’t stop until I pushed myself about two steps too far.

Maybe Elise was suffering, but she didn’t show it. She was young and had some genetic boosts from her exposure to the Union’s experiments. I’d seen her heal from wounds in a day that should’ve taken her weeks. It only made sense that her workout recovery would be above par.

X-37 did a good job monitoring my biometrics and tweaking things as best as possible. So, I really didn’t have much to complain about.

I took a sonic shower then headed for the observation deck for whiskey and cigar time with Tom. The moment I stepped onto the deck and observed the spectacular three-dimensional view of the uncharted star field, I knew that Tom had also experienced a challenging but fulfilling day.

He loved to learn new skills and tinker with things. The slightly unequal friendship he had with James Henshaw was a big deal to the man. If he resented the ocular engineer’s condescending attitude, he didn’t show it. Tom was probably used to this type of treatment.

I told myself not to worry. If Tom was okay with it, I was okay with it.

Henshaw and I would never be fast friends, but something had changed since our last mission. I discussed what I had observed with X-37 and we conditionally agreed that Henshaw could be trusted. He had turned against the Union as completely as I had and put all of his intellectual and creative energies into developing technology that would help me defeat my enemies.

“You look like you’ve been busy,” Tom said as he handed me a glass of whiskey and a cigar.

I put the glass on a small table next to the chair I preferred for our station time and then nursed the cigar to life. I breathed it in, in no hurry to answer Tom’s observation. We spent a lot of evenings here and our routine was very relaxed.

“We had a gut-check today,” I said.

“Ahh, that makes sense.” Tom paused, stepping back toward his chair but not taking his seat. We were both still standing. “I’m glad I’m not part of that brutishness.”

“What’s on your mind, Tom?” I asked.

He smiled. “I was just thinking about how my training supervisors would’ve never guessed I’d be working on stealth cloak technology with one of the best minds in the Union—formerly in the Union, I guess.”

“Do you think he’s as smart as he acts?” I asked.

“And then some,” Tom said.

“I have something I’ve been meaning to ask you, Tom,” I said.

“Fire away,” he responded easily.

“I’ve told you about the Bold Freedom and how it escaped Dreadmax,” I said.

He nodded and waited for more.

“With your expertise in mechanical engineering, do you think they have a chance of keeping a retrofitted, decades out-of-production freighter running long enough to get them to safety?” I asked.

“That depends on how far they have to travel to reach safety,” Tom said. “I can’t imagine they’ll find any place in the Union, or even the Deadlands, that will accept them. What would be the bounty on thousands of escaped fugitives?”

“I doubt the Union will admit publicly they even exist, but they will have teams to move in and handle their mistake,” I said without telling him exactly what that meant. He understood enough not to ask for details.

“Well, the fact that they were able to build a freighter from parts and leave the system speaks volumes of their ability and dedication,” Tom said. “I’d give them better chances if I was with them.”

“Look at you, Tom, all modest and self-effacing,” I said like I was talking to one of my buddies from basic training. In truth, he was probably the best friend I had or ever would have despite our differences.

“You caught me bragging,” he said, and laughed. “Why don’t we see if Jelly can connect Henshaw and Path to the observation deck. It’s about time we had some guests for whiskey and cigar time.”

I raised an eyebrow, studying Tom but eventually deciding there was no harm in expanding our group on a conditional basis. “I guess we could try it. Can’t hurt. Although I imagine they’ll be having better cigar and whiskeys than we are throwing back.”

Tom laughed, seeming slightly too nervous. “That’s true.”

His behavior intrigued me, but I didn’t feel there was anything malicious behind whatever he was holding back.

A voice came over our general communications channel at about the same time I saw a holographic representation of the Lady Faith’s bridge with Henshaw and Path sitting in oversized chairs. Henshaw was already drinking and smoking. Path sat there with his hands in his lap, seeming peaceful and content as always.

“Nice of you to join us,” I said magnanimously.

“Of course,” Henshaw said. “Maybe next time we can do this in person, and I will share some real cigars with you.”

“Now that’s an excellent idea,” I said as my mind registered a whip cream pie floating between us. It was so out of place that I was having a hard time processing exactly what it was.

“What the hell?” I asked as the pie nailed me in the face. My lightning fast Reaper reflexes allowed me to move my cigar clear of the creamy arc of destruction.

I bounded to my feet and jumped away as I heard Elise and the others laughing hysterically.

“Ha, ha, ha. That’s really fucking funny,” I said, wiping pie from my face.

Elise looked like a disembodied head, with the stealth cloak still shimmering around the rest of her body. She pointed at me. “Now that’s a prank!”

I looked at Tom. “I’m so glad everyone could be here to see this.”

Tom laughed so hard, he nearly spit out the sip of whiskey he had been taking when I confronted him for his part in the joke.

“And you, X, why didn’t you warn me?” I demanded. “Has she been practicing with that cloak without me?”

“Oh yes, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “Elise has been practicing with the stealth cloak every day, like you should be doing.”

“Thanks a lot, X. Very nice,” I said.

“Would you like me to instruct you on prank resistance?” X-37 said for everyone to hear.

Elise and the others had a second big laugh.

“That depends on whose side you’re on, X,” I said, then pointed at the others. “You know what goes around comes around, right?”

They continued to laugh, but it seemed a bit more cautious.

OceanofPDF.com

7

The bridge, only supported on one side of the river, twisted as the far end fell. Insurgents and noncombatants fleeing the bombardment of Jeppa screamed as they plummeted to their deaths. Rocks and rapids awaited them on the half-kilometer wide river through the four-hundred-meter-deep canyon.

Carson’s World, and that of the people of Jeppa, was a hard and violent place, but nothing compared to the might of the Union’s wrath.

This time, the bridge incident would be different. This time, I wouldn’t let go no matter what. The woman had a family—little girls I’d tossed to Grady myself before trying to save the woman.

“You’re not even trying to help me, X,” I complained.

“What do you want me to do? I wasn’t there and I can’t see your mind, only posit based on your reactions and mumblings. None of this is real,” X-37 said clinically. “You’re asleep.”

Captain Clark shouted at me from safety only a dozen meters away. The woman stared into my eyes, her demeanor serene and dreamlike as her hair floated on a spring breeze. Because this was a dream, I was able to watch her, but also watch Clark standing behind me with his rifle.

He opened fire, sending slugs through every part of my body.

“Now you’re exaggerating,” X-37 scoffed. “He didn’t shoot you everywhere.”

* * *

The farther we travelled into uncharted space, the less S.G. point data was available. I wasn’t sure how much longer we had in the slip tunnel or how much time it would take us to reach the next, or where it might take us.

I knew slip tunnels didn’t normally last more than a few days, so we had to be getting close to the exit point. If that was the case, I had at least five or six hours.

More than enough time for a solo workout, shower, and a nap. I needed some alone time and told X-37 as much.

“Strange,” X-37 said.

“What are you talking about, strange?” I asked my limited artificial intelligence.

“You’ve been complaining about cabin fever. It would make sense that you want more people around you for the stimulation and variety rather than fewer people around you. What are you going to do, stare at the wall while you exercise?”

“I have an imagination,” I said, not really knowing what I was trying to say but figuring it would give X-37 something to chew on.

“Of course, Reaper Cain. That must be nice,” X-37 said dryly.

I was heading for the gym when X-37 changed the subject. “I have uncovered new information about James Henshaw.”

My limited artificial intelligence was constantly digging for information. That was one of a LAI’s main jobs. I needed to know everything I could about not only my enemies, but also my allies. Attention to detail had kept me alive on many previous missions.

“Give it to me,” I said, stopping in the middle of the hallway to listen to X on our private, encrypted link.

“I’m hesitant to provide you this information because you have finally assimilated him into your circle of friends,” X-37 said. “I’ll remind you that no one is perfect and that if you insist upon this requirement, you will have no friends at all.”

I waited.

“James Henshaw would have you believe that he is only a scientist who once worked for Vice Admiral Nebs under duress. A mission debrief, classified and marked for deletion, that I recovered due to my extraordinary abilities, leads me to conclude he has actual blood on his hands,” X-37 said.

“Details,” I demanded. “I thought we had vetted him well enough to be trusted.”

X-37 told me an extremely interesting tale as I stood there in the hallway barely aware of my surroundings because of what I was hearing. For someone like me, that meant the story might be reason enough for someone to die.

“I’ll be crossing over to the Lady Faith to confront Henshaw the moment we are out of slip space,” I said.

“I cannot recommend this course of action,” X-37 said. “Nebs and his spec ops group are still hard after us. We can’t afford this type of drama.”

“Drama? Is that a technical term for confronting a murderous liar?” I asked.

“It’s not my favorite description of the circumstances, but I’ve been forced to lower the precision of my communication skills to accommodate your rudimentary vocabulary,” X-37 said.

“Are you giving me attitude?” I asked.

“Of course not, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “That would be your emotional response causing you to believe this. That is largely outside of my control. I could cause your nervous system to sedate you, but that seems a bit extreme.”

“I’m doing this face-to-face. Talk to Jelly and make sure she’s ready. Path will come over to the Lady Faith so that I can talk to Henshaw alone,” I said. “I prefer we think of a good reason for it rather than trying to order him to do it.”

“I’m sure that Elise is due for a lesson in swordsmanship and close quarters battle,” X-37 suggested.

“That’s perfect. They both love CQB,” I said, already mentally preparing myself for the showdown with Henshaw. This time, it was different. It wasn’t that I didn’t think I could trust him, I just needed to figure out why he hadn’t told me he was an assassin.

“I must emphasize it was a one-time event. I do not believe he is a danger to you or the crew in a physical sense,” X-37 said.

“I’ll be the judge of that.” I started planning several ways to kill Henshaw if the need arose.

Instead of going to the gym, I paced the hallways of the Jellybird until she advised me the slip tunnel was opening.

“Now?” I demanded.

“Apologies, Captain.” Jelly said.

“Execute our standard security measures. Scan for mines or other dangers, then get us away from the opening,” I said.

“Standard evasion protocols have begun,” Jelly said. “Will you be attending the bridge?”

I thought about it.

“Jelly is sharing data with me regarding the slip tunnel opening. You’re not needed on the bridge for this particular instance,” X-37 said.

“You see, X, that was actually helpful. I’m heading to the shuttle,” I said. “Make sure Path and Elise are scheduled for training. He can take the shuttle back while I have my talk with Henshaw.”

“Of course, Captain,” Jelly said.

My crossing to the Lady Faith was a blur. I had bigger things to think about. Before I knew it, Path was giving me a slight bow and taking the shuttle back to the Jellybird for a training session with Elise.

Henshaw stood almost regally at the edge of the docking area for the shuttles despite his sloppy wardrobe. He had the manner of a university professor who let his hair grow long and wore ceramic beads to contrast with his silk shirts and perfectly tailored shorts. He liked to wear flip-flops when he wore shoes at all.

I found the entire presentation kind of forced, like he was pretending he didn’t care when he was actually uptight and full of elitist pretensions.

“You must agree that crossing by shuttle is quicker and safer than jumping across in a spacesuit,” Henshaw said, referring to some of my less successful incidents in the past.

I shrugged. “Maybe. It’s situational. And in my experience, most people don’t have enough training on their extra vehicle activity suits. Elise and Path both needed the practice.”

“So, you must be in a hurry to confront me this time,” Henshaw said. “Or you feel you have sufficient experience in the EVA gear.”

I was curious to know how he had come to the conclusion we would be at odds, even though it was a correct conclusion. “You think we’re going to have a confrontation?”

“It seems fairly obvious that you wanted Path back on your own ship. That should worry me more than it worries you. You’re a notorious assassin who has me at your mercy with little chance of rescue,” he said.

“It’s funny that you mention assassinations,” I said.

Henshaw didn’t react. He was either very good at concealing his emotions or didn’t know what I was talking about. X-37 told me the man had only murdered one person. The situation suggested it had been ordered by Vice Admiral Nebs, who wasn’t a Vice Admiral at the time, but who had been in charge of an intelligence gathering initiative.

“Why don’t we relocate to my den,” Henshaw said, still appearing to be mildly perplexed at my hostility. “I’m no angel, Mr. Cain, but I can tell you with confidence that I’m no assassin.”

I walked beside him, letting the moment draw out in silence. With most people, this would cause him to wonder what I was getting at or to struggle with making up a good cover story, only to feel more and more guilty and become more and more transparent.

Henshaw, for all of his faults, was above all of that. He had a keen mind and confidence in his decisions. Who else would have the arrogance to replace both of his natural eyes with cybernetics and risk blindness if something went wrong? I had to remember who I was dealing with.

OceanofPDF.com

8

X-37’s discovery was damning to the ocular engineer, but I knew it wasn’t the complete story. I knew the basic facts but not the man’s motivation.

Soft music played in the hallways of the Lady Faith, making the place feel like a luxury resort rather than a yacht built for luxury. It was the most expensive civilian craft I’d ever been on, and that included my missions against senators and corporate executives. For a brief moment, I wondered how the Jellybird defeated it so easily in our race to the last slip tunnel entrance.

It didn’t matter. I needed to focus on unraveling Henshaw’s past.

We arrived at his den, which was similar to my observation deck but more extravagantly furnished. He offered me a cigar and a glass of whiskey, which I accepted. Because… why not.

“You have a way of making people uneasy, Mr. Cain,” Henshaw said. “All I’ve done since you arrived is think about the word assassination. It would be enlightening to know where you came to the conclusion I’m capable of such a thing. No offense, of course. I’m not judging your vocation.”

This statement told me several things. One, he hadn’t forgot my opening salvo. The accusation had been just subtle enough for somebody to have to be paying attention to pick up on it. A less sophisticated, less experienced person might have convinced himself he’d heard me wrong.

It also showed that he didn’t consider whatever he had done to be an assassination. That left several possibilities, including privately motivated, intentional murder, or a killing in self-defense.

X-37 had explained to me that Henshaw, when he was still with the Union, had volunteered to assist a relatively obscure politician with a personal project. The Union had given him professional leave and paid for transport to the rather remote planet.

He spent several weeks there, frequently dining with the politician until they were best friends. By the end, no one else attended their dinners. They ate in private, with only automated servants to deliver the food and drink and discussed esoteric theories of artificial intelligence.

The politician, it turned out, was a much better scientist than a statesman and had only followed his career path in response to family pressure. The details about exactly what they had worked on were unavailable to X-37.

What I knew, however, from medical records and the review of news articles from the time, was that the politician had died unexpectedly after Henshaw returned to his regular duties in the next star system.

The politician had been relatively young and healthy, with no family history of heart disease. So, the sudden heart attack had been suspicious.

A medical examiner’s report showed that a buildup of certain toxins had contributed to the myocardial infarction.

Henshaw became the focus of an investigation, which drew a lot of public scrutiny, and then ended abruptly.

I took a seat in one of the extraordinarily comfortable lounge chairs and leaned back with a cigar and a glass of whiskey. It took a moment to get situated. I didn’t want to spill anything or drop an ember from the cigar into my lap.

“You’re an expert at ocular engineering and several other scientific fields,” I said.

“I am. Thanks for noticing,” Henshaw said.

“I’m an expert in eliminating political problems,” I stated.

“Your necessity. You know about assassinations and what assassins do,” Henshaw said, emphasizing what he thought to be my vocation several times.

“I’m more than that,” I said. “I’m an enforcer. Some of my missions were meant to be quiet and covert, others messy and public. They made me to send messages to their enemies. I’m the archangel of death. The Grim Reaper. The bogeyman everyone fears and sees when they close their eyes with a guilty conscience.”

Henshaw went pale. I thought he might’ve been preparing a rejoinder to my statement, but he swallowed it when he realized his life could end in a second.

“But you’re right, I know all about assassination. Governor John Miguel Cortona was healthy when you met him but developed a fatal heart condition by the time you left his estate.” I pulled smoke through my cigar, then slowly let it out. “During your private dinners, the food service was handled by automatons.”

Henshaw shifted in his comfortable chair, holding a glass of untouched whiskey. “That’s all true.”

“Did you ever work on the bots? Perhaps to show Cortona some of your skill set? Showing off a bit? Being helpful? Something else?”

“His passion was limited artificial intelligences and larger programs like the artificial intelligence that control ships and manufacturing plants,” Henshaw said. “It was only natural that we tinkered with things, as Tom would say.”

I didn’t miss Henshaw’s reference to our mutual friend. If he was smart, and I knew he was, he would remind me of our human connection. If he had been trained as an assassin, he would know it was important to dehumanize targets so that the agent wouldn’t hesitate when it became time to make the kill.

If he thought reminding me of mutual friends would stop me from doing what had to be done, he was wrong. But it was a good try. What he didn’t understand was that if I spaced him, it would be to protect Tom and the others.

“These machines that you guys played with delivered your meals. I’m sure they did a great job. I’m also certain they could have introduced toxins into Cortona’s meals, maybe small amounts that built-up just in time to kill him after you were gone,” I said.

A tear leaked from each of Henshaw’s eyes. He tried to speak but couldn’t. His effort to remain dignified was easy to see. His face reddened and I thought he might start blubbering.

I’d seen this before, of course, when people begged for mercy, but this was different.

“John Cortona could’ve been a brother to me in other circumstances,” Henshaw said, voice rough.

I waited for his next response, but not because I was trying to unbalance him as I had been doing previously. What I saw now made me sympathetic of the ocular engineer’s situation. I had a feeling I knew what was coming next.

Henshaw let out a long breath as he spoke his next words. “He was a truly brilliant and caring man. But he’d stepped down a dark path that even he couldn’t see. If I’d followed in that way, the galaxy would be a much different place, and not for the better.”

“He was seeking true artificial intelligence in his machines, wasn’t he?” I asked.

Henshaw nodded, still having trouble forming words. He took a breath, calming himself in delivering the rest of it with more control over his emotions. “He’d come to believe that a well programmed artificial intelligence could make superior moral decisions to humans. It was an enticing argument, as flawed as the Union was. I was young, still in the early stages of my Union career, but had already started to see problems.”

“Be careful, Reaper Cain,” X-37 warned me. “Your biometrics indicate that you may be feeling sympathetic for the focus of this interview.”

I found it interesting that X-37 was already dehumanizing Henshaw. I also knew that he was correct to advise caution.

It was possible that Henshaw had been recruited to commit a single murder to save the Union, but if he was a master of espionage and killing, he would also be good at verbal manipulation.

I had training in this area but normally relied on physical action to escape tight spots where I might be taken into custody by local authorities during a mission. That was all part of the Reaper legend. It was almost better that I get detained and then shoot my way out of the police station.

Union officials denied the existence of Reapers, but their denials only made my existence more terrifying.

“You’re not what I expected,” Henshaw said.

“Warning, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “The focus of this interview is trying to change the subject.”

I acknowledged X-37 with one of my very subtle hand movements we had been perfecting.

“What do you mean?” I asked Henshaw, expecting him to give me some line about how I was fair and impartial when making judgments about who should die and who shouldn’t, or that I had other heroic qualities. He would want to prime me for mercy if he could.

“People are drawn to you,” Henshaw said.

“I’m not sure where he is going with this,” X-37 whispered privately.

I smoked my cigar and sipped my whiskey, never looking away from Henshaw.

“You don’t see it, but Elise looks up to you and Tom seems to think you are brothers. I doubt it began this way. Path has practically adopted Elise as his protégée and would, without a doubt, die for you without a second thought,” Henshaw said.

“Path is a sword saint. Dying in battle without flinching from danger is part of their ethos,” I said.

Henshaw smiled and shook his head, expressing that I wasn’t getting it, or that was what it looked like he was trying to do. “Someday you’ll understand, I think. I had never thought to come this far with you and your crew. Any rational human being would advise against affiliation with the last Reaper, a man the entire Union is trying to destroy and a person that might kill me as soon as look at me. You wouldn’t even need a reason, I imagine.”

I shrugged. “True.”

Henshaw leaned forward and put his palms together almost like he was praying or just trying to express his earnestness about what he was going to say next. “Let me tell you something, Mr. Cain. I worked for Vice Admiral Nebs several different times. On one occasion, I upgraded his nerve-ware to the point he can broadcast certain signals. One of the things he was most interested in, as the head of the Reaper Corps, was the ability to control or neutralize their LAIs. I also believe he may have one of the dual or even quad LAI experiments.”

X-37 made a noise, half clicking and half whistling. I’d never heard it before and had the idea that it meant the LAI was surprised. “I can’t believe he admitted that.”

I was also surprised but understood it was a good tactic to admit to an accusation before the accusation actually came. It gave his denial more credibility. At the same time, I was having a hard time doubting his earnestness. I just didn’t think he was that good of an actor, but I’d been wrong before. Not often, but more than once.

“Was that what you came to confront me about?” Henshaw asked.

“No,” I lied. “But it makes sense that you assassinated Cortona. When exactly were you going to tell me about Vice Admiral Nebs’ ability to shut off X-37 if I get too close to the man?”

“I planned to tell you sometime before it became necessary to confront the vice admiral,” Henshaw said. “I’m still hoping we can avoid that.”

“If we work together, and you stop holding back critical information, we might be able to steer clear of the man indefinitely, unless he gets in the way of me finding my mother and sister,” I said.

“Perhaps we could steal them away without going head-to-head with Nebs and his soldiers,” Henshaw said.

I agreed with him. Taking on somebody like Nebs was foolish. I didn’t mind a fight, but I wasn’t trying to commit suicide by spec ops soldiers. “Can you program a workaround that will allow X-37 to resist Nebs’s shutdown procedure?”

“I can try. In fact, I have already installed the basis for this algorithm when we first met,” Henshaw said.

“And yet you didn’t tell me about it,” I said, not exactly pleased with this revelation.

“The problem is, I installed that programming into Nebs’ LAI years ago. I must remind you that his limited artificial intelligence is not that limited—it may be cluster of LAIs instead of a single unit, something much closer to a true AI. The real reason he had me eliminate Cortona was that Cortona had already done some significant work for him. He was, in effect, removing any competition to his own efficacy as a master Reaper,” Henshaw said.

“It doesn’t matter how many gadgets he installed in himself, he doesn’t have the training or the experience to do what I do,” I said.

“You don’t know what he has or doesn’t have,” Henshaw pointed out.

I felt like ice water had been poured down my spine when Henshaw spoke this time.

“He is correct,” X-37 warned me. “My analysis is that we should avoid a direct confrontation with Vice Admiral Nebs or any of his best soldiers.”

A long moment of silence passed between Henshaw and me. After finishing my whiskey and pocketing the half-finished cigar once I had extinguished it, I stood to go.

Henshaw handed me three of the Starbrand Premium cigars. “You’re just going to steal them anyway.”

“Thanks, Jimmy. I’m heading back to my ship. I will most likely kill you in the morning.”

He laughed. “I didn’t think that men like you read the classics.”

“I had a lot of time in the Blue Sphere Maximum-security Prison. X-37 was able to access their library. His reading voice is shit, but it passes the time.”

OceanofPDF.com

9

I returned to the Jellybird with a lot on my mind. Life was more complicated now. People depended on me, and if Henshaw was to be believed, they were looking to me for leadership.

I had friends, and that made me vulnerable. Losing my family to my violent enemies had taught me how devastating the weakness was to a man at war with a power as formidable as the Union.

Gone were the days when I could drop into the middle of my adversaries, shoot and slash to my heart’s content, and then disappear into the shadows without any real consequence. When they came after me, they would be coming after Elise and the others.

I still wasn’t sure about Henshaw, but I wanted to believe his story. “X, have you been able to analyze Henshaw’s behavior during our interview?”

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “I would prefer to tell you with certainty that he is, how would you say it, a lying jack hole, but to do so would be to fabricate a report. That isn’t something I’m programmed to do to my host.”

“You know it creeps me out when you refer to me as your host,” I said offhandedly.

“I will endeavor to find a more suitable description of our relationship,” X-37 promised. “You have work to do. Jelly is requesting your presence on the bridge.”

“I’m tired, X,” I said. “Why doesn’t Jelly just asked me herself?”

“It seems she is trying to establish a communication link with the Bold Freedom,” X-37 advised without emotion. My LAI was neither excited nor bored with this news.

“What?” I exclaimed, stopping dead in my tracks.

“There was a distress call of some sort and a garbled plea for help. Something about the alarming approach of a comet on their location,” X-37 explained.

I headed for the bridge. “What the hell are they doing this far into uncharted space?”

“I imagine they’re doing the same thing we are doing, running from the Union,” X-37 said.

“I know they’re on the run, but we’re only here because our situation is extreme,” I said, immediately scolding myself for underestimating the desperate nature of the Bold Freedom and its passengers. The Union wouldn’t allow them to survive, or if it did, it would be by putting them in a place worse than Dreadmax.

When I arrived on the bridge, several holo displays were active, searching quadrants in the nearby systems. “How can you not know where they are? I thought you said something about a comet. Just look for the comet and find the ship.”

“Perhaps now is the time for me to explain, Reaper Cain, that comets are not as rare as you might have come to believe with your limited human senses,” X-37 said. “Jelly lacks the power to see much of the star systems around the one we are currently residing in. She’s attempting to backtrack the distress signal, but there is some nebula interference we’re still trying to figure out. My point, however, is that there are comets around every star. Some are larger and more dangerous than others.”

“I never said I was an astronomer,” I muttered.

“Clearly not,” X-37 said.

“Don’t get nasty with me, X. The last thing I need is an intellectually superior and judgmental LAI chiming in with his opinion every five minutes,” I said.

“Would you like me to keep a log of our conversations and the frequency at which I evaluate your mental prowess?” X-37 asked.

“Not only no, but hell no,” I said, pulling up information on a workstation and trying to see where this distress signal had come from. “Get Tom up here and make sure Henshaw and the Lady Faith are working on this as well.”

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“Jelly, can you give me an update?” I asked. “What type of nebula are we dealing with and how big is it?”

Several seconds passed, which was a long time for a ship AI to hesitate. “I believe we are dealing with a highly ionized emission nebula, but little is known about the star systems in this region. As for the Bold Freedom and its distress call, I’ve not been able to respond other than by a simple acknowledgment that we received the distress call. They’ve asked for an ETA several times, stating that they are low on food and water, and completely out of fuel. This is the main problem. They are unable to steer out of the way of the comet.”

“Unlucky bastards,” I said without thinking.

“They are unfortunate,” Jelly agreed. “My analysis suggests they are less than ninety-six standard hours from destruction. After that time, they won’t be able to evade the debris caused by outgassing when it neared this system’s star. Even if they have fuel, no one will be able to get close enough to rescue them while maintaining enough speed to still escape their doom.”

“Can you at least tell me exactly where they are?” I asked.

“I’ve narrowed it down considerably since we first detected the distress call. There are two possible comets as large as they are reporting. They are in different systems, neither of which are close to our current position,” Jelly said.

* * *

By the time we finished our calculations, I was more mentally and emotionally exhausted than after a gut-check workout with Elise. It had been a long time since I’d bent over a workstation and wrestled with numbers and astro-navigation charts like this.

It was all hands on deck for this one. Even Path worked on the problem in his own peculiar way. He spent a lot more time looking at the numbers than actually manipulating them, only making a computation after meditating on the charts for some time.

I’d expected Elise wouldn’t like this type of boring mind work. But she went at it like she went at all challenges, determined to beat us to the answer. Every time I watched her do something like this, I reminded myself that I didn’t really know that much about her or how she had grown up. Despite her rough teenage years, she had undoubtedly been educated in the most expensive schools the Union had to offer until she made her break.

None of us had a chance of beating X-37 and Jelly to the location of the Bold Freedom, but my limited artificial intelligence and two ship AIs insisted we were helping. Occasionally, one of them would ask the humans questions and we would speculate on various hypotheses.

Because that was what we could do that Jelly and X-37 couldn’t, imagine things.

“I believe that we have a good location on the freighter,” X-37 finally announced. “It is two systems away and cannot be confirmed until we get much closer for our sensors to take direct observations. This region of space is dirty with nebulas.”

“But we’re pretty sure where it’s at,” I said.

“That means something different to Jelly and me,” X-37 pointed out.

“Of course it does,” I said. “Let’s assume this location is accurate enough to be actionable. What can we do now to help them?”

Everyone stared at me with defeated expressions. Elise looked angry, like she wanted to give the universe the finger. Tom’s downcast stare made him look heartbroken. He toyed with his well-pressed jumpsuit to avoid meeting my eyes.

On the holo view, Path was calm and contemplative as always, but he looked straight ahead as though he had accepted the deaths of everyone on board the Bold Freedom.

Henshaw was the only one to face me directly, as though he understood the hard realities we were facing. “Sorry, Mr. Cain, even if we could get there in time, we don’t have any fuel to get the Bold Freedom moving again.”

“I must add that there are numerous slip tunnels in this galactic region,” X-37 dropped in like information would be important to our discussion. “We avoid problematic systems once we have a better map of the area.”

“We are getting better at determining their locations,” Jelly added, in what ship AI probably assumed was an encouraging tone. “I hope that is helpful, Captain, but I still haven’t located a fuel source for the lost freighter.”

“Thanks, Jelly, but this isn’t that complicated,” I said, frustrated that none of my friends saw where we needed to go.

Henshaw became indignant. “Well, why don’t you tell us where your superior mind and reasoned intellect says we should go.”

“My analysis suggests that Mr. Henshaw believes he is superior to you in areas of intelligence,” X-37 advised privately.

I didn’t answer. X-37 probably knew where I thought we should go, but I wanted Elise and the others to figure it out. Sometimes my LAI could be intuitive. It was like we were a team or something.

Elise crossed her arms, chewing her lower lip like she really didn’t like me right now. After a moment, she spoke. “You want us to do what the Union is doing to chase us.”

“I’m sorry, how does that have anything to do with getting hit by a comet?” Henshaw asked. His opinion of Elise’s theory, even though she was holding back, was pretty plain. Henshaw was used to being the smartest man in the room and the first to know the answer to a problem.

“Take it a bit further,” I said.

“We’ve been scanning areas of space we have no intention of going with the intent of misdirecting Nebs and his ship captains. You want us to figure out where the Bold Freedom wants to go and then go there,” Elise said, seeming more confident now.

“How does that help the Bold Freedom?” Tom asked, respectfully interested.

“The Bold Freedom needs fuel. That’s where they were going, to find the natural resources or some other way of powering their ship,” Elise said.

“I should’ve thought of that,” Tom admitted.

Henshaw took a moment longer but lost some of his attitude. “Very good, Mr. Cain. We will need to project their destination, figure out how long it will take to get there, and then have a plan for delivering the fuel to the Bold Freedom in time to escape the path of the comet.”

I clapped my hands together and smiled broadly. “Well then, let’s do this. There are three slip tunnels in this system. We are still in a place no one from the Union has ever been. Let’s pick one and jump. I prefer we move toward the system the Bold Freedom was trying to reach if possible.”

“Our map of the area is increasing as we explore, but we have a long way to go before we have a complete understanding of this region. It doesn’t matter which slip tunnel we use. We are taking a risk every time we make a blind jump. The more data we gather, the stronger our conclusions will be,” Tom said. “But there is more debris than any of us could’ve expected. Most of it is so diffused, none of us will even notice it, but it’s a good reminder not to become overconfident. Everything we are encountering is new.”

Henshaw nodded agreement.

I had expected him to make a snide comment about the mechanic giving navigation advice, but he didn’t. Maybe I shouldn’t be making assumptions. Maybe I needed to stick with what I knew, like the fact that the Union was after us and wouldn’t quit, and that Henshaw had killed a man for Nebs.

There was a frenzy of activity once we decided which tunnel to take. I caught Henshaw staring at me in the middle of it. It was almost private for a moment because everyone was focusing on their work as intensely as possible.

“What do I have to do to prove myself?” Henshaw asked, the holo view flickering slightly as he finished his words.

I had thought about that a lot. He had warned me about Nebs and how the vice admiral could control or interfere with X-37 next time we met. That was something. If he worked for Nebs, this revelation was treasonous.

“Trust but verify, that’s always been a good policy,” I said. “At this point, we are stuck with each other. Unless you’re part of an extremely complicated and far-reaching plot to become a sleeper agent on my ship, I’d bet money that your life’s worth less than mine to the Union. So I may not trust you, but we have to work together or we both die.”

Henshaw looked sad, like he had expected real friendship or at least something more than an uneasy truce.

“I bet you feel like a jerk now,” X-37 said.

“I’m good, X,” I said, not looking away from Henshaw.

“Uncertainty detected,” X-37 said.

I ignored X. “Let’s start by proving your upgrades can withstand any cyber-attack launched by Vice Admiral Nebs.”

“I think that’s an excellent place to start. I will build some scenarios in which one of the AIs attempts to penetrate X-37’s defenses. And while we’re at it, you should devise a way to test the Jellybird’s stealth cloak, a game of hide and seek perhaps,” Henshaw suggested. “I should also start working on the Bold Freedom’s destination planet before Tom figures it out and takes all the glory.”

OceanofPDF.com

10

“Just let me fall,” she begged. “Protect my girls.”

Angry tears spilled down my face. Pain screamed through every joint and muscle fiber in my left arm. “I don’t know where they are.”

* * *

It was amazing how far slip tunnels could move ships. We had picked the nearest tunnel and jumped, not wanting to leave any clues for the Union that we had been in the last system, much less which direction we had chosen to travel.

Last time, I had wanted to mark their position relative to us, determine if they were gaining on us, and count their numbers. It seemed Nebs was keeping his group together and that we still had a slight speed advantage when moving from slip tunnel to slip tunnel at relativistic speeds. All of that was good information, but now I wanted to make them guess without risking they catch a glimpse of us before we could clear this strange system.

What amazed me, when we scanned for slip tunnels and also postulated the location of the Bold Freedom and its probable destination from where we currently were located, was the enormous distances we were dealing with in this flight from the Union.

At the moment, we found ourselves with a particularly troublesome nebula between where we were and where we wanted to be. The planet the Bold Freedom had been trying to reach was simple to reach from this system, but it was going to take a lot of hopping about to get where the Bold Freedom was stranded.

Basically, we were coming from the opposite direction with a whole lot of scary stuff between us.

“I thought we had established enough data from the stars we have seen since leaving the Deadlands to fix a location on the freighter,” I complained.

“That’s true, but not many of the stars are visible from where we jumped to this time. We need to triangulate those we have identified by their light spectrums and neighboring celestial objects,” X-37 said.

“But there are some we recognize, right?” I asked.

“The more points we have, the surer we can be of our navigation, but what we have should be enough,” Jelly said.

“Set a course for planet… what shall we call it?” I asked.

“I have it designated on my work terminal as the fuel source,” Tom said, barely looking up from what he was doing.

“That works,” I said. “Let’s go to the fuel planet. Jelly, please calculate a course around the nebula.”

“I’m working on it now,” Jelly advised. “I made some rough calculations on our chance of moving through that nebula but decided the odds are distinctly negative. It is massive. Even if we could detect slip tunnels while inside of it, there are just too many unknown variables. I can’t scan much through the dust cloud due to the ionization.”

“Agreed. I’d rather jump through a dozen slip tunnels than try to take a shortcut through that mess,” I said, marveling at the view on the holo display. It was mostly a computer-generated image based on what Jelly thought the nebula looked like up close, but it was amazing nonetheless. “Nothing can be easy,” I muttered.

“Of course not,” Jelly said. “All of my previous captains have shared this sentiment.”

“X, have our sensors broadcast any information indicating the Union carriers followed us through the last tunnel?” I asked.

“All seems to be quiet. I will alert you the moment the relays report anything useful,” X-37 promised.

I looked at Elise and Tom. “We need to get some rest, but from here on out, someone has to man the bridge at all times.”

“That sounds like a great idea,” Elise said, standing and stretching. “I nominate you to go first.”

Tom seemed embarrassed by her snarky attitude. “I can take the first shift. It’s not a big deal.”

“Get some sleep, Tom. I’m trained to go for long periods of time without rest and I have X-37 to give me an adrenaline boost if I start to nod off,” I said in a tone that was firm but not too authoritative. That was what Tom responded to best.

“Okay, you’re right,” he agreed.

Tom and Elise disappeared to their separate cabins.

“Jelly, can you see if Henshaw and Path are getting enough rest and recuperation?” I asked.

“Lady advises me that they are taking appropriate care of themselves,” Jelly said after a moment. “Henshaw has swallowed two sleeping pills. Path is meditating in the den with a view of star fields all around him.”

“Good to know,” I said, still adapting to being responsible for more than just myself.

“Would you like to review the music selection for your shift on the bridge?” Jelly asked.

“I feel like reading,” I said, surprised at the compulsion after so much mental effort working on the various navigation problems we’d been faced with. “X, can you pull up everything you have on Nebs? His early career, at least, should be public record and that should have been downloaded the last time the Jellybird was in Union space.”

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “Would you like me to read it to you?”

“Work on the Bold Freedom problem with Jelly,” I said as I opened the first of many documents concerning the early career of Vice Admiral Nebs.

The introductory synopsis told me a lot. The man had performed well but not brilliantly, scoring high in his class at one of the Union’s mid-level academies but not at the top. He performed well in his assignments and earned several commendatory performance reports and a few medals.

By the time he was the captain of his own ship, things became interesting. He was almost court-martialed twice for “budgetary over-reach” and had been missing in action with one of the ships for several years. When he returned, a thorough investigation of the mission convinced powerful people that Nebs had performed extraordinarily under pressure and had been able to hold together his crew even in the worst circumstances. Not only had he gone out on an impossible mission, but he came back with new technology and brought home most of his crew alive.

I settled into the captain’s chair to read on. What I expected was an abrupt end to his official career, probably some sort of honorable discharge and a footnote about how he became a farmer someplace and retired from public life.

That was the sort of thing that happened when a person left the regular service to enter dark ops.

“Jelly, I changed my mind. Can you play something orchestral? A big holo movie score maybe?”

“At once, Captain,” Jelly said, then filled the bridge with sound.

* * *

With the Jellybird making her best speed toward our objective, I left Tom at the helm and headed for the galley. The two-a-day physical training sessions with Elise had sent my appetite into overdrive. I was ready to eat my own hand if I didn’t wolf down some calories soon.

And I needed coffee.

My earbud beeped.

“Hal, this is Tom. Jelly is working on a new development.”

“I just left the bridge,” I said. “Can it wait until after breakfast? Jelly is obviously still working on whatever it is, or she would have called me herself.”

“There may be technology on the planet the Bold Freedom was heading toward,” Tom said.

“What kind of technology?” I asked.

“Radio signals,” Tom answered.

“Is someone sending a message, maybe another distress call?” I asked, wondering if the BF had already set up some sort of colony there. “Or could it be some kind of survey marker?”

“She says it’s faint and does not have a decryption key worked out. It’s a series of tones and pauses,” Tom said.

I thought about it for a second, then answered, “I’ll get back to the bridge after breakfast.”

“Probably a good decision,” Tom said. “Jelly or I will keep you updated on any changes.”

Elise was halfway through her breakfast when I entered the galley. She watched intently as I loaded my plate with reconstituted scrambled eggs, imitation bacon, and something orange to drink. I glanced at her once or twice, confirming she had neither stopped eating nor looked away.

I joined her at the small table. “Is this seat taken?”

She motioned toward it with a fork then took another bite.

“Somebody’s hungry,” I said as I sat down and dug into the food like a ravenous animal.

“I’m still growing. What’s your excuse?” she asked, looking at the mounds of food I had gathered.

“Jelly may be picking up a signal from the mystery planet,” I said, ignoring the jab. “If there’s a colony or military base there, this could get complicated.”

“There’s no way the Union has another secret base this far out,” she said.

“Agreed.” I dug into my food like I’d never eaten before.

Elise finished her meal and then started cracking jokes, trying to make me laugh hard enough to choke. She nearly got me once when my mouth was full of orange juice, but I managed not to spray it across the room.

I cleaned up my meal and checked in with Tom and Jelly. “What’s the news?”

“The signal stopped,” Tom advised. “My working theory is that there is, or was, some sort of colony that is trying to communicate with a long-range satellite. Whoever it is, the technology is too primitive to be Union made.”

I didn’t speak, and neither did Elise. We looked at each other. The implications of this news were hard to unpack.

“Are you telling me we’re about to make alien contact?” I asked.

“Unlikely,” Tom said. “Jelly hasn’t unraveled the code completely but says it has humanistic qualities.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked.

“It’s like she recognizes a language she can’t understand yet. I doubt you speak Rugornian, but would you recognize it if someone was coughing it out? That is what I’m saying,” Tom explained. “With enough exposure, she should acquire a sufficient vocabulary to respond to whoever sent it, or what sent it, rather. It’s probably a beacon or a primitive relay like ones we have left at slip tunnel openings to spy on Union ships.”

“Make sure she contacts me before she initiates any communications with the source of the signal,” I said.

Several moments passed after the conversation was over. Elise could barely sit still. “Now we have to go to this planet. There could be people there!”

“There aren’t going to be any people,” I said, heading for the door and waving her to follow.

“There could be,” she argued, letting a long pause break her thought. “I’m tired of training.”

“You said you would never get tired of training.” In truth, I was bored with the constant repetitions it took to achieve mastery of any skill.

“Fine,” Elise said. “I’ll clear my calendar.”

Normally, at this point in such a conversation, we would be heading for the gym and the range. I stayed where I was, longingly looking at my plate like it might produce more food.

“What are you thinking about, Reaper? Can’t remember where the gym is?” Elise asked.

I thought about what we needed. “What’s a skill we haven’t trained that might save your life?”

Elise leaned back in her chair and stared at the ceiling as she pondered the question. “I’m not very good at brain surgery.”

Snorting a laugh, I stood up and waved her toward the door. “That’s an excellent observation. Let’s work on some battlefield first aid. Jelly, power up the infirmary.”

“Right away, Captain,” Jelly said.

OceanofPDF.com

11

The bridge to Jeppa was empty when I finally went to sleep, which somehow made the nightmare worse. All I could hear was the occasional gust of wind and the creaking of the support beams that hung toward the river far below.

No artillery. No orders from Captain Clark. Not a single plea for help from the woman.

My mouth tasted like bad whiskey. Jeppa smelled like a two-day-old cigar despite the gusts of wind whipping past my ears.

* * *

I slipped out of my bunk the moment I woke up. Moving as quietly and quickly as possible, I dropped low and crossed to the other side of the dark room. Kneeling on one knee with the other foot slightly forward, I could’ve been a sniper scanning the night.

But this was only my room and there were no enemies. “X, how’s my resting heart rate?”

Getting out of bed like this was an immediate action drill that I didn’t think about. I’d used the routine on several missions. It kept me alive. I’d been places where it was never too early in the day to start fighting for survival. The nice thing about my cabin on the Jellybird was that no one was here to judge me.

So what if I came out of bed ready for a fight to the death? I wasn’t paranoid or burdened with post-traumatic stress. I was all right.

I was alert and ready to throw down, but that didn’t mean I felt full of youthful energy and excitement. It took effort to control my breathing while X-37 evaluated my biometrics.

“Good news, Reaper Cain, you’re still alive,” X-37 said.

“Did I upgrade you with smartass software? Never mind. What’s the status of the crew?” I asked.

“Elise and Path are warming up for a sparring session with practice swords,” X-37 said. “Tom is reading historical fiction out loud to Jelly on the bridge.”

“Fantastic,” I said, then took a quick shower. Minutes later, I was dressed, ready for anything, and on my way to the bridge.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the training room?” X-37 asked. “It looks like Elise and Path are beginning to train in earnest. You might want to be there to keep them from hurting each other.”

“They’ll survive,” I said.

“What is the basis of that conclusion?” X-37 asked. “They are hitting each other with carbon fiber practice swords. My analysis of the speed of the strikes, combined with the mass of the weapons—as slight as they are—suggests a significant amount of force transfer that is likely to result in serious injuries of both participants.”

“I’ll watch from the bridge. I need to contact Henshaw and set up our hide and seek match. He claims the stealth cloak is ready for a trial,” I said.

“Very good, Reaper Cain,” X-37 replied.

“Good afternoon, Captain,” Jelly said as I dropped into my captain’s chair.

As usual, getting Henshaw to answer a hail from the Jellybird was slow and painful. I was starting to think the man was doing this on purpose just to annoy me.

I flicked on the holo feed from the training room and smiled cautiously. For two people who didn’t like or trust each other, Path and Elise now acted like kindred spirits. Maybe a better way to describe them would be as reflections of one another—opposite sides of the same credit chip.

Path had a mixture of long and short hair. In places, it was spiky, and in other places, it was braided into elaborate ropes that hung down his back. Glowing beads and other jewelry were woven into the tangle of dark and light colored hair. He had three piercings on his right eyebrow that flashed a tiny amount of light from time to time and made me think of an antenna for boosting limited artificial intelligence signals.

He had a similar ring through his bottom lip, slightly off-center, and wore rings on his left and right hand with similar blinking lights.

X-37 and I were still working on exactly what these did, if anything. When we first met, it seemed obvious they were just for show, but now I wasn’t so sure. My companions were more than they seemed.

Elise had shortened her hair and spiked it while also increasing the color variation. It was still fairly long and dark in the back when she untangled it from the braids she used to imitate or mock Path. She lacked piercings or tattoos, but she covered most of her skin with a service jumpsuit or tactical gear anyway, so it didn’t matter.

They circled each other with the practice swords raised, watching each other and looking for opportunities to strike.

“They have been significantly more cautious during this match than previously,” X-37 observed. “At the moment, they are fourteen seconds beyond the moment Elise attempted a first strike during their last engagement.”

“I’m assuming that Elise always strikes first or attempts to,” I said.

“That was my initial assumption as well, but it turns out to be incorrect. Statistically, Elise is only two percent more likely to strike first than Path,” X-37 said.

They exchanged a flurry of strikes and backed away from each other. Elise moved with as much skill as anyone I knew, except for Path or Uriah, the sword saint I had been lucky to defeat on Roxo III. The expression on her face suggested she wasn’t anywhere close to satisfied with her performance.

“Are you there, Mr. Cain?” came through the speaker.

“I’m here, Jimmy,” I said, watching his reaction. He tried to play it cool, but I knew that it rankled him when I didn’t return the same level of formal courtesy as he was presenting.

I sighed. “I can hear you well, Mr. Henshaw,” I managed.

“Are we ready to begin our drill?” Henshaw asked.

“Sure,” I said, resisting the compulsion to call him Jimmy. I liked him better as Jimmy. And I wished he would stop being so pretentious. It seemed like an act most of the time, like he had practiced with a voice coach, but it still rang false in my ears.

My attention was drawn away by a violent clash in the training room. Elise drove Path back with a furious onslaught of slashes, stabs, and kicks. She was practically growling and spitting. Her face reddened and her technique deteriorated.

“I don’t believe she can maintain that pace,” X-37 observed.

I shook my head, totally disagreeing with my limited artificial intelligence’s assessment. “She has more physical endurance and mental willpower than most spec ops soldiers. I’ve pushed her as hard as I was ever pushed in my Reaper training and she never quits.”

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “She may continue to fight, but her technique and her choices are becoming less and less effective.”

“I can’t argue with you, X,” I said. “Jelly, move us away from the Lady Faith and initiate Operation Middle Finger.”

“Right away, Captain,” Jelly said.

“Are you already starting?” Henshaw complained. “I wasn’t sure we had even agreed to do this drill much less decided to begin.”

“Oh, we’re doing it,” I said, giving a hand signal to Jelly’s bridge sensors to begin. On the bridge where she had most of her internal camera and sensor clusters, Jelly could interpret my body language well. We had been working on it, playing little games and doing impromptu tests of her ability to accurately interpret my hand and body signals. I was sure she understood the significance of Operation Middle Finger—although I had never presented one to her, only explained what it meant.

Henshaw, Jelly, and X-37 hadn’t been able to reassure me that speed didn’t affect our current stealth configuration, so I had mandated that we cut engines and coast for a bit during the first stages of our stealth cloak initiation procedure.

I tensed, waiting for something spectacular to occur. It had been a while since I was on a Union stealth ship. Before they betrayed me and sentenced me to death in the Blue Sphere Maximum-security Prison, traveling unnoticed had been routine. Contrary to what I’d been told by my instructors, traveling in a ship that was in stealth mode felt different to me.

Once, I attempted to explain this to X-37. He assured me it was my imagination or that I was some type of hypersensitive freak.

The primary holo display showed Jelly as a small icon moving away from the Lady Faith in a curving vector that would eventually put us in the smaller ship’s wake. Readings from our power core were steady. Our small assortment of ship to ship weapons—light rockets and auto-cannons that barely deserved the name—were online.

“We seriously need to upgrade our offensive capabilities on the ship,” I said.

“Agreed,” X-37 said.

Jelly didn’t respond but I doubted she disagreed.

On the display, Henshaw’s ship searched in a three-dimensional grid pattern. At the same time, he continued moving, practicing several of the evasive maneuvers I had explained were necessary, even when we thought we were alone.

In time, our well-reasoned and tactical paranoia would pay off.

“Cain for Tom, can you come to the bridge?” I asked.

He responded a second later. “I’m on the way. I just need to close out this project.”

“He means finish the chapter he’s reading,” X-37 said.

“You’re missing the inaugural launch of the stealth cloak,” I said to Tom.

There was excitement and urgency in his voice when he responded this time. “I’m on my way. I didn’t realize we had decided to go forward with the trials. Have I missed anything?”

“We’re undetected so far,” I said, then turned my attention back to monitoring the progress of the Lady Faith.

Both ships continued to move while I waited for the well-read mechanic. He arrived out of breath and quickly leaned toward the copilot’s holo monitor. “This is good stuff.”

He typed furiously on one of the datapads and swiped his left hand several times at the three-dimensional controls of the dataflow. “I just don’t see any problems with our performance. I hadn’t dared hope it would be this smooth on the first try.”

“These are ideal conditions,” I warned. “No one is trying to kill us.”

Tom laughed. “That’s good. However, if anyone is going to be able to detect our presence, it will be Henshaw. He wrote the software.”

“You helped,” Jelly said. “Your input has been invaluable.”

“Thanks, Jelly,” Tom said. “It’s not every day a guy like me receives such praise from an artificial intelligence flying the most notorious ship in the galaxy.”

The dance through the void of space didn’t take long to become boring. We continued to try new things and gather data. After a while, even Tom was looking less enthusiastic.

I reactivated the view of the training room and saw that Elise and Path were still at it. Both of them were drenched in sweat, their funky neon hairstyles and clothing in disarray.

“It looks like they’ve been mixing ground fighting with sword fighting this time,” I said.

Tom’s expression went pale. “Path gave me a few lessons on basic self-defense. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. The worst part was how he never seemed to exert himself or become angry.”

“He’s exerting himself now. Unless he’s just sweating at random. Watch closely and you’ll see him dry one of his hands on his jacket from time to time. Holding those practice swords becomes surprisingly difficult after a while,” I said.

Elise spun in a tight circle and smashed her weapon into Path’s shoulder, scoring one of the few hits I’d seen against the sword saint.

Tom and I gasped at the same time.

“That had to hurt,” I commented.

Elise and Path separated briefly, then charged, their weapons clacking louder and louder as they fought. Before long, Tom and I were both ducking and leaning to avoid strikes, even though we were only spectators. Once or twice we laughed, but other times we cursed, as we imagined what the strikes had to feel like.

“You don’t flinch like that when you get hit during training,” X-37 said.

“That’s different. Ouch! She’s got to defend against that downward diagonal,” I said, imagining the pain of the glancing blow to her head.

“Perhaps you should pay more attention to your own training assignment,” X-37 said. “My analysis suggests that Henshaw may catch you this time. He’s coming around fast with a full sensor sweep.”

“What the hell?” I asked, spinning my chair back to my primary duties. “He acts like he has us, but there’s no way he does.”

“My analysis suggests you are correct. It should be impossible,” X-37 assured me.

“What are you two talking about?” Tom asked. “It was only a matter of time before Henshaw found us, even if he didn’t cheat. He wrote the code and helped install the hardware.”

“I had X-37 slip in a little something extra just to keep him off our back. I don’t want him changing sides and giving us up to Nebs when things get tough.”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Tom said defensively.

I agreed, but old habits were hard to break, even with friends. Long ago, I’d been taught to trust but verify and to always have a plan to kill everyone I met just in case. Grim? Yes. Effective at staying alive? Absolutely. 

“That is…” Tom said, struggling for words. “… probably smart. Henshaw isn’t someone I would want as an enemy.”

“What are your orders, Captain?” Jelly asked. “If you pull up the subsection of the secondary display terminal, I have listed several maneuvering options.”

“I know, Jelly. I already looked at them,” I said.

“You spent two point three seconds on that task,” X-37 chimed in.

“Tactics are simple,” I said, annoyed with my tattle-telling LAI. “Your preprogrammed options are pretty standard.”

“You may add to the selections if you wish, Captain,” Jelly offered.

“Later,” I said, typing on my screen to check my assumption. “Full stop, Jelly.”

The displays indicated we had become a fixed object as much as was possible in a galaxy that was constantly changing. The Lady Faith’s icon spiraled away from us by comparison. It was more than a bit disorienting.

“That should throw Henshaw off,” I said, crossing my arms.

“It did indeed,” X-37 said, “for nearly five seconds.”

“We are being pinged by the Lady Faith. She has located our presence in the system,” Jelly said.

Henshaw hailed us a second later. “That was tricky, Mr. Cain. The Lady Faith tells me that you delayed discovery by four seconds.”

“Five seconds,” I said defensively.

“Near enough,” Henshaw admitted.

“How did you do that, Jimmy?” I demanded.

“My latest detection algorithm is far more advanced than anything I did for the Union,” Henshaw said. “They never gave me free rein for my more creative solutions to this particular tactical problem.”

I considered his response and was reasonably sure he was telling the truth. There wasn’t a way to confront him on whether or not he had detected X-37’s code snippet without giving away what we had done to cheat.

“Give me details, Jimmy,” I said, noticing that he didn’t mind his nickname when he was gloating about his victory.

He smiled and lit one of his Starbrand Premium cigars.

“Stop gloating,” I muttered. 

“I’ve found it necessary to have a hidden stash when my guests are notorious for their sticky fingers,” Henshaw said. “You’ll have to forgive me. This is a moment of vindication. I wasn’t crazy all these years. True freedom from the Union is going to be good for me and my creative energies.”

“We still have a vice admiral and his fleet of trained killers tracking us. Don’t start celebrating just yet,” I said.

“Would you like a head start this time?” Henshaw asked.

“Why not? Let’s put this stealth cloak to the test. I’d like to try it in all conditions if possible, including at speed,” I said.

“It will be good for gathering data,” Henshaw agreed, “but I’m going to catch you every time.”

“Care to bet on it?” I asked before I thought about who I was talking to.

“I’d love nothing better than a good wager, but what exactly do you have to offer if you lose?” Henshaw asked.

“I’ll stop stealing your cigars for one standard month,” I said.

“Nice improvisation,” X-37 commented privately.

“Not much of a bet,” Henshaw muttered. “And I imagine you want one of my Premiums if I lose?”

“A box of Premiums,” I said.

He laughed. “Well, that’s probably fair since you’re not going to win.”

“We’ll see about that,” I said, then signaled Jelly to make us disappear.

OceanofPDF.com

12

We had been playing hide and seek four hours before everything went horribly wrong.

“Jelly advises that we are closer to the slip tunnel we came through than is ideal given the circumstances,” X-37 said.

“Relax, X,” I said as I considered an unlit cigar and pondered my inevitable victory over Henshaw and the Lady Faith.

“If we came through it, so could someone else. Someone dangerous,” X said far too seriously.

“Wait.” I sat up and began flipping through tactical holos—still no detection by Henshaw, and he was the reason we were this close to the slip tunnel, because he had been hard to get away from with his seemingly random as hell search vectors and sensors too powerful for a pleasure yacht. 

It aggravated me that I wasn’t seeing the danger that had X worked up, then on impulse, I flipped to the navigation holo.

“Fuck me in a circle!” I shouted.

“She asked me to tell you because she’s busy with countermeasures,” X-37 said. “It seems we have company.”

“No shit, X. Warn the Lady immediately.” There had been no sign of slip tunnel activity since we arrived, and I had begun using more and more of the system to evade Henshaw and the Lady Faith. “How many ships?”

If I was being completely honest, I was hoping that only one of the carriers had come through, or better yet just a scouting drone.

“All three of the stealth carriers, The UFS Nightmare, UFS Dark Lance, and UFS Black Wing emerged in a standard Union tactical formation then disappeared,” X-37 reported. “We have approximate locations using Henshaw’s improved detection algorithms. The problem is that their stealth cloaks are a much newer design, developed and perfected long after Henshaw parted ways with the Union.”

“Is Henshaw seeing this?” I asked, not liking the vector the Lady Faith was currently pursuing.

“I’ve just sent a warning,” Jelly said. “Her attention must have been on finding us. Simple mistake. He’s smart and his ship has the surprisingly good tech for this kind of thing, but they haven’t been blooded in combat.”

“It’s too late,” X-37 told me privately.

I agreed but decided to keep my mouth shut. Tom and Jelly were working furiously to penetrate the Union stealth cloaks.

Elise and Path rushed onto the bridge, responding to the all-hands alert. They were sweaty and still holding their practice weapons.

“What’s happening? Is it the Union?” Elise asked.

“All three ships. They went invisible almost immediately. We’re doing sensor sweeps to find them,” I explained.

Elise took one of the auxiliary chairs on the bridge and wiped her face off with a small towel. She tucked the practice weapon through her utility belt and began typing on her screen, glancing between the readouts on her workstation and the holo display front and center on the Jellybird’s small bridge area. Path, by contrast, stepped near the door and stood quietly. He watched and listened but didn’t interrupt anyone’s work.

“They are going to catch her,” Tom said, distraught.

Three Union stealth carriers came into view with the Lady Faith caught in their three-dimensional trap. I hoped Henshaw didn’t make a wrong move. There was no way his ship could get away at this point. Nebs had dozens of options that would result in the destruction of the yacht. 

“All three Union carriers are launching their ultra-small fighters,” Jelly advised.

“What a bunch of assholes. Fucking great. How smart are you now, Henshaw? Way to get caught!” Losing Henshaw and the Lady Faith wasn’t good news, but I had been right about one thing, Vice Admiral Nebs and his people were predictable. There was only a slight variation from the last time in the way they deployed the micro fighters.

“We expected this,” I said, holding my breath as I imagined flying a ship barely bigger than I was. The pilots of the micro fighters were definitely brave. “Let’s move in for the prize.”

“What about Henshaw?” Elise demanded.

I didn’t have a good answer. The ocular engineer and his yacht were beyond saving. Elise had to know that. We couldn’t fight our way in to save him and his ship and expect to survive. She should know this from our ship warfare training—everyone had improved, but I felt a little pee come out just thinking about doing it for real with such a green crew.

“One thing at a time,” I muttered, knowing Elise was getting tuned up second by second. “We need to play the long game if we’re going to beat Nebs.”

“That’s bullshit!” Elise shouted. “We have a chance to get Henshaw out of there before they lock on to the Lady Faith.”

“You like Henshaw now?” I asked.

“He’s one of us,” she said, fists clenched. “Doesn’t matter if I like him.”

Sidestepping the argument, I presented facts. “Even if we can create a distraction forceful enough to give Henshaw a chance to make a run for it, they’ll just catch him again. The Union has him from three points of navigation. His ship is faster, but not that much faster. And if they think they’re going to lose him, they’ll just blast him out of the galaxy,” I said. “In the meantime, we’re going to get something we can use and make them pay a toll for entering the system. Maybe that will be a distraction Henshaw can use to make a run for it.”

Elise continued to grumble and mutter arguments, but I ignored her. The Jellybird cruised through the system, picking up speed, even though she was in stealth mode. I wasn’t comfortable with it, but we were rolling the dice and winning so far. Risks had to be taken. I wasn’t sure if what I was after was worth it, but it was too late to turn back.

“Are you worried, Reaper Cain? Should I boost your oxytocin and restrict adrenaline?” X-37 asked with too much snark in his synthetic voice, I thought.

“I’m not going on a date, X.”

“Well? Do we want a calm and rational Reaper Cain or one about to rip someone’s arms off?” X asked.

“I’m not scared, X. Get over yourself,” I barked. “I’m calm!”

“I think I know what this means,” X-37 said. “One moment. Consulting my list of idiotic phrases used this month. There it is, get over yourself, an ancient colloquialism meaning to calm down and back off.”

“Give me an update, Jelly,” I said.

“I believe we can isolate two, possibly three, of the small ships,” Jelly advised. “Since we are carrying very little cargo, I believe we have room for one in the cargo hold and maybe one additional prize, but it will be tight and limit the amount of other resources we can haul.”

“Let’s grab one if we can,” I said. “No need to get greedy. We’ll disable those three right there. They’re the smallest group in our sector of this system.”

“Why are we trying to capture them?” Elise demanded. “We should be doing something useful, like helping our friend.”

“Technically, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said, “James Henshaw does in fact fit the definition of a friend who requires our assistance.”

“I’m not leaving him with the Union, so you can all relax. When one of you becomes a hostage rescue expert, let me know. I know how far I can push the odds and now is the time to be smart,” I said. “Be reckless on your own time.”

The Jellybird emerged from stealth mode so near the small ships, she was in range to fire a magnetic tow cable at two of them. 

“Targets acquired. Cables are ready to launch at the nearest two. Rockets are ready to fire at any of them you would like to destroy or disable first,” Jelly advised.

Standing so that I could move around the small area, I put a hand on Tom’s shoulder. “Tom, you’re now our weapons officer. Congratulations on the promotion.”

Elise glared at my blatant violation of the combat safety standards I had been beating into their heads for weeks. Suddenly self-conscious, I checked the seal of my helmet to my jumpsuit.

“I wasn’t even certain I had a rank, but thanks,” Tom said, studying the targeting screens we had all practiced with after improving the ship’s weapons. He activated the safety harness on his chair.

“Give it to ‘em, Tom, but try to disable the one nearest us,” I said.

“Yes, sir,” he said, sitting straight in his chair and focusing all of his attention on his work.

“I’m not calling you sir,” Elise said. Her attitude was as sharp as ever, but I noticed she had also activated her combat harness.

“Don’t care.” My response was short because I was now feeling the full stress of ship-to-ship combat. It was worse when I was directly involved and not just a passenger on the way to a mission.

“Firing rockets,” Tom said, rapidly punching three sections of his work screen with his finger.

“Might I suggest you strap in?” X-37 asked.

Without answering or looking away from the action, I lowered myself into my captain’s chair and hit a button. A five-point harness snapped into place as I again checked my helmet and sealed it with my jumpsuit. Losing atmosphere was a real possibility in a space battle. “Put on your helmets. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”

“We’re not the one walking around the bridge,” Elise muttered, then complied. She seemed both embarrassed that she had forgotten the helmet and angry at me for violating my own rules.

Teenagers, what a pain in the ass. With her, my Reaper LAI, and Henshaw, I was going to lose my mind one of these days. I longed for the old days when I was a lone assassin surrounded by enemies who never saw me coming until it was too late.

OceanofPDF.com

13

Tom continued to track the missiles, acknowledging that he heard me with a flick of his hand but taking no action to helmet up and seal his suit. Elise released her harness and strode toward him, grabbed his helmet, and slid it into place. She took the time to check the clamps, then patted the top of his helmet.

“You good, Tom?” she asked.

“Yes, thanks. Impact on the first target in fifteen seconds. They are attempting evasive maneuvers, but all three missiles are tracking and accelerating many times faster than even the ultra-small fighters can manage,” Tom said.

“Good call, Elise,” I said as she returned to her chair.

“Whatever,” she said, her voice resonating through the helmet comms. “Now I guess you’re going to make us do more drills, since we messed this up.”

“If we live, sure, we’ll practice the hell out of ship-to-ship combat…and putting on helmets,” I said, not looking forward to it any more than she seemed to be.

The first missile struck, ripping its target in half. Debris, secondary explosions, and air flashed briefly into the void. The second Union fighter exploded and went dark, now invisible in the void without a sensor sweep to show us where all the tiny pieces were expanding.

The third ship spiraled neatly out of harm’s way and rounded on us for a counterattack.

“Jelly, is there a survivor of the first one we hit?” I asked.

“I am detecting a distress beacon consistent with an ejected pilot,” Jelly replied.

“Mark the lucky bastard for pick-up.” I turned my attention to the micro fighter that was about to attack. Barely larger than the person flying them, these little spacecrafts intrigued and horrified me. Apparently, this one had notified the rest of the carrier group because several squadrons of the feisty bastards were racing toward us.

“Shields up,” I ordered.

Jelly complied instantly, but I also saw that Elise monitored our defenses. She had complained about the assignment during our training but was totally focused on what she needed to do to keep the shields up. Her job was to look for things that an artificial intelligence might miss and then increase power to things that Jelly would justifiably but incorrectly deem unwise. Because sometimes humans could rely on their instincts, or more importantly, understand when the limitations of technology needed to be pushed harder than was delineated in the operator’s manual.

“I’m curious what type of ordnance these things carry,” I commented.

“We’re about to find out,” Elise promised. “The Union fighter is firing kinetic weapons.”

“Jelly, analyze the ship’s firepower,” I ordered.

 “It’s difficult to get a good reading on the attack,” Jelly said after a short pause. “Ah, there we go. The projectiles are impacting the shields and I am gathering information. One second.  It seems the micro fighter is using extremely small, extremely high velocity rounds. My analysis suggests that their intent is merely to pierce our hull and cause us to vent atmosphere. It’s a good choice of weaponry for such a small ship without energy weapons. They don’t have room for rockets or the power sources for more advanced systems.”

Elise let out a nervous laugh. “They almost look funny. Like toys in space.”

“I will endeavor to improve my digital representation of the attackers,” Jelly said, “for the sake of realism.”

“It won’t be funny when we’re losing air,” I said. “Tom, can you wing this one? I’d like to have one relatively undamaged.”

“Deploying a single rocket now,” Tom said, then touched his control screen.

I noticed that his fine motor control was much improved from when he launched the first attack. He had jabbed the screen with confident taps. The initial rush of adrenaline must have affected him. He didn’t have a limited artificial intelligence to help regulate his hormones and subsequent emotions. Now he reminded me of a professional weapons officer—calm, cool, and collected.

I normally told X-37 to stay out of it as much as he could, but there had been times when my limited artificial intelligence had pulled me back from the brink of self-destruction. There were times to fight in a murderous rage and times to be smart.

“How are you doing, Tom?” I asked.

“I think I was holding my breath there for a minute, but I’m better now,” Tom answered.

My plan wasn’t unfolding perfectly, but I thought we were going to get at least one ship and a pilot, not from the same ship, probably, and that was all I was after. I needed to study their technology and form an interrogation plan.

Right when I was starting to brainstorm my next step, the remaining pilot did something reckless to avoid being disabled.

As I watched, the icon came to a full relative stop, twisted violently on its own axis, then blasted sideways. The maneuver would have been impossible in atmosphere, but the void things were a teeny bit different during a dog fight.

I grimaced, imagining the beating the pilot was taking even with inertial dampeners. Union fighters had high-tech and low-tech ways of keeping the pilots from being smashed by the G forces of their maneuvers—state of the art inertial dampeners, flight chairs custom fitted to individual pilots, and pressure suits nearly as smart as an LAI.  But since void-capable fighters were so small, they were limited in comparison to larger ships. In one of these ultra-small combat vessels, it had to be worse.

“Use the…” I started to say, but Tom was already taking action.

With his left hand, he grabbed a control stick and fired the Jellybird’s kinetic weapons, cutting off the path of the ship and punching several holes through one of its wings. He held his finger on the trigger until he’d marched rounds across its engines and disabled them.

“Go after it, Jelly!” I shouted. “Don’t let it get away or blow up before we salvage it!”

“I’ll do what I can, Captain,” Jelly promised. “You also might want to know that I am detecting life signs. We can capture the ship and the pilot. Would you like me to disregard my tracking of the other Union fighter pilot?”

“No, we’ll try to pick him up too. Floating in a void with little real chance of rescue sucks,” I said, glancing at Elise. “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy and I’m a Reaper.”

“No doubt,” she said, then shifted uncomfortably, glancing toward the door where Path still stood quietly watching the battle. I’d almost forgotten he was there.

A secondary explosion blew off one of the wings of the little fighter ship. I was guessing they had wings because they were atmosphere capable, designed for a multi-purpose vehicle used by a special operations group.

Jelly adjusted her course, opening the cargo bay and sliding the Jellybird sideways in attempt to pick it up. “This is going to be ugly, Captain.”

 I winced as we slammed against the little ship. The other wing was shorn in half by the edge of our cargo bay and the nose of the ship was bent backward like a giant had punched it. This caused the pilot’s canopy to crack and vent atmosphere. There was little chance that such an extremely talented pilot wasn’t sealed up in his flight suit—so he would probably live until I got down there to punch his lights out.

“Not bad, Jelly,” I said, unstrapping from my captain’s chair. “Path, come with me. We have a guest.”

Not waiting for Jelly’s reply, we sprinted through the narrow hallways with low ceilings until we reached the bay. Both of us had our helmets and jumpsuits sealed to operate on internal air. Unlike our unfortunate episode in the void when our bottles ran out, this time, we could stop at each bulkhead and replenish our air supply if needed. That didn’t mean it was convenient, but it was better than dying.

Even though I knew I could plug a hose into the back of my helmet, I kept my respiration under control without X-37’s help. If this turned into a fight, I wanted to have enough air left in my jumpsuit to get it done.

Path and I emerged into the bay, immediately separating and approaching the damaged ship from two angles. If the pilot came out with some sort of survival weapon and opened fire, he would only be able to hit one of us.

Everything seemed to unfold in slow motion. I wished I was wearing my mask. Not long ago, I had been afraid to use it and felt uncomfortable with it most of the time. Now, since Elise had pushed me so hard to integrate it into my fighting style, I felt naked without it.

“I’ll approach,” I said to Path. “Stay close enough to help but out of reach. We don’t know what kind of hand-to-hand combat skills or weapons this guy is going to have.”

 The pilot shoved against the canopy several times, forcing the hinge against its broken gears. When I was about two steps away, the pilot tumbled out, falling all the way to the deck without a ladder to slow his descent.

I snatched him up by the front of his flight suit and slammed him back against his own ship, then realized he was a she. “Surrender before you get killed!”

She grabbed my hands with her hands and held them in place while she attempted to knee me in the groin. My arms were longer than hers, so I responded by holding her away as I thrust back my hips to make room between us and twisted to one side to avoid getting ball-kicked.

She shouted at me, but I couldn’t hear her. Our helmets’ comms weren’t on the same frequency and all I could see was her mouth working through a series of threats and curse words.

We struggled for almost a full minute. Path hung back, serene as a person could imagine in a lonely space quadrant far beyond a planetary system. If he had been Grady, he might have cracked a joke at my expense or rushed in prematurely to help. But Path was Path, hard to read and harder to upset.

The Union pilot started kicking me like some sort of desperate animal, eventually resorting to dozens of angry attacks instead of the skilled options I knew she had in her repertoire. When this didn’t work, she returned to her training. Still holding my hands in place, she threw up both legs to try and catch my left arm in flying armbar—a gutsy move, very high-level jiu-jitsu.

I pulled her toward me and head-butted her hard. A crack formed on her visor—and mine, unfortunately. She went still, realizing the bay still didn’t have atmosphere.

 “X, find her radio frequency and link to her communications module, then tell Jelly to close the bay door,” I said, lifting the woman off her feet, hip tossing her into the air, and then slamming her onto her back. She was small, even in her gear, and easy to manhandle.

“That was ungallant,” X-37 observed.

“Whatever,” I grunted.

“She’s the enemy, but you don’t have to be a dick, as Elise would say.” X-37 paused. “Jelly advises she is shutting the door, but there may be some imperfections in the seal due to the rough acquisition of the Union vessel.”

“Good enough,” I said, staring imaginary blades into the woman’s eyes.  She had quit struggling but that didn’t mean she liked me.

“Who the hell are you?” she demanded when X-37 patched our comms together.

“Don’t worry about who I am, worry about what I am,” I answered.

She hesitated, realization hitting her like a hammer. “You’re the last Reaper.”

“Yeah, and he’s a sword saint,” I said with a nod toward Path.

“The admiral’s people know him,” the woman said. “They know all of you. You’re all on his shit list.”

“Don’t try anything stupid,” I warned. “You have zero chances of escape. Every member of my crew is deadly.”

“If I was still flying, you would have a real problem,” the woman pilot spat, fogging the inside of her visor for a second. “Your shields are weak and your crew flies like a crew still in the academy.”

“What’s your name?” I demanded—changing the subject that was all too true.

“First Lieutenant Amii Novasdaughter, UFS Nightmare,” she said. “I’m a Union citizen and a military officer participating in a lawful mission. You are detaining me illegally. I demand you release me immediately.”

“I could do that,” I said, turning her so that she could get a good look at her wrecked ship and the bay door beyond it.

“You’re not going to throw me into the void,” she said, sounding less than confident now.

“I might,” I said, turning her to face me, then giving her a smile that normally rendered my victim speechless.

“I dare you,” she said, her stare hard as ice.

I felt her twist against my grip. She wasn’t resisting—wasn’t fighting again—but she was getting ready to do something stupid, I thought.

“Do you want to know what your mistake is?” I asked.

“Getting shot down by a traitor is the only mistake I’ve made,” she said.

 “Yeah, that’s a pretty big fuck-up on your part. But right now, you’re thinking I’m a Reaper, when I’m really an ex-Reaper. Without the Union to control me, I’ve got my own set of rules and may or may not be insane from what they did to me,” I said.

Color drained from her face.

I allowed her to imagine her fate for a few seconds, then gave her something new to consider. “I only wanted your ship. You’re just another mouth to feed and we’re not exactly close to a resupply port.”

Lifting her into the air as I stood up, I faced her toward the bay door, which was still closed, thanks to Jelly’s prompt response to X’s request.

“I always knew Reapers were honorless,” she said, voice tight.

“Relax, Novasdaughter,” I said. “You’re going in the brig.”

“This class of ship doesn’t have a brig,” she countered.

“We’ve rigged something up just for you. It’s real nice.” I handed her off to Path, who bound her hands behind her back with slip ties.

OceanofPDF.com

14

Path escorted the prisoner to a storage locker we had converted into a brig. Tom had installed plumbing for a toilet and rerouted some of the environmental controls to keep it reasonably comfortable for a human to reside within. The tricky part would be to deliver food without opening the door each time, but that was a problem for later.

 I went to the bridge and found Elise in my chair.

“Are you the captain now? Is this a mutiny?” I joked.

“Very funny,” Elise said, moving out of the chair and resuming her previous position.

“Please, Captain. Do not make mutiny references, not even in jest.  I’ve been through several and can tell you that the countermeasures are quite barbaric,” Jelly said.

“Sorry about that, Jelly. I’ll make a note,” I promised.

“Thank you, Captain. I will now attempt to restore Elise’s access to the ship. Presently, there isn’t a door that will open or food dispenser that will serve her. The armory will apply counter measures if she approaches it. The list of restrictions that were automatically placed on her when you made the comment about mutiny are extensive,” Jelly explained.

“Interesting,” I said, filing the information for future reference. I wasn’t sure how it might be useful, but it was serious business and something to remember. “Give me an update.”

“We have returned to stealth mode and are on course to pick up the remaining pilot approximately a minute ahead of when the first Union vessels will arrive to the coordinates of his distress beacon,” Jelly said.

“Are you sure it’s a he?” I asked.

“That is a strange and irrelevant inquiry, Captain. There is no way to determine gender in this instance,” Jelly said.

“Forget about it. Just snatch the pilot and get us out of here before Nebs tries a saturation attack of this area,” I said.

“I was meaning to warn you of this very real possibility,” Jelly said. “The moment the pilot disappears from their sensors, they may launch an attack by assuming we are right where the signal disappeared. Vice Admiral Nebs has proved to be a cunning and ruthless opponent.”

“Agreed. Grab the pilot and then get the hell out of the way of whatever he sends at us,” I said.

The Jellybird slowed as we approached the digital speck on the tactical holo representing the pilot.  Elise, Tom, and I watched in breathless anticipation.

“I’ve slowed the ship as much as possible. Mathematically, our closing speed is within safety limits. My experience, however, has been that humans are not as durable as ships. There is no time to deploy a shuttle or EVA rescue team. Shall I proceed with a direct rescue?” Jelly asked.

“Just do your best, Jelly. If he didn’t want to get rammed, he should have avoided getting his ship shot,” I said, already tired of this guy I hadn’t met.

“Ready to open the cargo bay now,” Jelly advised. “This will be a rough pickup.  Would you like a camera view of the bay?”

“Why not?” I asked, wishing I could smoke a cigar inside of my helmet. The sooner we were done with the ship-to-ship combat stuff, the better. It was really cramping my style. “X, can we integrate the Reaper mask with this helmet?”

“No, Reaper Cain. It would take a new helmet designed for that purpose,” X-37 said.

“I can start working on a design,” Tom said, seeming drained from his stint as weapons officer in his first real battle but always up for a new project. Fancy fixing things was his truest vocation. “Manufacturing it will be tricky, as always. I need to upgrade my workshop.”

“Sounds good.” I watched the holo view of the docking bay.

 The damaged fighter looked like a bird that had fallen on its side.

“I have overridden safety protocols,” Jelly informed us. “The bay doors will open and the venting should soften his landing.”

I really needed a cigar.

“And… now,” Jelly said.

I almost missed the pilot shooting in through the open bay doors. He hit the back wall, bounced, and then fell as the Jellybird’s artificial gravity took hold of him.

“How fast was his relative speed?” I asked as I watched the man stagger to his feet and stumble around with both hands holding his helmet.

“Approximately forty kilometers per hour,” Jelly said. “Very survivable for a physically fit human in a flight suit and helmet. I expected much worse.”

“Remind me to never request a hard pickup,” I muttered.

The pilot was taller than normal, especially for someone who had been operating such a small craft. He fell backward, landed on his butt, and sat there with his hands between his legs and his head down toward his chest.

“I wonder if he’ll try to stand up again,” Elise said. “He looks like I feel after Path bonks me on the head with a practice sword.”

I released my safety harness and headed for the door, waiting for the sword saint to join me. “You know the drill, Path. We’ll do this just like the first time.”

“Of course,” Path said.

 We strode down the narrow hallway at a less urgent pace than before. “You’re not very talkative today. Make a joke or something.”

He smiled slyly. “A Reaper, a runaway, and a mechanic walk into a bar.”

Laughing in anticipation, I took the bait. “Yeah, then what?”

 “That’s as far as I’ve gotten,” Path said.

For some reason, that was the funniest damn thing I’d heard in weeks. We laughed like brothers—awkward brothers—but definitely family. I patted his shoulder as we entered the landing bay to meet our new friend.

“What the hell is happening to me, X?” I asked, not caring that Path could hear our conversation through his earbud. I hadn’t bothered to give X the signal that I wanted privacy.

“Your biometrics indicate that you are approaching the median cognitive and emotional level of human comparison groups,” X-37 explained.

“Oh, sure. Of course.” I laughed, still in a good mood.

“I think X-37 means you are experiencing what normal adult humans feel,” Path said, his manner easy and accepting.

“It’s not bad,” I said, unsure if that was true. Change sucked and I still had a lot of work to get done. “Work on that joke. It sucks.”

“True,” Path agreed.

We entered the bay. The pilot was still sitting there, hands in his lap, head lolling around in vague circles.

“Get his attention,” I said.

Without a word, Path squatted before the Union pilot, staring into his helmet visor until he looked up.

 “Are you the last Reaper?” the pilot asked, sounding defeated.

“I am not,” Path said. “Would you like to meet him?”

“No!” The pilot scooted backward, looking around and seeing me for the first time.

Path stayed where he was, but I knew he was close enough to take control of our guest.

“Jelly, how’s the atmosphere in here right now?” I asked.

“It’s a bit chilly, but you can take your helmet off and smoke a cigar if that’s what you’re wanting. I closed the bay door and adjusted pressurization while you were on your way down,” Jelly said.

“Thanks.” I removed the helmet, tapped the button that caused it to collapse as much as was possible, and hung it on the back of my belt. I pulled a cigar from one utility pocket and my lighter from another.

The Union pilot watched me nurse the homemade cigar to life. His gaze flicked to the vertical scar near my cybernetic eye. “That smells horrible.”

“Smells like victory to me. Maybe I’ll call this monstrosity a Reaper Victory Cigar,” I said, clenching it between my teeth. Enjoying the raunchy, unsophisticated taste of the smoke, I held it in front of me. “It’s not half bad.”

The pilot was more than a bit disoriented from slamming into the Jellybird’s bulkhead.

“Why the hell won’t Nebs leave us alone?” I asked, puffing on the cigar.

“If you have to ask that, you don’t know the man at all,” the pilot said.

“I know he’s cruising for a bruising. I should send you back to tell him it’s not going to end well for any of you,” I said. “What’s your name?”

“Captain Eric Randolph, Spector Squadron, Wing Commander,” he said.

 “Well, aren’t you important,” I said. “Which carrier is your wing attached to?”

“The UFS Nightmare. I’m not required to tell you more,” he said, seeming to finally realize the gravity of being captured.

“Everyone says that until they meet a Reaper,” I stated.

He had seemed dazed and terrified, but now he was also wrestling with the inherent humiliation of his failure. “Vice Admiral Nebs is going to catch all of you, and we’ll see how tough you are.”

OceanofPDF.com

15

“Give me an update,” I requested, worried that Jelly hadn’t said much since we took Randolph into custody.

“Henshaw has made truly heroic efforts to escape from the Union. Twice while you were talking to Captain Randolph, I thought Henshaw had doomed the Lady Faith with his creative attempts to evade them,” Jelly said. “He nearly convinced their scanners he was a random asteroid.”

“That’d be a neat trick if it worked.” I filed the idea for future development. “Why was that risky?”

“It exposed his ship’s AI to being counter hacked,” Jelly explained.

“Is there anything we can do? Has Elise had any bright ideas?” I asked, knowing the answer but trying to sound reasonable. Maintaining friends and allies was a lot of work.

“You’re such a jerk,” Elise chimed in.

“Unfortunately, Captain, there is nothing we can do to improve Henshaw’s situation,” Jelly said. “He did, however, send a message that I nearly deleted due to its inherent uselessness.”

“It’s probably a code, some sort of catchword,” I suggested.

“Replaying the message now,” Jelly said.

The ocular engineer’s voice sounded thin and metallic. He’d sent the message out on some sort of maintenance subroutine, a channel never meant to broadcast actual words. It was a binary signal that only someone like him could have converted into an audio broadcast a human could understand.

“…I apologize for recording the inside of your ship when we met…” Henshaw’s apology struggled through static. There were several gaps I couldn’t make out.

 “There has to be more,” I said. “That sounds like filler meant to distract anybody who is listening in.”

I allowed Path and his prisoner to get farther ahead of me. I knew I should go to the bridge. I wasn’t needed here. Randolph wasn’t the type to fight, even if he had any real chance of escaping. Path could dominate him in personal combat with his eyes closed and his right hand tied to his left ankle.

This made me think of Lieutenant Amii Novasdaughter—someone I suspected could fight. Path could handle her as well, but she would definitely resist if given the chance. The woman was trouble and I was probably going to regret not sending her out in a life pod.

 “What do you think about Henshaw’s message, X?” I asked. “Exclude our prisoners from the conversation.”

“The Union pilots have already been blocked from all communication with us or each other without your express permission,” X-37 said. “I confirmed this with Jelly.”

“Good. Tell me what you think of the message,” I instructed.

 “I’m going with the simplest explanation, Reaper Cain. James Henshaw is breaking ties with us. He’s clearly been a Union spy the entire time and now regrets handing this information over to Vice Admiral Nebs,” X-37 said.

“Doesn’t feel right,” I said, watching Path guide Randolph into a very small room and lock the door. “My trust levels are up and down with Henshaw, but I don’t think he has been spying for Nebs.”

“We first encountered Nebs during a gladiatorial match he set up,” X-37 argued.

I interrupted. “He bet on me, remember?”

“That is irrelevant. If he is in the employ of the Union, his mission will come first and he doesn’t need money,” X-37 said.

“You’re assuming that once a Union spy always a Union spy,” I said, changing course and heading for the bridge. Before I left, I pointed at the prisoner doors. Path nodded understanding. “And someone like Henshaw never has enough money.”

“A statistical analysis suggests this is a correct assumption,” X-37 said. “There are less than five examples of high-level spies or operatives leaving the Union and surviving. Four if you don’t count yourself.”

“Maybe I’m still working for the Union?”

“Please, Reaper Cain, you’re fouling my logic systems,” X-37 said.

“Sorry, X. Won’t happen again,” I said, nearing the door to the bridge.

“Updating our interaction log. You have now apologized to me four times,” X-37 said. “As for the lie, the number is significantly larger.”

“Whatever, X. What are you accusing me of lying about now?” I asked.

“That your reckless abuse of my logic systems won’t happen again,” X said.

“You’re probably right.” I entered the bridge and took my chair. “For the record, I think Henshaw is going to spy on Nebs, not for Nebs. His limited artificial intelligence isn’t as robust as you are, X, but if we can rescue him it would be a big win for us. Not only would we get a view of the interior, but a chance to evaluate at least a few of the officers and enlisted personnel—how they operate, morale, equipment, and all the good stuff.”

After a pause, X-37 agreed with me. “Your hypothesis checks out on several levels. Most convincing, however, is that this would give you an additional reason to rescue him.”

“Jelly, I want you to go anywhere but near a slip tunnel,” I ordered, checking my own readouts and navigation screens. “Nebs will assume we’re fleeing as fast as we can. He has his prisoners and we have ours. I’m guessing that he sees them as chess pieces, not friends to be rescued.”

“Right away, Captain,” Jelly said. “All of the micro fighters have returned to their mother ships. The carrier fleet is in position to take the slip tunnel nearest our last known position, but it seems to be in a holding pattern.”

“They’re going to run a new scan of the system. That son-of-a-bitch has to make everything difficult. Find a place to hide, Jelly,” I said.  “I really don’t like this guy.”

Elise looked up from her workstation. “There are two gas giants in the system. Can we move close to one of those?”

“That is one of the better options,” Jelly said. “There’s also an asteroid belt farther out.”

“We’ll need more than one hiding place,” I told them. “If Nebs is taking the time for this, he’ll do it right. He has three capital ships. They’ll spread out and triangulate their scans, hoping to catch us in the middle for instant verification.”

“We will arrive at the sixth planet from the system’s star in one hour and forty-seven minutes standard,” Jelly advised. “That will be eighteen seconds ahead of the Union scans. Factoring in my assumption may have made a nine percent improvement in their technology since I last received an update from a Union shipyard.”

“Perfect. I have some prisoners to interrogate.” Space travel was more interesting when I had useful work to do. I was ready to get back into a fight, but I wanted to be prepared first.

“I won’t know how deep we will be able to hide in the rings of planet six until we get closer,” Jelly said.

“Keep me updated,” I said.

* * *

I went after the hard target first. Interviewing someone like Amii Novasdaughter would take a lot of energy. I’d needed to focus and watch for traps.

My first impression of the woman was that she was fanatically loyal to the Union, did things by the book, and wasn’t afraid of much. She’d gone pale when she realized I was a Reaper, but that wouldn’t last long.

Once she had her wits about her, she’d utilize her interrogation resistance training. All pilots received this in addition to escape and evasion instruction.

My problem was twofold. First of all, I wanted accurate information. I could break her with torture and mind games, but hard experience had taught me such information was often tainted. There would come a point when she would tell me anything to make the pain stop.

Second of all, my heart wasn’t in it. Looking back at the things I’d done for the Union filled me with horror. In those dark moments of self-reflection, I wasn’t sure why I was fighting so hard to stay alive—I certainly didn’t deserve to live.

“I don’t deserve mercy,” I said to X-37.

“Please explain this random, irrelevant thought,” X-37 requested.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m just getting my head straight for the interrogation,” I said, wishing I hadn’t confided in anyone or anything.

“It doesn’t seem like you’re getting your head straight. My analysis suggests you are having a crisis of conscience.” X-37 paused just long enough that I listened but couldn’t interrupt. “I’m incapable of judging you.”

“You judge me all the time.”

“That’s incorrect, Reaper Cain. I’m here to improve your efficiency. Any moral judgments I make on your actions are reflections of your own thoughts. I have no software to do this on my own,” X-37 said. “My sole purpose is to keep you alive and serve the REDACTED.”

A chill went up my spine. “Good to know, X.”

My worst fear—other than my LAI betraying me—was that if I’d done those things before, I would do them again. How was killing any better if it was for my own purposes and not for the Union’s dark agenda?

Elise, Tom, and the others were leading me out of the emotional darkness that I hadn’t realized was all around me. I was going to fight like hell not to be dragged back down. I couldn’t go back to the way I was. Death first.

“Would you like some advice, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked.

“Sure thing, X,” I muttered, slowly shaking off my mood. “Why the hell not, since you’re going to give it to me anyway.” I rubbed the vertical scar from above my left eyebrow across my cheek.

Novasdaughter’s cell door waited for me to open it.

“Take a break, smoke a cigar, do some of Path’s advanced meditation exercises if that’s what it takes, but don’t go in there in your current state of mind,” X-37 advised. “Eat some cookie paste if you have to but alter the direction of your thoughts.”

“Are you reading my mind, X?” This was a touchy subject with the limited artificial intelligence. Suspicion of going rogue could cause internal safeguards in his program to shut him down. Or wipe him clean, which wouldn’t be good for me because I didn’t want to start over. He had a lot of knowledge of my personality and my missions that was useful.

“No, Reaper Cain. Your mood, however, is easy to detect. You are in a deeply depressed state. This will cause you to make poor decisions and be vulnerable to a counter interrogation by your target.”

“You’re not wrong, X.” Time was important, so I only took part of my LAI’s advice. Leaning against the wall, I smoked one of my best cigars and just let my mind wander.

That was dangerous, considering my starting point. Fortunately, I went blank and just breathed in the moment.

When I faced the cell again, I felt clear headed—almost like I was a different person. I told myself to ignore everything but the task at hand. When I focused on one thing, I was unstoppable. Rarely did I have a chance to operate in such a controlled environment—it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up.

This was my ship. This was my mission. Amii Novasdaughter, Union fighter pilot for Vice Admiral Nebs, was my prisoner.

I went inside and locked the door behind me.

“Cocky bastard,” she said, leaning against the back wall with her arms closed. This maximized the distance between us and told me a lot about her attitude.

I didn’t say anything. Remaining near the door, I looked her up and down like whatever she might know wasn’t even worth my time.

“Do you always lock yourself in a room with your prisoner? What if I’m desperate? What if I spent all of my time planning a way to kill you?” she asked.

“Go ahead,” I said.

“Go ahead what?” Away from the wall now, she lowered her hands into a neutral position—switching to a ready position that could be a fighting stance for someone trained in high-level martial arts.

“If you have a plan to kill me, then go ahead. See what happens,” I said, relaxing even further and moving around the small room to put her at a disadvantageous angle. I had my own version of her non-obvious fighting stance. She was good, but I could do the same thing on the move—remaining ready even when I wanted to remain unnoticed and appear careless.

She watched me and seemed to realize what her chances were.

“You’re too good for the Union,” I said. “Even though you know how a fight between the two of us in this small room would end, you made a conscious decision to set the tone—and the one you set was that you’re not weak, you’re not going to play games, and you’re not afraid to do your duty.”

“I will do my duty,” she said, her respiration becoming visible as she worked herself up for a fight, breathing a little too hard but trying to control it.

“Your duty is to die for the Union,” I said.

That was like a punch to her face. Because she knew the truth of it. Her demeanor changed. She started listening to me, even though she didn’t want to.

“Vice Admiral Nebs was in charge of the Reaper Corps,” I said. “So, I don’t have to ask you about that. He’s had illegal, off-the-books work done to him that he thinks will make him better than a Reaper in one-on-one combat. I’m not going to ask you about that either.”

With each of my statements, she seemed to shrink. She had been staring me in the eyes, but now she focused on the wall, clearly trying to recalibrate her understanding of the situation.

“I ran into a spec ops soldier named Marley Callus a while back. He acted like he was my replacement, the next generation of Reapers.”

She laughed shortly. “For a second, I thought you knew everything. Callus might’ve been part of a transitional phase. You have no idea what you’re getting into.”

“Maybe, maybe not. But I’m in it and there’s no going back. I’ll probably die, but not for the Union.”

“Then what will you die for, Reaper? You have no cause, nothing to fight for,” she said.

“I’ve got everything to fight for, including friends. I’m going to find out what Nebs did to my mother and my sister, and he’s going to pay full price. If you can help me find my family and rescue them, I’ll keep you alive. I’ll even send you back to the Union when we’re done if that’s what you want.”

“What if I can’t help you or won’t?” she asked.

I indicated the room with an open hand. “Then enjoy the stay.”

When I left, she watched me critically but didn’t say anything as I hoped she would.

“She’s going to be difficult,” X-37 said.

“Yes, she is,” I agreed as I left.

* * *

I went to Randolph’s cell and found him surprisingly well composed. His calm demeanor wouldn’t last. Back straight, he sat like a young officer fresh out of officer candidate’s school.

“Before you say anything, I’ll have you understand I have certain rights as a Union officer,” Randolph said, rising to his feet like confident politician.

I strode across the room, grabbed the front of his flight suit, and slammed him against the back wall.

He made some sort of squealing sound that was cut off when I knocked the breath out of him. “The Union took everything that ever mattered to me. Maybe you shouldn’t mention your close association with the sons-of-bitches who killed my father and took my family,” I said, keeping my voice low and menacing.

He tried to say something, but his words came out in a jumble. I held him for a second longer, then dropped him, stepping away so that he wouldn’t bump into me as he collapsed.

“I’ll also have you know I’m resistant to torture and other types of physical abuse,” Randolph claimed unconvincingly.

“Don’t care.” The man was weak and probably a coward. I was honestly disappointed he was part of Nebs’s special operations group. It reminded me of the corrupt bureaucracy that was rampant in the Union military.

“I think he will break easily,” X-37 commented. “I’m not sure how much information he will have, but even learning about their day to day operations could be useful.”

I gave X one of the subtle nonverbal cues we had agreed upon to indicate I heard him and agreed. Intimidation could be an important part of an interrogation. Being nice could work, but with my reputation, that would be harder to pull off. I wasn’t that good of an actor.

“I demand that you notify Vice Admiral Nebs of my capture and make arrangements for my release to him,” Randolph said.

“Listen, Eric,” I said. “We both know you’ve probably pissed your pants three times since I came in here. There’s only so much air on the ship. I don’t want to recycle yours any more than I have to. So, I’ll ask questions, you’ll answer them, then we’ll all live happily ever after.”

He took a seat and shifted uncomfortably, unable to find something productive to do with his hands. Seconds after he planted his butt in the chair, he seemed to realize he’d placed himself in a disadvantageous position but was reluctant to reverse his decision and appear even weaker than he already did.

“Why is Vice Admiral Nebs after me?” I asked.

Randolph stalled for several seconds, then answered, “Uh, he doesn’t want to hunt you. He’s acting on orders.”

“Lie,” X-37 advised privately.

“Why doesn’t he send a Reaper after me?” I asked, feigning ignorance.

Randolph laughed, then realized I might slam him against the wall again, and quickly altered whatever he had been about to say next. “You’re the last Reaper. The Archangels are rising and you cannot stand against them. Keep me a prisoner if you want, but they will liberate me and bring you to justice.”

“He believes that,” X-37 said. “And it appears that saying it has given him confidence.”

“Vice Admiral Nebs is powerful. He’ll be the grand admiral soon and anyone who is loyal to him will be rewarded,” Eric Randolph said. “And before you decide to hurt me, I’ve been loyal to him from the beginning. He’ll give me any reward I want for finding you.”

“Unless somebody gouges out your eyes first and tosses you into the void of space,” I replied.

“You can’t do that!” Randolph came to his feet and retreated so quickly he knocked his chair over. “And why would you gouge my eyes if you’re going to throw me into space anyway? You’re a void-cursed monster!”

“It’s what I do to everybody who pisses me off,” I said. “I don’t want to be accused of playing favorites.”

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16

“If you are nearly finished with the interviews, Captain, I would appreciate your assistance on the bridge,” Jelly said.

I considered my options, wanting to get back in the pilot’s chair, but I knew it wasn’t quite time for that. Jelly had done an outstanding job evading the Union. She and her previous captains had been dodging them for years before we met, and even smuggled supplies that kept people alive on Dreadmax before it fell apart. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t use a little Reaper know-how when it came to screwing with Nebs and his spec ops group.

“Randolph is a spineless idiot,” I replied. “I need to have another crack at Novasdaughter, then I’ll head to the bridge to relieve Tom. There is something about the woman that I can’t put a finger on.”

“Very good, Captain,” Jelly said. “I should warn you, Captain, that Elise decided to speak to the prisoner. Her stated reason was that girl talk might be more effective than your brutish methods.”

I swore under my breath.

“Can you repeat that, Captain. I can’t decipher your meaning. Was that a request for me to do something to myself?” Jelly asked.

X-37 answered for me. “I quit trying to decipher his muttering in these types of situations. I’ll let you know if he actually says something worthwhile.”

“Much appreciated, X-37,” Jelly replied.

I burst into Novasdaughter’s cell, not caring if I interrupted Elise’s girl talk. The scene wasn’t what I expected.

 The girl had brought her own chair and was sitting close to the woman at a slight angle that suggested they were confidants rather than two people engaged in a debate. I wondered if she knew what she was doing was just lucky. In the type of interrogation she was attempting, regulating her proximity to the target of the interview was important.

If she had done it the way advanced interviewers were trained, she probably started out of arm’s reach, then slowly worked her way closer and closer to Novasdaughter until she could touch her.

It was hard to lie when someone had a compassionate hand on your shoulder. Reapers rarely used the technique. My orders were normally to get the information and leave my victim trembling in fear if they were allowed to survive the encounter.

“You should have let her finish,” X-37 observed.

I knew my LAI was right. I’d acted before I thought this through.

“Hello, Mr. Cain,” Elise said pleasantly. “How are you?”

 “I’d be better if you weren’t fraternizing with our prisoner,” I said before I could stop the words. “That’s the first time you’ve called me by my name in weeks.”

“I can gladly step out of the room if you two want to have a private argument,” Novasdaughter suggested.

Ignoring the pilot, I improvised. I’d read about a good interrogator/bad interrogator technique that our instructors hadn’t even bothered to drill us on. The concept was more of a footnote than anything that actually worked in the real world. Or that was what we’d been taught.

“Not a chance, Novasdaughter,” I said, stepping close and towering over her where she sat. “I talked to Randolph. And after what he revealed, you’re worthless to me.”

The woman swallowed hard, holding my gaze with effort. She was tough, but I was convincing. Everything she’d been taught about Reapers backed up my threat.

Elise stood abruptly, taking a position between us. She stood with her head held high and her shoulders back, one hand held up at me. “Now just stop. We were having a nice talk before you got here.”

“I told her nothing,” Novasdaughter asserted.

“Not everything has to be in interrogation,” Elise said to me, angling her face away from our prisoner and allowing it to convey things she wasn’t saying—something like “what the hell are you doing! I had this, you asshole!”

“You’re just a kid. Prisoners are my job. Stay out of my way,” I barked loudly.

“That’s BS.  You don’t take or keep prisoners. And I’ll be really honest, I’m tired of being around men and computers. Can’t you just not kill one person? Show a little compassion for once?” Elise asked, crossing her arms a lot like a belligerent teenager. 

“She’s not your mother, your sister, or your friend. I don’t trust her, so she needs to die. Sooner rather than later,” I said, pushing Elise out of the way—just firmly enough to set her off balance.

The scene was either going to work or fail. There was something about Lieutenant Amii Novasdaughter that disturbed me—a nagging familiarity I couldn’t pin down. I’d begun this dialogue by acting, but anger boiled up from my subconscious and made it real.

Elise recovered her balance and rushed to get between me and the pilot. She pushed against me with both hands, barely slowing me down.

“Please, Mr. Cain. Don’t do this! You don’t have to do this! Just leave and shut the door. I need someone to talk to,” she begged.

I didn’t believe her act for a second, but maybe Novasdaughter did.

The pilot stumbled when she retreated. There wasn’t far to go, but she clearly decided a few feet was better than nothing. The look in her eyes was of alarm and desperation. Today had been a day of backing my enemies up against walls.

This was the first time I’d seen Novasdaughter truly unbalanced since I reminded her of what I was during our first encounter.

Elise faked a sob. “Please!”

I stopped, balling my hands into fists.

“You’re overacting,” X-37 advised dispassionately.

 I ignored my LAI. “You’re not playing fair, kid. I can’t stand it when you cry.”

“And the award for best actor goes to Reaper Cain for the part of the totally unbelievable bully who has second thoughts,” X-37 said.

I gave him one of my concealed hand movements that meant “piss off.” If he interpreted it correctly, he didn’t respond.

“Listen to the girl,” Novasdaughter said, hiding behind Elise now that all three of us were near the wall in a crowd of bad acting and potential violence.

“Don’t talk about the ship,” I said, pointing at Elise with my cybernetic left hand. “She might try to escape or sabotage something.”

I backed away from them but stopped near the door.

“That was pathetic, Elise,” I whispered over our private link. If she heard the words through her earbud, she didn’t answer.

Hopefully, she was drawing secrets out of the Union officer.

Novasdaughter’s face was too familiar. Memories that caused phantom pain in my cybernetic arm haunted me as I finally retrieved the memory.

“Your biometrics are a mess, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “What is it about this woman that bothers you?”

“She looks like someone I dropped off a bridge,” I murmured, while Elise distracted the woman with compassion and questions.

“Inaccuracy detected,” X-37 warned. “I was not present at the incident you are referencing. But according to your pre-Reaper Corps mental evaluations, you didn’t actually drop the woman.”

“You’re not helping, X. Put a sock in it,” I said.

“Processing one colloquialism before it locks up my logic systems,” X-37 replied. 

* * *

 An explosion shook the bridge. Captain Clark shouted until I wished I could mute his voice from my helmet speaker.

“I said fall back! Leave the civilians! They are not part of the Union,” Clark ordered. “Their leadership should have taken our offer.”

I couldn’t block his voice, but I was able to stall and yell at the woman before me. “Just do what I say! You can’t stay on this bridge.”

“My family! I have girls!” the small woman that looked like an older version of Lieutenant Amii Novasdaughter said.

 She twisted away from me and ran back into a maelstrom of flying debris and dust. Artillery rounds were marching across the half-kilometer bridge. It was already sagging, and if I didn’t obey the captain soon, I was going to slide into the river already choked with dead bodies and debris.

I followed after her, slipping twice and twisting my knee both times.

She grabbed two young girls and led them out of the chaos. The bridge was sinking lower and lower on the broken end. Now that the children could see which way to go, they were doing better than either I or the woman was. The little girls didn’t have as much weight to pull them backward.

Their eyes were wide with fear. At the time, I hadn’t thought I would ever get their soot and blood smeared faces out of my mind. Their mother pushed them forward when they fell, but it wasn’t enough.

I grabbed the terrified girls, one in each hand, and threw them to Grady, higher up and closer to safety than I’d ever be able to reach now. He caught them, I thought. More artillery hit the bridge, far too close for comfort now.

Tumbling, I saw the woman falling away from a twisted piece of the infrastructure at the same time I grabbed a beam with my right hand to keep from following her down.

Without thinking, I caught her wrist with my left hand.

“Corporal Cain, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Captain Clark shouted through my helmet’s speaker.

I didn’t answer, couldn’t answer. I was going to die about five seconds after the woman dangling from my grip was going to die.

“Please! My girls!” the woman begged.

“Drop her! That’s a direct order!” Clark shouted, his voice breaking up with indignant fury. “You’re a valuable asset to the Union. We trained you and now you’re going to do your duty or get shot.”

Some decisions were easy.

“I can’t let go, sir!” I shouted, causing feedback in my radio.

“Can’t or won’t?” Clark growled.

I didn’t answer. Tears of frustration and rage ran down my face. I was losing my grip of the bridge and of the woman. Regardless of what the captain wanted, I had to make a decision. Save myself or die with a stranger.

There was so much noise that I had forgotten it was there, yet I heard the shot that took my arm. I looked up and saw Grady reaching for me. Behind him was the captain, rifle in hand and a strange look on his face.

The last thing I remembered about the scene was my shattered left arm tearing away from my body and the woman holding it like it was her only hope.

She’d almost hit the turbulent water before she realized I’d failed her.

* * *

“Reaper,” Elise said sharply.

I snapped out of my reverie.

Elise and Novasdaughter were staring at me and I didn’t remember how I got here. The memory of losing my arm normally remained in my nightmares.

“I thought you were leaving,” Elise said.

“What the hell is wrong with you, Reaper?” Novasdaughter demanded, mimicking Elise’s tone.

I leaned very close and knew she was seeing a demon in her imagination.

“I dropped a woman from a bridge on Carson’s World during the resistance there,” I said, my words so low that they made my voice scratchy.

From the corner of my eye, I caught Elise giving me a confused look, but Novasdaughter stared at me wide-eyed for several seconds, then threw up a wall of defenses.

“I remember Carson’s World,” she said, face blank as a professional gambler.

I leaned even closer. “Are you an orphan, Lieutenant?”

“You go to hell,” she cursed, struggling not to look away from my intense gaze. “I don’t owe you anything.”

“The Union took your mother,” I said.  “How can you be willing to die for them? How can you work for someone like Nebs?”

The memory of this woman’s mother falling into the debris-clogged river wouldn’t leave my mind. Phantom pain flared through my cybernetic left arm. The sound of Captain Clark firing his rifle was more of an idea than an actual sound. It was like being in a dream where physics didn’t matter and nothing made sense even when it did.

“You’ve been looking for me your entire life,” I guessed. “The question is, are you going to kill me?”

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17

“Give us a minute, Elise,” I said.

I didn’t see her leave, but I heard the door open and shut.

Novasdaughter watched me as though Elise had never been here. “He’ll catch you and destroy you.”

“Nebs is going to wish you had never heard of me if he hurts one of my people,” I said. “I tried to save your mother.”

“Don’t talk about her! Just don’t,” she said.

“I need to know which side you’re on,” I stated.

Novasdaughter took a long time to answer. “Nebs will never quit. He has his Archangels. Take my advice, Reaper, run away and don’t look back.”

I didn’t understand this woman. When I finally recognized who she was, I suspected that her by-the-book attitude in her decisiveness spoke of a deeply held personal agenda. I’d seen more than one person victimized by the Union only to become a fanatical member of the Union. It was a form of denial.

“What do you think, X?” I asked.

“I imagine she has either suppressed memories of her mother’s death or has been serving the Union only to betray them,” X-37 said.

“Why are you working for them?” I asked Novasdaughter.

“Who should I work for?” she asked, her tone defensive. “You worked for them. When I found out that you’d become a Reaper, I didn’t want to believe it. I told you I remembered that day. I was just a kid and I didn’t know your name or Captain Clark’s name, but I learned both. He’s dead, you know?”

“How did he die?” I asked, already knowing the answer. This is a test question to see if she was inventing this story on the spot or was telling the truth as she remembered it.

“I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m not the assassin. Once I graduated basic training, I had access to the gal-net that I didn’t have as a civilian. I flagged my computer to alert me if there was an obituary for Captain Clark,” she said. “He died in his sleep, which is too good for him, but at least he’s gone.”

I didn’t respond. I had done something similar, keeping track of the man who had shot my arm off. He’d risen higher than I expected due to his political affiliations but ran afoul with a senator when he was on the list to become a Lieutenant Colonel. The rest of his career was a tedious list of crap assignments and alcoholism.

I wondered how much Lieutenant Amii Novasdaughter really knew about the man we both blamed for the death of her mother.

“You had a sister,” I said.

“We don’t get along,” she said. “I’m not here to be your friend. And I’ll still turn you over to Vice Admiral Nebs if I get a chance.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s my job. Moral dilemmas are easier to solve if you just follow the rules and do what you’re told,” she said, clearly unhappy with her own answer.

She didn’t seem like someone who would submit easily to authority. It was like she was paying penance for a sin real or imagined.

“Your mother’s name was Nova?” I asked.

Amii Novasdaughter looked down when she nodded.

I thought about her reaction and everything I had learned during the second interview with the woman.

“What are you going to do with me?” she asked.

“I haven’t decided,” I said. It seemed like our conversation was over, so I left and went to the bridge.

* * *

It was time for a meeting. I had tough decisions to make and felt like I owed it to my crew to include them. Elise and Tom joined me on the bridge while Path stood guard in the hallway outside of the prisoners’ rooms.

“Update us on the Union fleet,” I said.

Jelly answered promptly, “All three of the Union carriers are continuing their search, both with scans and by sending out the micro fighters in shuttles to check debris fields where scanners might not find us if we were hiding there. They haven’t given up finding us, but I do believe they are working away toward the primary slip tunnel leaving the system.”

“All right, thanks. Next item. What are we doing with the prisoners?” I asked.

“I don’t see we have a lot of options,” Tom said. “We keep them locked up until we find a planet to leave them on. One suitable for their survival if not retrieval by the Union.”

“Is anyone opposed to that plan?” I asked.

Elise shrugged. X-37 and Jelly concurred.

“I’ll assume that Path will be good with whatever decision we make regarding the prisoners,” I said.

“Nice of you to include him,” Elise said. “But I’m annoyed with him right now. I think he ruptured my liver with the side kick the last time we were sparring.”

“I’ll try to remember to avoid his side kick,” I said.

“The Union ships have gathered their smaller vessels and are heading toward a slip tunnel at their best possible speed,” Jelly advised.

“Okay, remain cloaked.” I had my suspicions about the seemingly abrupt acceleration. “Can you predict if the slip tunnel they’ve chosen will leave them anywhere near the Bold Freedom’s distress call?” I asked.

“I don’t believe they are heading toward that particular system,” Jelly reported. “I should also advise you that X-37 and I have been working on the available data referencing the Bold Freedom.”

“The freighter’s situation has become more urgent,” X-37 said. “It seems they now have seventy-two hours before they will be destroyed by the approaching comet.”

“What are your orders, Captain?” Jelly asked.

Neither Elise nor Tom made any suggestions. I could see they were struggling with the choice at least as much as I was. Henshaw and the Lady Faith or locate fuel for the Bold Freedom.

 “How long before we confirm that Nebs and his ships have left the system?” I asked.

 “Not long,” Jelly said. “They are moving at the best possible speed. May I suggest that your decision has been made for you? We cannot catch up to the carrier group in the system. Since slip tunnel speeds are constant, they will have the same lead when they emerge from the tunnel.”

“We can catch them eventually,” Elise said. “By then, we should have a plan to rescue Henshaw and his ship.”

“What about the Bold Freedom, Elise? You were on Dreadmax. Don’t you want to help Bug and the others who were illegally detained there by the Union?” I asked. She seemed unsure of herself and a bit guilty perhaps.

“You know we’re not going to find fuel in time to help them,” she said. “Bug and everyone on the Bold Freedom are already gone. We can’t worry about them now.”

“You may be right, but I don’t think it will be as hard as you think to catch up with the Union ships,” I said. “It won’t be long before we’re running from them again, with or without Henshaw. If they think we left the system, they’ll search for us after the next slip tunnel.”

“Maybe they will split up to cover more star systems,” Tom suggested hopefully.

“Maybe,” I conceded. “But I don’t think they are quite done in this system. Call it Reaper instinct.”

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18

All three of the Union carriers went into stealth mode at the same time. Jelly alerted the rest of the crew, rousing them from sleep. In minutes, they were all back on the bridge.

“What happened?” Elise demanded. “I just barely nodded off.”

“You’ve been in your quarters for three hours,” I said.

She looked surprised. “Really?”

Tom and Path looked tired, but neither said anything. The long cat and mouse game with the Union was wearing on all of us. 

“Yeah, really,” I said. “I knew Nebs wouldn’t give up so easily. Jelly, take us as close to the next slip tunnel as you can without crossing near the last point we detected the Union carriers.”

“Yes, Captain,” Jelly said.

“Could they be trying to hide which tunnel they are taking?” Tom asked.

“They would only do that if they thought we were still looking for them, in which case they would stay here and look for us,” I said. “Their run for the tunnel was a ruse to draw us out. Nebs probably figured out that I don’t like running at speed in stealth mode. He has a hostage and a valuable ship and probably thinks I’m stupid enough to show myself.”

“There is a possibility, Reaper Cain, that they may detect us if they get close enough,” X-37 warned me.

“That’s what I’m worried about. I didn’t think they were actually going to leave the system. There is no need for them to go into stealth mode since they just have to come out of it when they make their jump,” I said. “They may have developed a new protocol requiring them to stay concealed for as long as possible to minimize the chance they are observed, but it’s unlikely.”

Tom took his position at the weapons terminal, while Elise took over sensors and communications. I stayed in the captain’s chair and made a decision. There was no way I was going to risk my friends trying to rescue Henshaw unless the opportunity was too good to pass up.

Ship-to-ship conflict was not my area of expertise. The only way I could help Henshaw was to be patient and go after him when Nebs had his ships in drydock or something similar.

“Jelly, it’s time to apply Henshaw’s detection program to this tactical problem and find those stealth carriers,” I said.

“We will begin immediately,” Jelly promised.

“I will help,” X-37 said.

“It will be a challenge.” Jelly flashed several search grips on the main holo view. “Asking James Henshaw for the rest of his detection software will be the first thing I do if we manage to rescue him.”

Finding the three carriers was like searching an asteroid belt by hand. 

“Keep us in stealth mode,” I said.

“Yes, Captain,” Jelly acknowledged. 

“This is going to get serious,” I said, drawing the travel vectors I believed the three stealth carriers would follow. If I was right, it wouldn’t be long before Nebs’s ships had us from three points of navigation, just like he had taken Henshaw’s yacht.  

No one spoke as my predictions slowly resolved themselves. Three icons appeared on the holographic map of the system. Smaller icons swarmed out to form a defensive sphere around each carrier. The larger ships immediately began new scans. Shuttles zipped away to explore a large asteroid that even I thought looked suspicious—just large enough for a smuggler’s vessel like the Jelly to land in one of its craters.

“I suppose now is a good time for you to gloat, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said publicly.

Elise snorted a laugh.

“If Henshaw had switched sides, they would’ve found us already. We’re not far enough away from them to escape if he went turncoat and gave us up,” I said.

“By that logic, we could attempt to rescue him. We’re close, we’re invisible, why not help out a friend who has remained loyal to us,” Elise argued. “Then we can all go to help the Bold Freedom.”

I thought about it, I really did. X-37 remained silent, which was interesting. He normally had advice to offer on any tactical problem and was programmed to hedge my emotional decisions when necessary.

“X, I need some information. What resources do we have? Give me an assessment,” I said, seriously considering acting on Elise’s argument. A nearly suicidal rescue attempt of Henshaw might actually be the safest thing we could do right now, but I wanted to be sure before I got everyone killed.

“The system is robust with opportunities,” X-37 said. “Starting with the most obvious avenue of escape is the slip tunnel only hours from our position. The next closest of the tunnels is several days away and would take us far beyond the deadline to help the Bold Freedom.”

“What about planets? Is there anything worth exploring?” I asked, an idea forming in my head that I already knew would work—as soon as I smoothed out a few wrinkles.

“Really?” Elise asked, her voice full of disgust and bewilderment.

“I’d love to explore the planet in the green zone,” Tom chimed in, “but our initial assessment suggests it does not have resources that can be easily converted into the fuel for a modern starship, or a retrofitted hunk of junk like the Bold Freedom.”

“So, what you’re saying,” I said, smiling, “is that if we took a shuttle down there, it would look like an act of desperation. Anyone pursuing us would know we were out of options and attempting some sort of last-ditch solution. X, do you think Nebs’s crew knows about the Bold Freedom’s distress call?”

“I don’t see how they can not be aware of the signal. They were looking for us at the same time we detected the distress call, and would pick up anything like that,” X-37 said.

“I agree,” Jelly added.

“Head for the planet, Jelly. Prep a shuttle,” I said, pointing at Tom.

“Aren’t you going?” Elise asked, not seeming convinced I could be so cold-blooded. The expression on her face told me that she was thinking hard and had probably figured out what I’d intended but wasn’t going to say so and risk my sarcastic response.

Tom also remained quiet.

From near the door, Path spoke for the first time in quite a while. “You are going to sacrifice a shuttle on autopilot.”

I pointed one finger at the sword saint and pretended to pull an invisible trigger. “That’s exactly what we’re going to do. We need to make it convincing.”

* * *

“Everyone knows their part,” I said. “We don’t have time to go through it again.”

By the time we reached the single planet in the green zone of the system, we had developed a basic script and worked out radio signals between the shuttle we were going to send down to the surface and the Jellybird.

Tom had come up with a way to send my half of the dialogue to the shuttle in a maintenance routine that was then converted into a broadcast message back to the Jellybird. The Union communication experts would probably figure that out, but hopefully not before the ruse had accomplished its purpose.

“I’m launching the shuttle now,” Elise said from the docking bay.

“You’re on,” Tom said.

“Wish me luck. We’ll conduct our survey the moment we put boots on the ground,” I said, then waited for the delay. My voice came back to the bridge sounding distorted.

“You should have brought me on the mission,” Tom replied.

I started talking into my mic before he was done with this line because I had to compensate for the delay caused by the signal bouncing back and forth between the ships. “You’re just a mechanic. Elise and I can handle it. Path will watch our back.”

“I still think I should be on the away team,” Tom said.

Again, I started talking when he was about halfway through his statement. “That’s an order, mechanic. We can handle it,” I muttered under my breath and turned away from the mic to sound like I was distracted. “I hate dealing with amateurs. Makes me almost want to go back to the Union.”

“I’m never going back! I’d rather die on the stupid planet trying to get fuel,” Elise said, using her helmet comm. She was on her way back to the bridge and sounded out of breath.

I hoped no one on the UFS Nightmare or other ships saw through our hastily thrown together drama.

The shuttle arced away from the Jellybird. Seconds later, she activated her cloak—not moving until after she disappeared, hopefully convincing the Union that Tom was untrained in fleet tactics and lacked the initiative to go anywhere without me on the ship to tell him what to do.

“We really can’t afford to lose that shuttle,” Jelly said. “We have no way to replace it.”

“We’ll figure something out,” I said, watching the little ship disappear beneath cloud cover as we headed away from the planet at best speed.

“It appears the UFS Black Wing was much closer to catching us than we anticipated,” Jelly said as the Black Wing’s icon appeared in orbit around the cloud-covered planet. The UFS Darklance joined her moments later.

“Watch out for the Nightmare,” I warned. “I bet Nebs is just waiting for us to show ourselves.”

I counted to ten in my head, then twenty, and finally glanced at the mission clock.

Union micro-fighters zipped away from their mother ships, plunging into the atmosphere of the planet.

“Shall we continue to accelerate?” Jelly asked. “We have never traveled at this speed while under the stealth cloak.”

Jelly, X, Tom, and Henshaw had all told me to stop worrying about moving at speed while under the cloak. My apprehension was irrational, more of an old soldier’s superstition than anything based on science.

“Continue at speed. The Bold Freedom is running out of time,” I said. “Take the most direct route to the objective they were trying to reach when they became stranded.”

“We are now en route at our best possible speed,” Jelly advised.

“I’ll stay on the bridge,” Tom volunteered.

“Thanks, Tom. Elise and Path, get some rest,” I ordered.

Elise gave me the middle finger, but I could tell she was playing it up. “Good job, Reaper. I hope you can still rescue Henshaw. He was counting on us.”

“Be patient, kid,” I said.

* * *

A medic squatted beside Grady, staring down at me in fascination rather than horror. “He lost his godsdamn arm. I can’t believe he hasn’t bled out.”

“I used my tourniquet,” Grady said. “Don’t know what happened to him. And he’s too mean and stubborn to die.”

“Maybe. Between blood loss and shock, he’s in trouble. The evacuation shuttles aren’t coming around to this sector for another twenty minutes. I’m going to have to seal it,” the medic said, removing a cauterizing tool from his kit. “It’s not meant to treat amputations and this wound is ragged as hell. Turn away if you have to, Grady. It’s going to stink.”

I wanted to talk but couldn’t. Grady and the medic were ghostlike in my memory, half imagined. The man burned the wound shut and loaded me with pain medication.

The mere mention of Carson’s World made me smell burning flesh for years afterward.

* * *

It was the third day back on the UFS Gigantic when my life changed. Grady came to visit every day, but this time, he had news. Some officer named Nebs had offered him a chance to try out for the Spector Corps, or the Reaper Corps. Apparently, there had been some arguments about the name of this new special operations group.

“Doesn’t sound very organized,” I said, focusing on Grady. Sometimes I could forget I was ruined and my career was over.

“It’s a chance to be the best of the best, the top one percent of one percent of the Union military.”

“Sounds great,” I said. “I’m happy for you, Grady.”

My friend didn’t look happy. He stared at his feet, leaning his elbows on his knees and rocking his weight forward from the cheap chair several times. I knew this meant he was really agitated.

“I’d have to let them cut off my arm and jack with my nervous system,” he whispered, staring me directly in my eyes. “I don’t think I can do that, Cain. I’m not a crazy fucker like you.”

“That sounds messed up,” I said, hating how doped up I sounded. “What are they, a bunch of sadistic dicks? Most units settle for a tattoo.”

“You weren’t listening. They are going to replace the arm.” He hesitated. “I suggested they recruit you, since…”

“Since I’m missing an arm,” I said. “Relax, Grady. I know it’s gone. You can talk about it. At least the shrapnel didn’t take my eye. Just half my face.”

“They take your eyes too, or maybe it’s just one eye,” Grady said. “You’re right, Cain. They are sadistic.”

“But they could replace my arm? What if I lost my eye? Could they fix that too?” I asked.

“I wasn’t allowed to ask a lot of questions, but Crank from second platoon told me he knows a guy who worked on a project who had to encrypt some top-secret files. He said the arms are top secret tech, but it’s their missions and purpose that the brass really doesn’t want to talk about.”

“Dark ops shit, probably,” I said, feeling way too hot to stay in this bed. The meds had my body temperature all over the place.

“Darker than dark.” Grady sat back, something he always did a few minutes before he left me here to stare at the ceiling. “Anyway, I guess the same guy says they only want the best soldiers in the Union, guys in their prime that are willing to make the ultimate sacrifices.”

“Well, good luck. Tell me what you decide, if you can. They’ll probably put you on a ship with a communications blackout the moment you sign on the dotted line,” I said.

“I just decided,” Grady said after he stood from the cheap medical bay chair. “I’m telling them no. Spec ops is enough for me. We have a good team, and with Clark gone, things are looking up.”

“What happened to Clark?” I asked. Maybe he’d fallen into the river.

“He got promoted,” Grady said.

“Of course.” I wanted to sleep for a long time. On the one hand, I lived for Grady’s visits, on the other, I wished he would get sent on a mission someplace far away from me. My friend was in his prime and I didn’t like feeling envious.

* * *

“There’s something showing up on the scans,” I said, examining the data from the slip tunnel.  “Can you understand this?”

“I cannot, Captain,” Jelly advised.

“I’ve consulted my database as well,” X-37 said. “My information is only as good as my last update with Union servers, approximately ninety days before you were incarcerated. There is no evidence anyone has been this far from civilization, but it appears to be a marker or message.”

I leaned back in my chair, contemplating the information. Several slip tunnels beyond the Deadlands had been marked this way, but this one contained an additional message we couldn’t decipher. Our exploration was giving us a greater understanding of the network in uncharted space, and we were near our objective, the same objective the Bold Freedom had been trying to reach—probably a fuel source of some sort.

“What do you think, Tom?” I asked.

“Someone has been here,” he said. “Entrances to slip space don’t mark themselves.”

“This is not a Union marking, no matter how old or encrypted the messages,” X-37 said. “I might not be able to decipher it or be able to determine its origin.”

“What about you, Elise?” I asked. “What do you think?”

“Somebody took the time to mark an S.G point. Which means they had to map them. If we follow the marked tunnels instead of just the ones we detect, we’ll eventually arrive someplace. We might even run into someone. Hopefully, they’re not as bad as the Union or the Sarkonians.”

I spun the captain’s chair to face Path. “Give us some of that sword saint wisdom. What do you think?”

“It’s a long message, so it must be important. It’s either a warning or a promise,” he said. “Or maybe a prayer.”

I reviewed the data again, not ready to give my opinion, although I essentially agreed with all of them, but mostly with Path. I thought it was a warning.

Even without the assistance of X-37’s decryption protocols, it was recognizable as a worded message. It could be the border of a new empire, a rival to the Union, or even aliens we were prepared to understand.

“In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter what it says. We all agree this is the fastest way to the objective of the Bold Freedom. We have to go or risk failing everyone who survived Dreadmax,” I said, thinking about Bug and his friends. “Nebs won’t stop chasing us, so no matter which way we go, we will eventually have an opportunity to help Henshaw. Unless new information proves he’s a traitor.”

“He’s not a traitor,” Elise said.

“How can you know that?” I asked.

“Why are you so paranoid?” she countered.

My reasons for caution were so numerous, it was ridiculous to even answer the question. And I thought she should know better, but she was still a teenager who couldn’t resist arguing with authority.

“I’ve met Novasdaughter before,” I said, surprising myself.

Elise, Tom, and even Path stared at me in surprise.

“And you didn’t kill her?” Elise asked. “That’s impressive.”

“She was a kid on Carson’s World. I don’t kill children,” I said, regretting my lack of control. This wasn’t the time for full disclosure, no matter how cathartic it might be. How long had it been since I had anyone I trusted to talk to?

“I’m not sure why you’re bringing this up now,” X-37 said privately. 

“Neither am I, X.” The thought had popped into my head and I’d spoken without thinking. That in and of itself was a red flag. 

Elise and the others waited expectantly. The situation was awkward, and I wanted out of it as quickly as possible. 

“We’re a long way from the Union. This slip tunnel will take us even farther,” I said.

“You want to leave them here?” Elise asked. “In what, a life pod? We’re fresh out of shuttles in case you forgot.”

“I wouldn’t do that to my worst enemy,” I said. “Well, maybe I would, but that isn’t the point. We’re stuck with Randolph and Novasdaughter. The message on this marker made me think. Don’t worry about it.”

“There’s more to it and you know it,” Elise said, confronting me as only she could. “You were going to tell us how you know Novasdaughter and why it’s important.”

“I can’t talk about it and you don’t want to know. Carson’s World was the reason I became a Reaper. Leave it at that.”

“Does she remember you?” Elise asked.

I nodded.

“So, she’s probably going to kill you if she gets the chance,” Elise said. 

“Maybe, maybe not,” I said. “I need to get off the bridge. There’s a glass of whiskey and a cigar with my name on them. You coming, Tom?”

“I probably better not leave you alone. Whiskey and cigar time is a hard duty, but I’ll rise to the occasion. Never leave your wingman, right?” Tom said.

“Jelly, take us into the slip tunnel,” I ordered.

Everyone took their places. Once we were safely inside the tunnel, Elise took the first watch.

“Reaper,” Elise said as I was about to leave. “Should I be worried about pursuit in here?”

“No,” I answered. “There is technology that allows ships to remain cloaked in a tunnel, but it is extremely rare.”

“Nebs would have it if anyone did,” Elise said.

The moment stretched out.

“Then stay alert. We’ll come back if needed. From now on, no one does double shifts. We need to stay sharp,” I said.

That seemed to reassure the young woman.

* * *

Tom met me on the observation deck for whiskey and cigars. We didn’t talk much, but I knew he had navigation problems and stealth cloak theories on his mind.

Elise was on the bridge. Path was wherever Path was when he wasn’t standing guard or beating one of us with a practice sword.

“Have you talked to Path recently?” I asked.

“Of course,” Tom said, looking up from something he had been reading. “The man is a pleasant conversationalist. Very attentive.”

“Sure,” I said, then blew a ragged smoke ring. “Like talking to a wall, I imagine.”

“He has some interesting stories,” Tom countered.

“Really? Like what?”

“Stuff about Henshaw. Crazy things he saw while working security at parties. Metaphysical theorizing,” Tom said.

“Interesting.” The sword saint had become almost unreal to me, a creature made from nothing but mental discipline and deadly skills. “He’s actually a real person. Who knew?”

“Do you want to talk about Carson’s World and Novasdaughter?” Tom asked.

“Not everyone in the Reaper Corps thought I was a good candidate for the job,” I said, then raised my cybernetic left arm. “You had to volunteer to have your arm replaced, but mine was already gone.”

“What kind of psychopath would let the Union cut off a limb?” Tom asked, then seemed embarrassed. “Sorry. That sounded bad.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I scowled.

“Why did they accept you if that was a requirement?” Tom asked in a quieter voice. It was like he wasn’t sure he really wanted to know the answer.

“They would never admit it, but I’m sure they only wanted people with a death wish. A man who craves death has no problem taking a life. And they took my eye while I was sedated for the nerve-ware surgery. That took eleven days. When I woke up, I was a different person,” I said. “It’s been a long time since I thought about these things.”

“Elise would be in Union custody if you weren’t…what you are, and I’d be dead from trying to stop them from taking her on Greendale,” Tom said.

“All true,” I said, then sipped my whiskey. “But I’m still just an asshole with a death wish who did a lot of bad things for the Union—and might still be doing those things if they hadn’t turned on me.”

“Don’t give me that,” Tom argued. “You saved Novasdaughter’s mother. I know you did, even if you won’t tell us how or why. You protect Elise and the rest of us like we’re your family. And you won’t stop until you find your mother and sister. You don’t have a death wish. You’re trying to save the galaxy and everyone in it.”

“Why would I want to save anything in the galaxy after all I’ve seen?” I squeezed my whiskey tumbler so hard, I almost spilled it. “Let’s agree to disagree.”

“Sure, Hal,” Tom said, “but you know I’m right.”

 I didn’t respond or look at him for a long time. The holo view and the galaxy it represented soaked up my attention as I tried to ignore the mechanic.

He went back to his book and I finished my cigar. When it was done, I watched the holo view and attempted to empty my mind. We were in an uncharted slip tunnel racing toward a destination we knew nothing about—other than the assumption the Bold Freedom had been attempting to get there to refuel.

“X, can you ask Jelly to play some epic music on the observation deck?” I asked.

X-37 answered at once. “Right away, Reaper Cain.”

OceanofPDF.com

19

“What is it, Path?” I asked, pausing in the middle of reassembling my HDK Dominator carbine. 

“Can you come to the bridge?” he asked.

There was no explanation, nothing in the tone of his voice to suggest what was wrong.

But something was wrong, there had to be. This was the first time the sword saint had requested my presence on the bridge.

“I’m on my way,” I said, then quickly finished with the HDK to be stored in the armory.

“Fill me in, X,” I said.

“Of course, Reaper Cain. Path believes there is something following us in the slip tunnel. Neither I nor Jelly have been able to confirm his suspicion,” X-37 explained.

“I’m assuming Jelly has continued to unravel Henshaw’s stealth field detection methodologies,” I said.

“With little progress. I’m afraid that line of research is closed to us without Henshaw’s direct assistance,” X-37 said.

“Why can’t anything be easy?” I asked, nearing the door to the bridge. 

“Define easy.” X-37’s short response sounded judgmental in my ears, which was unlikely, but I was only human.

Something else occurred to me. “Do you think Path could get information out of Novasdaughter or Randolph?”

“My analysis suggests he would definitely win a staring contest with either pilot,” X-37 said.

“I want one or both of them on our side. We need skilled pilots,” I said.

“We also need ships for them to fly,” X-37 countered.

“One thing at a time.” I entered the bridge and moved to Path’s side. “What do you have?”

“I was meditating,” he said.

“Of course you were.” My eyes methodically scanned the holo Path had pulled up.

“Don’t search it section by section as though it is on a grid,” Path suggested.

“The holo view is a grid, in three dimensions,” I argued. “Jelly, shade in the areas my vision has scanned so that I don’t miss anything.”

Path waited patiently as I followed the standard Union protocol for evaluating a sensor reading. One by one, the cubes of the three-dimensional grid were shaded in.

“I don’t see anything, Path,” I said, hiding my annoyance with effort—because I was that kind of guy, very considerate of people’s feelings.

He studied me for a few seconds, then resumed his observation of the holo view. A moment later, he pointed at one of the quadrants I had already examined. “That’s a ship, one of the spec ops carriers.”

“I don’t see it,” I said. “You’re imagining things. It happens when you’ve been on watch for too long.”

“You’re trying too hard, Reaper. Relax your mind,” Path said.

“It’s worth a try,” X-37 said to me privately.

And then I saw it. “Balls. You’re right, Path. It’s a stealth carrier, probably the Nightmare. The others were too far behind to catch us at the entrance to this tunnel.”

“Will it attack?” Path asked.

“No. Fighting in a slip tunnel is dangerous,” I said.

“I’m calling Tom to the bridge to help you monitor it. Don’t lose sight of it,” I ordered. “We need to know exactly where it is when we leave the tunnel. That is when Nebs will attack unless we can disappear first.”

“Of course. I look forward to Tom’s assistance,” Path said.

“Tom, Path needs you on the bridge. Help him track the Nightmare,” I said, broadcasting through Tom’s earbud but also the speakers in his workshop.

“On my way, Hal,” Tom answered.

“Elise, stop whatever you’re doing and get some sleep. I want you to be alert when we take the next shift. There needs to be two sets of eyes on Nebs’s ship at all times. I doubt he will launch an attack in the slip tunnel, but I’ve been wrong before,” I said.

“Isn’t that the truth,” Elise quipped. “I need to finish my run.”

“You need to follow orders,” I said, keeping my tone as reasonable as possible while remaining authoritative.

“Only a mile left on the treadmill. I’ll get plenty of sleep,” she said. The kid wasn’t even breathing hard.

“I tell you we’re being tracked through slip space by a deadly group of spec ops soldiers and you’re just worried about finishing your run?” I asked.

“Are they attacking the ship?” she asked, but didn’t wait for my answer. “If the situation allows for me to sleep, it allows for me to finish my workout. I’ll go straight to my quarters after that. That’s the best deal you’re getting from me. I’m not a soldier and you’re not my dad.”

“Fine,” I said.

“I’ll just sleep a little faster,” she added.

“You’re killing me, kid.”

“Not a kid.”

“Are.”

“Aren’t.”

I let it go, determined to take my own advice. The last thing I wanted was to sleep and have another nightmare, but I knew there wouldn’t be much rest for any of us once Nebs moved on us.

* * *

The slip tunnel opened. The Jellybird flew into the uncharted section of the galaxy the Bold Freedom seemed to have been trying to reach.

“Now, Jelly,” I barked. “Activate the cloak and prepare to accelerate at full speed.”

“Why don’t we just go now?” Elise asked impatiently.

“Wait and see,” I said. “Aim us toward the nearest cluster of asteroids—anyplace we can disappear with or without the cloak.”

“Right away, Captain,” Jelly responded.

Tom manned the weapons station. Elise monitored sensors and communications. Path observed, ready to offer what help he could or point out details he saw that we often missed.

I prepared to take manual control of the ship if Nebs sent his micro-fighters after us.

“The Nightmare has launched a pair of small fighters. Looks like a probe,” Elise warned. “We should have accelerated away from the slip tunnel opening immediately.”

“Go now, Jelly. They will have to retrieve the ships before they can pursue us far,” I said.

“We are accelerating, Captain,” Jelly advised. “The fighters are gaining on us but won’t be able to maintain capture speeds for long.”

“Shields up,” I ordered.

Tom raised the shields, causing the stealth cloak to flicker.

The fighters fired streams of kinetic projectiles, each round that struck the shield rendering us visible for half a second. 

“More speed, Jelly,” I said.

“Of course, Captain. Do you wish to push the engines beyond redline?” Jelly asked.

“How far do we need to push?”

“A dangerous amount,” Jelly answered.

“Leave us some room. Balance the danger of getting caught with exploding. When apprehension is inevitable, we’ll gamble on pushing our speed to the next level.”

“Of course, Captain. I understand,” Jelly said.

“The Nightmare is launching additional fighters,” Elise reported, focusing her attention on her battle station.

"Are you ready, Tom?" I asked.

"Ready as I'll ever be." The mechanic turned weapons officer appeared tense.

"One target at a time, Tom. That should get it done," I said.

Two dozen micro fighters accelerated after the Jellybird at full burn. They closed the distance rapidly.

"Give me an update, Jelly." My hands itched to take the controls, but I waited. Jelly was better at everything but actual combat when instinct and combat experience could make a difference.

"Union fighters will overtake us in approximately six minutes,” Jelly said.

"That's cutting it pretty close," I said. “Accelerate another one hundred units and hold. The farther we can draw them from their mothership, the longer it will take for them to recover the fighters. We will have a better lead if we survive."

"And how exactly are we going to do that?" Elise asked.

"Tom is going to give them hell with our point defense weapons, and I'm going to fly the ship like I stole it,” I said.

Elise laughed. "Let's do it!”

The micro fighters put on a final burst of speed to catch us.

“That’s the best I can do without risking the engines," Jelly advised.

“Everyone strap in. This is about to get stupid,” I said, taking my own advice. “Jelly, give me the flight controls.”

“Of course, Captain,” Jelly said.

The moment I had control, I flipped the ship one hundred and eighty degrees and cut the engines. We continued at speed.

“Open fire, Tom!” I shouted.

Rockets zipped away from the Jellybird. They lacked the destructive power to damage even the most lightly armored battleship but would take out a micro fighter if they scored a hit.

The closing speed was hard to calculate.

“No hits,” Elise reported.

Tom cursed.

“Brace yourselves!” I hit the thrusters, which were now facing the opposite direction, causing a braking effect.

The fighters shot past us, spiraling to avoid the rockets, strafing our shields with their light weapons, then spinning around just as I had with the Jellybird.

“Jelly, get ready to reset the cloak. Turn it off. But be ready to turn it back on."

I changed course, arcing away from the dogfight and trying to maintain as much distance as I could from the pursuing Nightmare. It was invisible, but I could guess its basic course.

“With our cloak suddenly gone, they’ll assume we took damage,” I explained as I steered for the gravity well of a planet still millions of kilometers away.

"Union micro fighters approaching in four groups of three, two groups in the center, and one on each flank,” Elise advised. “Sensors indicate they put all of their shield energy forward."

"Their shields can't be very powerful in ships that small," I said. "But they know we have nobody to attack them from any other vector. Tom, fire another barrage of rockets with time-delayed detonations. Aim one meter past them, do you understand?”

"I'll do my best," Tom said, typing calculations as quickly as he could.

"Fire!" I ordered.

"Rockets away," Tom said.

"Incoming enemy fire," Elise announced, her voice stern and loud enough to be heard but not panicked.

I twisted the controls, aggressively changing to a new vector. "Jelly, activate the stealth cloak right now!"

"Stealth cloak activated," Jelly advised.

I reversed course, pushing the engines as hard as I could without damaging them. Two of the Union micro fighters pursued me, but I wasn't sure if their pursuit vectors were intentional.

These pilots had seen action. If the Union has spec ops for pilots, that's these guys. They moved into aggressive and well-coordinated search formations the instant we disappeared. I was thinking that Nebs must have significant influence in the Union to have built such a truly elite carrier group.

"It's like they expected it," Elise observed. "Our sensors indicate they are still weapons hot. Ready to fire the moment they spot us."

"Keep those point defense turrets ready," I said.

Tom almost seemed embarrassed. We all knew that the Jellybird's defensive guns barely deserved the name turrets.

"May I make a suggestion, Captain?" Jelly asked.

"Go ahead," I said, gently altering my course to slide away from micro fighters in my wake. Second by second, I changed course until it was clear they hadn't detected my presence but had been following a predetermined search route.

"It won't take long for them to see through your tricks, Captain. You've done well, but this isn't your forte," Jelly said.

"Agreed," I said. "If you're going to tell me it's time to get clear of this sector, I'm way ahead of you."

"Way ahead of me may be an exaggeration,” Jelly said. “Shall I take the controls and head for a particular destination?”

“Slingshot around the next planetary gravity well. I want to hide in the asteroid belt and power down," I said.

"Great," Elise muttered. "I hate no-power drills. And this time, we have to deal with prisoners. Who's going to suit them up?"

"They're still in their flight suits," I said. "We just need to give them their helmets and guard them to make sure they don't try anything. X, can you jam their suits’ distress beacons?"

"I'll work on it," X-37 promised.

* * *

Several hours later, Jelly steered us into an asteroid field. It was so far from the system’s sun that the giant rocks were invisible to the naked eye. Only the ship sensors and enhanced optics allowed me to see them.

"Suits on," I ordered and watched Tom and Elise lock on their helmets and run to their system checks. Once we were all on bottled air, I checked on Path and the prisoners. "What’s your status, Path?”

"I've moved Captain Randolph into Lieutenant Novasdaughter’s cell. They will give me no problems. We are ready for the powerdown," the sword saint said.

"Do you have your blade?" I asked.

"Yes, Reaper. I showed it to them and made myself understood," Path said.

"Jelly, make us disappear," I ordered.

"Powering down," Jelly advised.

We couldn't see the Nightmare on any of our sensor boards, which only meant she hadn't deployed any of her ships. Cutting power and hiding in a field of asteroids was an old smuggler’s trick, predictable but still hard to defeat. There were millions of inert substances in this asteroid belt.

Finding us would be time consuming. Nebs knew me as an aggressive and impatient operator. He'd be forced to consider the very real possibility that I was already gone, increasing my lead hour by hour.

We floated in complete darkness, each of us thinking our own thoughts. Tom started talking and I told him to be quiet. Internal ship comms was the one thing I decided we would keep, but that didn't mean I wanted everyone to chatting like nervous rookies.

Our suits regulated temperature and we each had bottled air for an hour. This wouldn’t become necessary for several hours, but it was easier for X-37 and Jelly to monitor. I didn’t need a member of my crew hallucinating or slipping into hypothermia.

“I chose an organized debris field. Most of the objects in this area are following a similar path established over millions of years. I will need to activate steering jets from time to time to avoid collisions. The asteroids in this area are slightly larger than the Jellybird and are approximately five thousand meters apart, on average,” Jelly said.

“How long are we going to do this?” Elise said, her voice sounding tightly controlled.

“Could we have music?” Tom asked, the effect of isolation easy to hear in his voice. “I didn’t realize it would be this dark.”

A shiver went through me. I told myself it wasn’t that cold yet, that the ship’s insulation would keep out the coldness of the void for hours. The sensation was mostly psychological, but I understood each temperature change, no matter how slight, would feel like the hand of death.

“Play something calming,” I said. “Minimum volume and only through helmet speakers. Try visuals as well.”

“That might not be advisable. My analysis suggests the view would be alarming to organics,” X-37 said.

“I hate it when you call us organics,” I muttered. “Put visuals on my HUD before you share them with the rest of the crew.”

“How long has it been?” Elise asked.

“Four minutes and fifteen seconds,” X-37 answered via helmet radios. “I’ve consulted with Jelly and we agree that the chance of our enemies detecting communications internal to the ship is minimal.”

“What about lights?” Elise asked, her voice still rigidly controlled. “Why can’t we have lights?”

“My advice is to save battery power for a true emergency,” Jelly said.

“Like when we start to freak out?” Elise asked.

“Yes, Elise. That has been my experience. My previous captains have used this technique many times. They were all rebels and smugglers, very skilled at evading the Union,” Jelly said.

My chest felt constricted. The images Jelly put on my HUD weren’t reassuring. The resolution was poor and all I could see around the ship were dark shapes moving through darkness. Distant star fields were too bright to look at by contrast.

“The HUD visuals hurt my eyes. I can’t recommend them, but give everyone on the ship, including the prisoners, access if they request it,” I said.

“Right away, Captain.”

“That’s amazing,” Elise breathed, her reaction not what I expected.

Tom and Path remained silent. The prisoners didn’t have access to the communications channel. I couldn’t hear their reactions.

“Path, how are the prisoners?” I asked.

“Agitated,” Path answered.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

“I feel like someone slipped a hallucinogenic tab into my drink,” he answered. “It’s not terrible.”

“Jelly, can you run a passive scan now?” I asked.

“I can see or hear what the Nightmare puts out, but cannot actively look for them,” Jelly answered.

“Do it.”

“Vice Admiral Nebs is broadcasting a message demanding our surrender. He’s rather long-winded, talking about the illegality of holding Union pilots hostage and what will happen if we don’t show ourselves immediately,” Jelly said.

“My analysis suggests he is bluffing,” X-37 added. “He sounds bored, like he is going through the motions.”

“Elise, Tom, get some sleep. It will make the wait easier,” I said.

Elise laughed a bit crazily. “Yeah, right. I’m totally not freaking out right now. A nap is just what I’m wanting, or better yet, powering up the ship and getting the hell out of here.”

“That wasn’t an order,” I clarified. “Just a suggestion.”

We waited and occupied ourselves with reports from Jelly and X. Time dragged, each minute feeling like ten. 

“The Nightmare has come out of stealth mode. I believe she is going to fire missiles into the asteroid field,” Jelly warned. “Power signatures indicate she is preparing to fire.”

“Activate our stealth cloak and power up. We may need to move quickly,” I said.

“Right away, Captain,” Jelly said. 

Interior lights came on slowly, giving our eyes a chance to adjust. 

“The Nightmare is firing rockets,” Jelly announced. “I suggest we co-pilot this, Captain. I’m much faster and precise but lack human instincts and risk taking.”

I took the controls. It felt weird at first, feeling the steering yoke move on its own.

Rockets exploded against two large asteroids and it was immediately apparent we couldn’t stay here. We moved downward and away.

Debris shot past us, peppering our shields, which ruined the stealth cloak for a fraction of a second each time.

“I’m taking us around that large asteroid,” I said.

“Of course, Captain,” Jelly said.

“I’m tracking vectors of asteroid fragments and putting them on your holo view in orange. Red is restricted to enemy attacks, apparently,” Elise said.

“Standing by with point defense guns,” Tom said.

“We may need them, Tom, but hold fire for as long as possible,” I said, banking around an asteroid that blocked our view of the Nightmare at the edge of the asteroid field.

“The Nightmare is continuing her systematic firing into the field,” Jelly advised. “I don’t believe she has detected us.”

“She will,” I said, planning our next move. “Let’s traverse the asteroid field and exit on the opposite side from the Nightmare, then we need to make for the slip tunnel. It’s time to get those resources for the Bold Freedom.”

“Correct, Captain. We have less than twenty-eight hours. Under ideal conditions, we can make it in eight,” Jelly said.

“That’s plenty of time,” Elise said.

“Depending on what we find on this planet that the Bold Freedom was heading for and whether or not Nebs is able to block our return trip,” I said.

“You’re such a downer, Reaper,” Elise said.

“We’re clearing the field. Moving toward the slip tunnel. If the Nightmare has detected us, she’s showing no signs of pursuit. This is almost too easy,” Jelly said.

“Thanks for jinxing us, Jelly,” I said.

“What is a jinx?” Jelly asked.

“It’s one of Reaper Cain’s many irrational superstitions,” X-37 explained.

“You’re not helping, X,” I said, then focused on our escape.

OceanofPDF.com

20

The slip tunnel, fortunately, was short. Jelly’s estimation of the time remaining on the mission clock gave me butterflies. I had no idea how difficult it would be to gather raw materials, nor did I know for sure the Bold Freedom had the ability to process them.

Our plan was based on the assumption that the ship’s crew was heading here for a reason. If they were just running blind, then we were in trouble and had sacrificed Henshaw and the Lady Faith for no reason.

 “Post slip tunnel evasive maneuvers complete. Initiating primary scan of the system,” Jelly advised.

 Normally, I went about my business or smoked a cigar as Jelly and X-37 mapped out the system and searched for slip tunnels. With time running out, I stayed on the bridge and devoured each piece of information as it came in.

The first thing Jelly was able to find, other than the basic distances and mass calculations of the planets, were several slip tunnels that seemed to have the same warning messages we couldn’t yet read.

 A short time later, Jelly delivered news that changed everything. Elise and Tom also waited in anticipation. This was a make it or break it moment. In the next few seconds, we would know whether or not we had even the slightest chance of saving the Bold Freedom.

 I studied the readings carefully. “Are those cities?”

“I believe they are,” Jelly said. “There are distinct signs of technology on the only planet in the green zone, one hundred and fifty million kilometers from the star in this system.”

“Can you determine whether or not the Bold Freedom has been here? Do they know these people?” I asked.

“Unknown,” Jelly said. “Continuing a deep scan and analysis of radio communications from the planet.”

“What about you, X?” I asked.

“I find it unlikely the Bold Freedom has ever been to the system,” X-37 said. “It’s more likely they encountered someone from the system or perhaps intercepted a long-range communication that has been floating through the galaxy for decades.”

“Those are cities!” Elise exclaimed, then put an image from her long-range scanners on the main holo display. One part of the planet was covered with lights that could only be cities. They weren’t as large as others I’d seen in the Union or even Sarkonian Empire, but they represented a hell of a lot more than some random colony or outpost.

“I’ve always wondered what a first-contact scenario would feel like,” Tom said. “I was reading a series of novels last month that explored the possibilities. Things could get interesting for us if we continue.”

“Sure,” I said. “Of course. Getting captured and killed by aliens sounds like fun.”

“I have no records of alien contact,” X-37 said. “And neither does Jelly. We’ve discussed this possibility at length.”

“I’m not sure if I’m more worried that you two have private conversations or that there might be aliens out here,” I said.

“We’ve concluded there must be non-human life forms someplace. It’s a statistical certainty,” X-37 said.

“Just nowhere near Union, Sarkonian, or Deadland space,” I said. “Keep us in stealth mode. I’d like to learn as much as I can about these people before attempting contact. The clock is ticking.”

The Jellybird cut across the system as quickly as we dared. Time was running short.  We gathered information as we approached the mysterious civilization. There were satellites and work platforms not unfamiliar to designs we knew, which indicated they were probably human or at least humanoid.

One of the uninhabitable worlds supported a mining colony with several freight haulers and a space station in orbit of the frozen planet.

“I don’t think they have detected us,” Elise said. She sipped nutrient paste from a tube then pulled water from another container.

Everyone on the ship looked rough—sleep-deprived and exhausted from remaining on high alert for too long. I’d quit telling them to go to their quarters for sleep and hygiene maintenance. We all took short naps in our chairs and drank mediocre coffee at room temperature.

 “Jelly, help Elise run a full scan of the facility and the ships. Do they have fuel we could acquire for the Bold Freedom? Do their ships have weapons?” I asked.

 “We’re on it,” Elise said. “I think I’m getting good at this.”

“Consider it a crash course,” I said, thinking of how much better trained Nebs’s crews had to be.

 “Those ships seem to be ice haulers,” Jelly advised. “They don’t have significant fuel stores—just enough for their own operations. Conclusion, we can’t get what we need from them.”

 “Continue to their home planet,” I said, desperate for information I needed to make first contact with these people.

“Would you like to hear their language?” Elise asked. “X-37 might correct me if I’m wrong, but I think they’re human. Maybe a lost colony or something. It’s like something out of an Earth fairy-tale. We are so far beyond Union space.”

“There will be disadvantages,” I promised. “They’ll see us as raiders.”

 We slowed to a relative rest far beyond the planet’s defensive systems.  They had automated satellites with primitive rockets and projectile weapons that were easily avoided in our stealth mode. There were also space docks, where they worked on rows of ships of a vaguely familiar but bulky design.

“I’d like to know what type of engines are on those things,” I said.

“I’m on it,” Tom said. “I’d like to have actual schematics, but I can make certain inferences from visuals.”

“Good. Let me know what you figure out,” I said. “Jelly, take us closer to the planet and start working on a translation matrix for their language. Can you pick up any image transmissions?”

“I can,” she said. “Would you like me to put one on the main holo view?”

“Absolutely,” I said, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms.

A man appeared standing in the middle of our bridge, talking to someone we couldn’t see. His words didn’t make sense, but neither were they threatening. It looked like some sort of administrative meeting, possibly with the ice haulers we had passed on our way in.

“Ahhg,” Elise complained. “It’s like their language is on the tip of my tongue. It feels like I should understand them, but I can’t.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Tom said. “I believe the order of their sentence structure is the same as ours, or at least close enough I think we could work it out with a little help from Jelly and X.”

Both of them typed notes and did screen captures of the man we were spying on in the holo.

I watched him for a while, taking note of his almost formal uniform. 

Jelly started to display words she’d learned so far.  Some of it sounded hilarious until more of the context was figured out.

“I should have a reasonable translation program established soon,” Jelly advised. “X-37 has helped immensely.”

“Languages are one of his auxiliary functions,” I said. “I’m going to get an hour of sleep.”

“We don’t have time for that,” Elise said. “Jelly said it would take us several hours under ideal conditions. If my calculations are correct, we’re already behind schedule.”

 “I know exactly how much time we have,” I said. X-37 had been giving me updates every quarter hour. “I also want to be fresh when we begin negotiations. It’s not every day we meet people who have never heard of the Union.”

 “That’s a wise decision,” X-37 said. “No need to rush to failure.”

Elise was listening but seemed distracted by information coming into her sensor terminal. “Yeah, that’s really smart. Do you want me to tell you about what looks like a major evacuation in progress, or wait until you have your beauty rest?”

 I didn’t take the bait. “Check your information. Be prepared to debrief me when I get back. X, make sure I wake up in one hour.”

“You’re such a jerk,” Elise muttered as she worked frantically to gather information.

I went to sleep the moment my head hit the pillow.

* * *

Grady was waiting for me in the realm of sleep. He sat by my hospital bed in full combat gear, holding his helmet in his hands. That had never really happened. He never told the truth in the dreams or behaved as he should.

“What happened to the girls?” I asked.

“They lived,” Grady said. “I wasn’t supposed to tell you that. Captain Clark wanted you court-martialed. If you haven’t been served papers yet, then someone put a kibosh on it.”

I didn’t say anything. I hadn’t received notification of court-martial proceedings, but I didn’t want Grady to be involved in any way, including speculation of what had or hadn’t happened to my career.

“You’re pretty hard on civilians,” Grady said.

I thought he was being unfair but wasn’t able to argue, because this was a dream and the rules were as unfair as hell. 

“I’m not talking about Carson’s World,” he said.

I realized the helmet he was holding in his hand was the same one he’d been wearing when he died on Dreadmax.

“I’m talking about Wallach,” he said, flipping the battered helmet over in his hands to look inside of it, and flipping it again so that the top of it showed. The nervous habit had been real, at least. I’d seen him do that hundreds of times.

“They’ve never heard of the Union. More importantly, they won’t submit. Wouldn’t be a problem if they had even a slight chance of escaping the Union’s wrath. You brought predators to their door.”

 “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I argued.

“I heard X-37 attempting to wake you up. You overslept. You’re such a lazy asshole,” Grady said. “Everyone on the Bold Freedom is going to die, because you couldn’t get them killed on Dreadmax like you did me.”

I sat up, wide awake, looking around my room for threats. After two seconds—it felt like a lifetime—I rolled out of the narrow bed and cleared the room—because the habit had saved my life, not because I was freaked out by a dream featuring my best friend’s ghost. 

 “Oh, good. You’re awake. I thought you might’ve died,” X-37 said sarcastically.

“You would have known if I died,” I said. “And why didn’t you wake me up?”

“I have been trying to wake you up for six minutes and fourteen seconds,” X-37 said.

“What’s the name of this planet?”

“They call it Wallach,” X-37 said. “Jelly and I have constructed translation software. You will only sound like an idiot eleven percent of the time you speak with them.”

“Great. Wait for me to make contact,” I said, trying to hide the fact that I was shaken. Grady had just used the name in my dream. Was I going crazy?

“Elise has already begun dialogue with their head of system security,” X-37 said. “My calculations indicate she is a superior linguist to you. Perhaps you should allow her to do all the talking.”

“What?” I shouted.

“You were asleep and the Wallach security chief threatened to fire on us if we didn’t respond,” X-37 said.

Already dressed, I grabbed my helmet and ran to the bridge.

OceanofPDF.com

21

“Catch me up,” I ordered, dropping into the captain’s chair and typing frantically on the key screen of my workstation.

“I have detected a significant amount of fuel already loaded and ready for interstellar transport. There are, in fact, several fuel, water, food, and other raw material haulers prepped for departure,” Jelly said. “As Elise informed you, there is a large-scale evacuation underway. My analysis has concluded there is no possible way everyone on the planet can be evacuated, despite the impressive size of their fleet.”

“How did they see through our stealth cloak?” I asked, knowing I wouldn’t like the answer.

“Elise ordered me to lower it,” Jelly said.

 “Elise…” I growled. “What the hell are you thinking?”

“We detected chatter on one of their public communications channels,” Elise explained. “There are conspiracy theorists discussing anomalies detected by civilian astronomy facilities. They have been talking about alien invasions and the end of the world. I decided to make contact with the planet through official channels before things got out of control.”

“You should’ve woken me up,” I said.

“We tried,” she answered shortly.

“Why are they evacuating the planet?” I asked.

“Now that is interesting,” X-37 said. “Some claimed monsters were going to kill them all, but others argued aliens would get them first. There is a twenty-three percent chance there has been a translation error regarding their meaning of aliens.”

“We couldn’t get a straight answer,” Elise interrupted. “The actual word they are using is Alons, which could be a race or an ethnic group—or even something else—but Tom and Jelly think they’re having problems with a nuclear reactor. It’s a very primitive power source and filthy with barely contained radiation. That’s the most likely reason they are making a run for it.”

“It’s unclear if the reactor is fission or fusion, but either way, it seems they believe their entire civilization is in danger,” Tom explained. “A total meltdown could punch a hole through their atmosphere, but also cut deep into the planet’s surface.”

“Have we had any indication that the Bold Freedom has made contact with these people?” I asked.

“No,” Elise said. “Their security chief, General Karn, referred to us as the first new contact in human history.”

“Great, now we’re aliens,” I muttered, rubbing my temples to clear my head. “Jelly, get Karn on the line.”

“Hailing their defense platform now,” Jelly said. “His official title is the Grand Warden of Wallach, Defender of the People, their Freedom, and their Liberty.”

“Wallach, huh,” I said, formulating what I would say to this man with the big title.

“It means homeworld as best as I can translate, or perhaps second homeworld,” X-37 explained.

“Good to know,” I said.

A man appeared in the holo display. His uniform was similar to the administrator we’d first spied on. The fabric was better tailored and adorned with badges and patches I suspected denoted high rank. The fabric was dark blue, the high collar and sleeve cuffs striped in wide bands of gold embroidery. 

He wore a slug thrower on his hip that looked brand new and unused despite its ancient design—or he was a fantastic about cleaning, oiling, and generally maintaining the weapon. The bridge of his space station was crammed with officers, most seemingly in their prime and similarly armed.

“My name is General Karn, Warden of Wallach,” he stated, his hard face unmoved by the surprise of our appearance. “Protocol prescribes that I inform you that you are operating an unlicensed vessel in restricted space, but from what I can see, this is a senseless and irrational dialogue.”

“I think you’re going to like this guy,” X-37 said.

“I’m Halek Cain, Captain of the Jellybird. This is my crew,” I said.

“Jellybird?” he asked. “Interesting. I should warn you that our scientific community is alarmed that you exist, much less that you are here.”

“I wasn’t expecting civilization this far out,” I said.

“Out from what?” Karn asked.

X-37 whispered several suggestions in my ear, each rated on a scale of one to ten for believability. I decided to wing it. “There are two political forces where I come from, the Union and the Sarkonian Empire.”

“Are you an outlaw, Cain? Should I take you into custody?” he asked.

“I am. And I wouldn’t recommend it,” I said despite Elise glaring at me and X-37 giving me three or four better options.

 “Which of these Empires has branded you persona non grata?” he asked.

“No one actually likes him,” Elise said.

I shot her a look.

“Maybe I should talk to her, Cain,” Karn probed.

“I wouldn’t recommend it. She’s a teenager,” I said, not sure why I was provoking Elise at this particular moment.

“I have three,” Karn said. “They keep me honest.”

“I bet,” I said, wishing X-37 would suggest where the guy was going with this. One thing was certain, he was confident and relaxed—stern as any general I’d ever met, but unconcerned with the consequences of this first-contact scenario.

He considered me for several moments. His crew remained silent and attentive in the background. The man didn’t fidget or look away. I recognized the look of a soldier in his eyes.

“You’re honest and cocky,” he said. “There are worse characteristics. Let me ask you an unrelated question.”

“You’re the boss,” I said. “I won’t bullshit you. There’s a reason I came here, and I’m on a tight schedule.”

“I wouldn’t trust anybody who said they came through the galaxy without a reason,” he said. “How do we speak the same language? There’s the delay that shouldn’t be there when we talk and your accent is strange. Do you have a language computer?”

The word “computer” took some time to translate, but X-37 figured it out and whispered in my ear.

“You guessed it. We have a translator. If we met face-to-face, I’d be the only one who could talk to you in real time,” I said, purposely limiting contact to myself. Elise would ruin it, but if we could keep them focused on one person, this would go faster. “I’m not the most diplomatic person. Sometimes that’s a problem.”

“I’ve already determined that by looking at you,” Karn said. “Tell me, Cain, will I regret trusting you?”

“Absolutely,” I said.

“Outstanding. An honest answer from a dangerous man. Let’s not play word games. We are conducting the largest evacuation in history. It’s hard to convince people to leave everything behind. Our president has promised we try one last time to stop the meltdown,” Karn said. “You won’t be allowed to hinder my mission or endanger my people.”

“It looks like you don’t have enough ships for a complete evacuation,” I said, studying what looked like cities, transportation networks, and industrial complexes.

“Look closer and you’ll see many of those are without power,” Karn advised. “Negotiating with aliens and other first-contact scenarios are part of my training, although we all laughed about it in the academy. My job is to make sure you don’t harm my people. If you make me nervous, I have authorization to blow you out of the void. My mission is everything.”

“How about we skip the part where you shoot at us? We’re here because we received a distress call from a ship full of people. They’re out of fuel and stranded in a quadrant of space directly in the path of a comet. We need fuel and we need it fast,” I said. “I don’t know what we have to trade, especially given the fact that your entire planet is going to hell right now, but if you name a price, I’ll pay it.”

“I have to say, Cain, your directness is refreshing,” Karn said. “But I still have a job to do. Are you a scout vessel? Did you come alone? Be careful how you answer, because we already know your ship has some serious firepower.”

I suppressed a laugh. “I need to check our translation software. I thought you just described our weapons as dangerous,” I said.

“Your nonchalance on this subject is alarming. I know you’re not a simple explorer, so don’t jerk me around. The only reason I might believe that you’re not a military scout is that you already admitted to being an outlaw,” Karn said.

“I like you, General. So, I’ll tell you that the people coming after us can probably take out your entire fleet and system defenses in a day,” I warned. “And that’s not even an invasion force.”

“I don’t understand that last part,” Karn said. “Are your people conquerors?”

“Not my people,” I said.

He frowned. “You know what I mean.”

“The first fleet you will see from the Union is a fraction of what they will send later. A man named Vice Admiral Nebs is after me and my crew. He has three small carriers full of ships designed for insurgency type missions,” I said, realizing he basically understood what I was talking about. “I have some problems with the way they operate, and they’re going to silence me.”

“They sent a fleet after you? That doesn’t make it sound like welcoming you would be a good idea. How can one man be that dangerous?” he asked.

“I suggest caution,” X-37 said. “The only explanation he is likely to believe is that you have information a large military organization can’t allow to go public. Once you tell him this, it will become important for him to learn this information. That will likely lead to your incarceration and torture—which will delay us far beyond the expiration of our own mission clock.”

“Is there a problem, Cain?” the general asked.

“There are lots of problems,” I said, then stalled.

“It’s a personal vendetta of some sort, I gather. My superior won’t be satisfied, but I think we’re at a reasonable starting point for discussion. As it happens, my superior may have an offer for you,” Karn said. “Regardless of who wants you dead. If she grants you asylum, we will keep you and your people safe.”

“He’s going to ask you to do something impossible that will likely get you killed,” X-37 said. “My analysis suggests that infiltrating and stealing one of their fuel tankers already in orbit would be a superior choice to further negotiation.”

“One moment,” I said to the holo view of General Karn, then muted the conversation as I turned away. “What are the odds that your ship-stealing plan could work, X?”

“Nearly three percent,” X-37 said.

“That’s it?” X-37 had given me a lot of ridiculously bad odds in the past, but this was just insulting. This was like my limited artificial intelligence was telling me to go fuck myself. “That doesn’t even give me a real choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” X-37 said. “Some are better than others. The other option is that they want you to perform a task so daunting that they have prepared to evacuate as many people as possible from their planet in case it fails.”

I turned back to the holo view of General Karn. “I’ll take your boss’s offer as long as I can do it in six hours and be on my way with enough fuel to power a freighter in less than an additional two hours. Can I contact your boss remotely? That might speed things up.”

“Solving our nuclear problem will require your presence on the surface of Wallach,” Karn said. “I’ll prepare a shuttle, but that will take some time.”

“I’m really wishing we hadn’t ditched our shuttle,” I said to my crew. “All right, general, we better get cracking, then.”

He made a confused expression. “I’ll assume you’re trying to tell me you want to hurry. I’m sending you my chief squad leader, a man named Locke. He’s good at his job, so try not to get him killed.”

“Fingers crossed, no one dies,” I said.

This caused a lot of confusion amongst Karn’s people.

“I suggest you avoid metaphors and euphemisms in the future,” X-37 said. “I can tell you from my own experience, they are not helpful.”

OceanofPDF.com

22

Chief Squad Leader Locke must’ve been squared away, because he arrived in his shuttle minutes later. We greeted him in the airlock, and I realized he had to be a relative of Karn.

I also suspected that chief squad leader was a significantly higher rank than I had assumed. His uniform was far more utilitarian than the general’s outfit, but he had stripes on his arms and his collar. He also carried himself like he deserved respect.

The man was shorter than Karn, and very thick through the shoulders. It was difficult to tell much else about him because he wore an environment suit, a clear-faced helmet, and the gloves this type of equipment required.

“I’m CSL Locke. I’m to take you to the planet for a meeting with the president,” he said.

“The president?” As a professional assassin, I was amazed we would be taken straight to the leader of this planet.

“General Karn explained that you would be talking to his boss,” Locke stated. “He also said you are on a tight schedule, so let’s get moving.”

I introduced Elise and he introduced ten of his men who were armed and wearing non-powered armor.

“They won’t be coming on the mission with us,” he said. “They are to secure your ship for the duration.”

“That’s not gonna happen,” I said.

CSL Locke stiffened but said nothing.

“We need that fuel,” Elise said, shifting her stance like she was ready to fight but would wait for my signal.

The soldiers watched her. They were pros and had to know she was getting ready for combat. What they thought of this was hard to guess.

“Path, are you watching the airlock?” I asked.

“I am, Reaper,” he said.

“Can you take them?” I was hopeful but not sure.

“One at a time or all at once?” Path asked.

“Who are you talking to?” Locke demanded.

“The head of my own security element,” I answered. “We’re linked by my computer.” The word didn’t describe X-37 well, but I wasn’t about to share all of our secrets to these people.

“Nice improvisation,” X-37 commented.

Locke seemed thoughtful, his eyes narrowing as he considered me again. “You won’t be able to maintain contact with your computer on the surface, or especially after you embark upon the president’s mission.”

I wasn’t about to explain how wrong he was. “Let me worry about that. This doesn’t sound like a very secret mission.”

“Everyone knows about the crisis,” Locke said. “Now if you’ll allow my squad access to your ship, I can get you down to the planet. The clock is ticking, sir.”

“Their gear is simplistic, but they appear to be professionals,” X-37 said. “Their uniforms contain more ornamentation than the tactical gear common to Union troops on deployment.”

“Thanks, X,” I murmured.

“Are we going to have a problem, sir?” Locke asked.

His men shifted uneasily. They were professionals, but two of them were green replacements, which suggested this was a society at war with someone, or each other.

“Path, make arrangements for our visitors,” I ordered.

“Already done, Reaper. I’ve set up the lounge to resemble a bridge,” Path said.

“There is a forty-seven percent chance they will see through this ruse and become violent,” X-37 said without including our guests on the conversation.

“I’m always prepared for that,” Path said calmly. 

The interior door opened. Path stepped through, looking Locke and his men up and down. “Come with me.”

“Go,” Locke said to his squad.

When they were gone, Locke moved closer. “I don’t want trouble, sir.”

“I’m sure we’ll be best friends,” I said. “As long as your people don’t turn out to be another version of the Union.”

Locke nodded. Short, stocky, and all business, I already wished he was part of my crew. Hopefully, nothing that happened in the next several hours changed my opinion of the soldier.

“You work directly for Karn?” I asked.

“Yes, sir,” he answered.

“You’ll have to explain your chain of command sometime,” I said.

“Of course,” Locke said, then waved us inside the shuttle. 

We strapped in and held on as the chief squad leader flew us to the surface—obviously believing he was a hot-shot fighter jock.

Elise laughed loudly during the hardest turns, which made Locke smile—something I hadn’t expected the man to do.

“We’re landing in the presidential palace. Don’t stare at her bodyguards. If they tell you to do something, comply immediately,” Locke warned.

The shuttle touched down on a landing pad amidst the sprawling gardens of the Wallach presidential palace. The guards, as it turned out, wore mechanized exoskeletons that made them nearly seven feet tall.

“There are more guards in the garden than you realize,” X-37 said. “Look closely and you will see several standing along the wall that have vines growing out of their gear—living camouflage. Just remember they are there and consider they are both more clever and dangerous than we initially assumed.”

“Sure thing, X,” I replied almost inaudibly.

I couldn’t see through the darkened helmet visors of the non-camouflaged soldiers. They watched us without issuing orders through their voice boxes. The only part of their gear that was powered was the exoskeleton—which I assumed made them stronger, faster, and more intimidating than anyone else on Wallach. The armor they wore on their body, however, was unpowered just like Locke’s men wore.

“Stay close to me,” Locke said. “I’ll try to keep you out of trouble. Please remember my warnings. The Presidential Guards are authorized to shoot anyone who steps out of line—and I mean even one step in a direction they don’t like.”

“Noted,” I said. “You hear the man, Elise? Is X translating fast enough for you to keep up with the conversation?”

“Not stepping out of line. Got it. X is doing a great job,” she answered, swaggering like a gunslinger with her pistol on her hip and a sword Path had recently given her strapped across her back. “Their language is easy to pick up if you pay attention.”

“Your young charge has an affinity for languages,” Locke observed.

“She’s not my charge. Do we need to check our weapons before we meet the president?” I asked.

“No. Is that how they do things where you are from? Is there no honor among your assassins that they would approach a target under a flag of truce and then violate their host’s trust?” Locke asked.

“Well, things are different in the Union. Let’s just leave it at that,” I said.

“Keep your weapons. I hope you are not false. An incident now would dishonor me, my family, and my superior—and result in an extreme amount of violence by the Presidential Guards,” Locke said.

“Is there anything else I should know?” I asked.

“Actually, sir, there is one thing you might want to prepare yourself for,” he said. “Her appearance can… affect someone who has never seen her.”

“Just come out and say it, Chief,” I said, seeing something in his expression that made me think he wasn’t warning me she was a horribly disfigured freak like me.

“She’s quite stunning, sir,” he said. “She’s also very popular and very competent. No one else could’ve achieved the things she’s achieved since the crisis began.”

“Good to know. I’ll be on my best behavior,” I assured him.

We entered the palace with CSL Locke a step ahead of me and to my left. There were already guards inside the audience room, so the others didn’t follow in their powerful exoskeleton gear. I heard them stomping to their new positions near the entrance to the chamber.

The woman who strode toward us was breathtaking. Tall and confident, she wore a green version of General Karn’s uniform, but with almost no adornment. The high collar was ringed in platinum embroidered bands, as were the cuffs of her formal coat.

Her hair...was amazing—thick, luxurious, and red. She’d had it braided into a rope that looked magical.

“Reaper Cain, your heart rate is significantly elevated. Is that because there is a powerful antenna woven through her hair braid?” X-37 advised. “I assure you this is not inherently dangerous, but a communication boost of some sort.”

I inconspicuously made a series of hand movements to tell X-37 that I was busy and couldn’t talk.

 “I’m also detecting several indicators that she has nerve-ware,” X-37 said helpfully.

I really wanted to ask for clarification. Instead, I received the handshake of the President of Wallach.

“Greetings,” she said, firmly shaking my hand. “I’m told your name’s Halek Cain. I’m Amanda Coronas, President of Wallach.”

“Good to meet you,” I said, holding her gaze. “I’ve met presidents before, and they usually had somebody announce them.”

“Is that a criticism of my lack security or a compliment?” she asked with a confidential smile that undid me.

“No, of course not. I mean, you have your Presidential Guards. I mean, it’s a compliment. The handshake is very welcoming,” I stuttered.

“Very smooth, Reaper Cain,” X-37 commented unhelpfully.

Amanda Coronas, president of an entire planet, leaned near enough to breathe on me and spoke softly. “You’re augmented. Are you a world leader among your people?”

“No,” I managed.

“No? Are your people so wealthy that they augment everyone?” she asked, pulling back, then darting her eyes briefly toward Elise. “She’s not augmented. The swordsman on your ship wasn’t augmented despite his confidence.”

Her statement revealed a lot, including the fact that Karn’s team had briefed her thoroughly.

“I’m an outlaw,” I said.

“That is what my warden tells me,” said. “There must be more to your story. Perhaps your family fell from favor, or maybe you are an exiled prince.”

Elise burst into laughter.

“The young woman has excellent hearing and understands me, apparently,” she said. “I thought I was being discreet.”

“She’s one of a kind,” I muttered as I gave Elise a signal to shut it.

Amanda Coronas stepped back, her demeanor businesslike now. “Your arm is cybernetic. To what purpose? Is it a tool or a weapon?”

“A little of both,” I said.

“You’re a soldier?”

“I’m a specialist.” There was nothing I could say to minimize more accurate descriptors like assassin or enforcer.

“I see.” She consulted with her advisors. The men and women she summoned to her side watched me like I was dangerous.

“You give off that vibe,” Elise said.

“What vibe?” I felt my cigar pouch and decided, why the hell not?

“Like you’re going to kill everyone in the room,” Elise clarified. 

I nursed the Gronic Fats to life.

“I can’t take you anywhere,” Elise said, turning red with embarrassment.

“What do you think you’re doing?” a presidential aide said. The guards around the edge of the room shifted weapons just enough to remind me how totally outgunned I was.

The President of Wallach pushed past the enraged advisor. “Yes, Mr. Cain, what do you think you’re doing not sharing?”

Maybe Elise was more surprised than I was at what happened next, but it was hard to say.

The president took my cigar, put it to her very sultry lips, and inhaled. 

I waited for her to gag, but she merely held it away from her and considered it. “Interesting. Are you a connoisseur?”

“Yeah, I guess I am. You?” I responded.

“Hardly, but I thought I might save you from the scorn of my people. My predecessor was a big fan of cigars—very well known for sharing them with trusted friends.”

“Is that what we are now?” I asked.

“Perhaps we are,” she answered.

“Who was your predecessor? Some ass-kicking war hero or something?” I asked, chatting her up like we were going to be friends.

“He was my father,” she said. “A good man, but simple and shortsighted. Walk with me, Mr. Cain. I’ve convinced them you’re worth a shot. Whoever you are, and wherever you’re from, we can make a deal if you can do something for us.”

I followed her to a holo table in the next room. Her guards, presidential aides, and other politicians surrounded us as we moved and watched me like I was rabid predator.

Which I was, of course.

“There is a creature hunting our maintenance crews and damaging the lower levels of our power plant. If the reactor melts down, we won’t be able to evacuate fast enough,” she said, then pointed to several key areas on the power plant schematics as she explained details.

“What percentage of Wallach’s population can realistically escape this planet before there is a massive nuclear incident?” I asked, noting the power plant was bigger than any I’d ever seen or heard of. It was like an entire town of reactors.

“Five percent will survive,” she said. “For how long, there is no way to tell. The void is not bristling with habitable planets.”

I knew she was wrong, sort of, but didn’t interrupt. X-37 advised me the locals knew about slip tunnels but believed they were nearly as dangerous as a nuclear meltdown with the potential to crack their planet and ruin the atmosphere forever.

“What can you tell me about the creature?” I asked.

“Less than I would like, but I can have my neural computer send information to yours,” she said, holding my gaze. “If you can keep a confidence.”

“I’m good at keeping secrets,” I said without thinking. “It comes with the job.”

“I bet it does,” she said too quietly for anyone but me to hear. “Very few people on Wallach have neural-comps; your unit is telling mine he is called a nerve-ware limited artificial intelligence.”

“X, are you talking to her LAI without telling me?” I demanded.

“I was going to tell you later, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“I bet you were,” I snorted. “We’re going to have a serious talk after this.”

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

I squared off with Amanda Coronas. “We need some ground rules.”

“I agree,” she said. “Please calm yourself before you upset my guards. They’re very protective.”

“Your heart rate and blood pressure are not improving, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“I know that, X. It’s not every day I get betrayed by my digital best friend,” I said.

“You’re being dramatic,” X said.

Elise, who had been watching with unconcealed interest, crossed her arms almost like she had heard my LAI.

“Are you talking to everyone?” I asked.

“I am keeping Elise in the loop via her earbud since we are on a dangerous mission among strangers we can’t trust,” X-37 explained.

“Well, yeah. Sure,” I said, noticing that Amanda was watching me carefully as she waited with surprising patience. Ignoring my backstabbing, promiscuous LAI, I focused on the amazingly attractive redhead who was the most powerful person on Wallach.

“Will you help us?” she asked.

“Sure,” I answered with foolhardy confidence. “Just get the fuel ready for my friends on the Bold Freedom and point where I need to go. One nuclear power plant vandalizing monster pelt coming up.”

“He means he will take the job,” X-37 said to the president’s LAI, or neural-comp as she called it. I could only hear one side of the conversation but assumed X wasn’t embarrassing us.

OceanofPDF.com

23

Locke offered to bring more men, but I told him no. Without knowing how they worked or their command structure, it seemed like it would be an unnecessary encumbrance. The three of us could move fast, strike hard, and take out this monster quickly.

I hoped. Because that was what I needed to happen. Neither the people on the Bold Freedom nor the citizens of Wallach could afford for us to fail.

The lift plummeted downward.

“How far below the surface is the heatsink transfer area?” I asked, thinking of the diagram we had studied before beginning the mission.

“Five hundred meters,” Locke said. “The place goes down another thousand meters, and several levels. Not all of them are accessible to people. Bots have to do a lot of the work down that deep. And we don’t know what’s been ruined, so even if we could crawl into some of the levels, it would be dangerous.”

“So, there’s lots of little hidey-holes this monster could crawl into?” Elise asked.

“There’s a maze of ventilation, conduit pipes, and other places a small creature could go, but this thing is huge and deadly,” Locke said.

“But there are hundreds of small crawlspaces?” she prompted.

“I don’t know why you’re pressing this issue, young lady, but you are correct. There are lots of places too small for the monster or for humans to travel,” Locke said.

“I was just thinking that where there’s a big monster, there’s probably some little ones bouncing about,” Elise said.

“Let’s hope not,” Locke said.

When the door to the lift opened, there was no one to greet us. Locke looked surprised and concerned.

“I assume that isn’t a good sign,” I said. “X, get to work.”

My limited AI quickly tapped into their computer network, scanning monitors of hallways and rooms.

“What just happened?” Locke said with some alarm.

“My limited artificial intelligence hacked into the surveillance network down here,” I explained.

He stared at me, his professional demeanor threatening to abandon him for the first time. “Only the highest-ranking leaders have anything like that among our people. It’s a mark of honor in very high station.”

“Yeah? I can live with that,” I said.

“It makes me uncomfortable that you do not appreciate your own status,” Locke said.

“Well, when we’re done with this, we can throw back a couple of beers or something and you can explain it to me,” I said. Without waiting for him to respond, I moved into a hallway and cleared it with my weapon ready.

“Why would you throw bears?” he mumbled before shaking his head like it didn’t matter.

There wasn’t any sign of work crews, guards, or the creature.

“Something has taken out a lot of the lights,” Elise observed, a pistol held in two hands as she helped me clear some of the technical rooms that served the lift and maintenance areas.

“At the end of this hallway is a room where I had anticipated checking the camera feeds,” Locke said. “Unless you just want your neural-comp to do that for you.”

“Let’s have a look at those monitors,” I said. “But let’s keep our heads on swivels.”

Locke gave me a strange look, clearly trying to figure out what I meant.

“Really?” Elise said. “You always tell me to use precise language during a mission.”

“Whatever,” I said to Elise. “I just mean let’s keep our eyes open and not let anything sneak up on us,” I explained to Locke.

“Of course,” he said, moving to clear a zone that I couldn’t see when we entered the viewing room. “My translation gave me something very strange, which doesn’t help when I’m starting to pick up your language of my own. I may have to just turn it off.” He tapped the side of his helmet, where there was some sort of earpiece that helped him communicate with us.

“How did you become the chief squad leader for General Karn?” I asked once we had secured the room.

He typed on the controls to the viewscreen and pulled up images of several key points of the structure on this level. “There were...trials.”

“What kind of trials?” I asked, turning on another computer monitor and attempting to hack into it without X-37’s assistance just to see if I could do it.

“I was dumped on an island with nothing but a survival knife and a swimsuit. They came back to pick me up after a month and I was still alive, so that was good. Same thing in an arctic environment—except I had insulated coveralls instead of swimwear. Jungles, deserts, subterranean mazes. Once I’d proved my worth at keeping myself alive, there were death matches with bots and more schooling. When all that was done, I interviewed for the position and did well,” he said.

I laughed. “Nice. Sounds like you are pretty motivated.”

“It is a great honor to be the chief squad leader for a general. I only have three peers, one of those being the chief squad leader for the president,” Locke said.

“A squad leader controls eight to twelve soldiers where I’m from,” I said.

“It is much the same here; however, as the chief squad leader, I can demand the support of all squads if I believe there is a threat to my boss or if I feel my boss is derelict of duty and needs to be deposed,” Locke said.

“Damn,” I muttered. “I’m pretty sure the Union would never go for something like that.”

“It’s an ancient tradition,” Locke said, shifting his attention back to the view screen. “I’ve pulled up what I can, but a lot of the hallways are dark and many of the video feeds are damaged.”

* * *

We found bodies long before we found the creature. Downed maintenance workers lay in the hallway, faces contorted, bodies frozen in a painful death. Both were men and they had numerous circles of blood where they had been stung by something.

“Did they get shot in the back?” Elise asked, crouching to examine the fallen forms. Her complexion was pale, and I thought she might be sick, but she didn’t back away or avoid looking at the corpses.

“Looks like they were stung by something,” I said, sweeping my eyes into the shadows to search for the creature or more victims.

“The creature is extremely poisonous. Its venom paralyzes victims and seems to kill them with the sheer pain it induces,” Locke said. He moved to the end of the hallway and took a guard position.

That allowed me to take a closer look at the downed maintenance workers without compromising our security. I was already getting used to the man’s professionalism.

“What you think, X?” I asked.

“Your initial assessment is correct,” X-37 said. “I’m measuring the diameter and apparent depth of the wound. The latter will be hard to determine without an autopsy. We can conclude from the posture of the man that he was in considerable pain when he expired.”

“So you’re saying that Locke knows what he’s talking about,” I said, then moved to the next body. Both men still had sidearms, which was interesting for maintenance workers but also told me whoever killed them, or whatever killed them, wasn’t interested in their guns.

“Cain,” Locke said. The hard urgency in his voice told me everything I needed to know.

I was running to his position before he spoke again.

“It’s coming,” he said, taking a shooting stance and raising his rifle to his shoulder. He aimed down the sights like a professional and controlled his breathing like an expert marksman.

“Elise, get online,” I said. “There’s no place for anything fancy in this hallway.”

Seconds later, she was standing on my left with her pistol in both hands. “Just so we’re on the same page, I assume we’re shooting first and asking questions whenever.”

“Your apprentice has a keen understanding of the situation,” Locke said, his gruff voice low but strong.

I saw the creature first, of course. It appeared at the end of the long hallway from a corner or an intersection, it was hard to tell exactly. The lights were out and where they did still function, they flickered between us and the monster. My optics gave me a better rendering of the fast moving—and alarmingly large—thing.

It was like nature couldn’t decide whether or not it was a centipede or humanoid. I knew it had a long tail, or perhaps that was part of its body, and I knew it had arms in something that was probably a head or face. I wasn’t sure about some other things in the two seconds I had to observe it before Elise and Locke saw it.

“Are those wings?” I asked.

“I do not believe so,” X-37 said, but without the normal clarification he offered when there was time to do so.

“Open fire!” I aimed carefully and fired one well-placed shot after another toward the accelerating beast. When it was closer, I’d switched to full auto and was ready to clip the HDK Dominator to my gear so I could deploy my arm blade.

Which would be like attacking an armored car with melee weapons.

Elise emptied her pistol and shouted at me as she reloaded. “That thing is huge! Why didn’t you warn us!”

It came roiling down the hallway, the body more tailed and humanoid now. It had dozens or perhaps hundreds of arms and legs that gave it its speed.

“It is unlikely that your warning would have made much of a difference,” X-37 provided needlessly.

I switched magazines and took a step forward, not enough to get shot in the back by my friends, but enough to be the first victim of this hellish creature.

“I’m throwing a grenade! Don’t move any closer or the overpressure will damage you,” Locke shouted, then hurled a device ahead of us that promptly exploded.

It was less than twenty meters from us now, but the floor disappeared, and it tumbled downward. Without hesitation, Locke sprinted to the edge of the new crevasse and fired everything he had into the hole.

I joined him, and a second later, Elise was there doing her part with her pistols—aiming and firing with bloodthirsty determination. She sidestepped after every two or three shots, never staying in one place for too long—just like I’d trained her.

There was smoke and debris in the air as well as the smoldering after-effects of the explosion confounding my Reaper optics. Its heat signature was confused as it twisted and roiled in some sort of complicated pattern, forming a kind of monster. The creature hissed and screamed as it struggled to get back to its hundreds of clawed feet. At least, I thought they were feet. I couldn’t be entirely certain.

Locke dropped another grenade and stepped back. I pulled Elise back and turned away, sheltering her with my body. There wasn’t much danger of shrapnel where we were, but overpressure moved around corners and could do a lot of damage to eardrums, eyes, and even lungs.

I hope that Locke knew what he was doing and didn’t throw something too big. The first charge had blown a massive hole in the floor.

We heard the creature scurrying away and shrieking something that almost sounded like words.

We were all panting, leaning on our knees and breathing hard after the short encounter. Elise started laughing nervously, which I expected. She always was one to laugh in the face of danger—not because she wasn’t afraid, but because that was how she dealt with so much adrenaline.

“Good choice with the grenades,” I said.

Locke responded with a nod, still catching his breath despite his superb physical conditioning. “It would’ve done more damage if I could have put more incendiaries and shrapnel in it, but I didn’t want to blow us up too.”

“I hope there’s only one of those things,” I said.

Locke laughed grimly. “Don’t jinx us. That’s the best sighting we’ve had of the thing. Normally, the attacks are so sudden and violent that cameras barely get anything useful, and we haven’t had any surviving victims.”

“Lucky us,” I said.

“That thing was horrible,” Elise said. “How can we kill something like that?”

It was Locke who answered, confirming we were on the same page and that I could trust the man’s tactical judgment. “We just have to export enough violence to put it down without taking more damage than we can withstand.”

“And how are we going to do that?” I asked.

“I was hoping the grenades would do the trick. We need to get to a position where it can’t maul us and where we can sustain gunfire until we’re out of ammunition or it dies,” Locke said.

It took several moments for each of us to process what had just happened. Without further discussion, I dropped down into the hole and looked at the debris caused by the grenade and the thrashing of the creature. The hallway went into directions with a four-way intersection at each end that I could see. The lighting was even worse down here and there was a haze in the air that concerned me.

“X, can you tell me what that is?”

“I advise leaving this area immediately or donning a self-contained breathing apparatus,” X-37 said. “I don’t believe the current levels are dangerous, but it seems that this thing puts out a mist of neurotoxins when wounded badly enough.”

“Great. Why can’t anything be easy?” I asked, looking for a way to climb back up to Elise and Locke.

“Do you actually wish for me to answer that question?” X-37 inquired.

“That depends on how good your answer is,” I grumbled as I stepped on a broken section of wall and worked my way up to the hole Locke had created with his first grenade.

“I’m glad you didn’t want us to come down there with you,” Elise said. “Not that I’m scared.”

“Of course not,” I said, dusting myself off and checking my weapons. “None of us are scared. We just saw the most vicious killing machine ever created by nature, shot the hell out of it, and didn’t kill it. What’s there to be scared about?”

“It took out dozens of security guards and work crews in the short time it took for us to realize there was a problem. After that, we sent soldiers to hunt it,” Locke said. “But we haven’t been able to understand why there is so much vandalism to the equipment. That is what is endangering the reactor. Most of the complex is self-regulating, but if it starts to overheat or loses integrity, this planet will be uninhabitable in a matter of days. The area around the plant complex will be gone in hours.”

“Do you think it’s intentionally damaging your equipment or just smashing into it by accident because of its size?” I asked, knowing that X-37 was still gathering data for his own conclusion. The better questions I asked, the better my limited artificial intelligence could do his job.

“It’s probably both, but some of the damage is in very small areas, places we normally send bots in to conduct repairs. I don’t see how this monster, especially after having seen it so close, could reach into the more delicate sections of our infrastructure,” Locke said.

“Let’s move out,” I said, selecting a direction that should parallel the creature’s movements but from a level above it—assuming it didn’t climb up and slaughter us in retaliation for our effort to fill it with bullets.

“I need more information,” X-37 said. “President Coronas’s LAI, who calls itself Buttons after her favorite pet from childhood, shared a good deal of information, but I would like to hear what CSL Locke has to say.”

“Buttons?” I asked. There was no way I had heard that correctly.

“Excuse me?” Locke asked as Elise also looked at me strangely.

“That’s what her limited AI told me; however, the president addresses her as Computer Ninety-nine, or just Comp Ninety-nine,” X-37 explained.

“Maybe we’ll get into that later,” I said, “or maybe not.” I addressed Locke. “My limited artificial intelligence wants your assessment of this creature so we can make a plan that has a chance of working.”

“Understood,” he said, then paused as he swung around the corner and cleared it to the left as I cleared it to the right. Elise kept her attention focused down the hall of this four-way intersection. So far, none of us saw any evidence of the creature retaking its place on this level.

“Our information is limited, and I almost believed that it was intentionally damaging our sensors to keep us in the dark. Have a look at the mindless rage of the beast. I think that has to be coincidental. Something like that with a true intellect or capacity for deception would be too horrible to face,” Locke said. “We know the creature is extremely poisonous and paralyzes its victims. It takes some of them to its lair.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask how you know that,” I commented.

“We found two abandoned lairs during some of our initial searching,” Locke said. “There were a lot of bones—human, animal, and something else that had to be sloughed off exoskeleton or something similar.”

“Why did you stop searching for it?” Elise asked.

“We had to start preparing for another mission,” Locke admitted.

“The evacuation,” I said.

He nodded. “If we fail today, that will be our only chance. But not a chance for everyone. People with critical skills and strong genetics will take priority over the rest. Everyone else will be left to deal with the nuclear fallout and this creature if it survives the power plant complex going down.”

“I can’t even describe how bad that sucks,” Elise said. “That shouldn’t even be an option. You should be putting all of your resources into stopping this creature.”

Locke looked at her as we took a short rest before the next intersection. “There are people who argue as you do.”

“Like you?” she asked.

“You are amazingly direct for a young woman,” he said. “Are all teenagers from the Union like you?”

“Gods, I hope not,” I said before I considered my words.

Fortunately, Elise laughed at my reaction. “He’s probably right. This galaxy doesn’t have room for too many people like me.”

Locke didn’t join in on our humorous assessment. He considered each of us, then checked his weapons. “Perhaps. But if there are more people like the two of you, this would be a much larger search party.”

“I thought you could command the obedience of all the squad leaders in General Karn’s army,” I said.

“I must also balance my assessment of the situation with the will and intent of my superior,” Locke said. “I was not able to offer proof that more soldiers searching the lower areas would be more successful. At the peak of our operation, I had dozens of squads with the best gear looking for this thing. Many of them are dead. None of them were successful.”

“What makes you think we’re going to do better?” Elise asked.

“That’s the exact question I would like to have answered,” X-37 said to me privately.

“It was a last shot in the dark. Karn had very strong words with me for volunteering for a final suicide mission in hopes of saving our people,” Locke said.

I patted him on the shoulder. “Fortunately, we’re experts at suicide-not-suicide missions.”

OceanofPDF.com

24

Communications with the Jellybird were sporadic at best. X-37 updated me when he could.

“That is affirmative. Jelly has confirmed at least one of the Union spec ops carriers has arrived in the system,” X-37 finished.

Elise and Locke waited, listening to me and casting furtive glances my way as they pointed their weapons down each section of the hallway. We’d been hearing scratching through the walls and the occasional groan of metal as though something was about to break through. The first five times it had been alarming. Now it was just pissing us off.

“If you’re done communicating with your neural-comp, we should continue. Unless there’s something you need to tell us,” Locke said.

“Our pursuers have found the system,” I said. “There were three carrier ships—not large, but dangerous. One of them is in the system. We can hope that the others went to other slip tunnels in search of us and won’t arrive here anytime soon.”

“I still find it hard to believe how cavalier your attitude is about the slip tunnels,” Locke said. “Everyone on Wallach has been raised to fear them.”

“There are pros and cons,” I said, moving toward his position so I could take the lead in the direction we were planning to head. “Right now, they mostly feel like cons. I like the slip tunnels better when we’re able to escape to them and stay alive.”

“Perhaps you can show my people how to do this if we are forced to flee Wallach,” Locke said.

I moved forward, scanning the area and wondering if the smoke was a product of recent damage to the equipment or a cloud of neurotoxins that would kill us before he realized what was happening. It smelled like smoke and burnt wiring, but that wasn’t necessarily a great thing either.

“I hear something,” I said. “X, are you picking it up?”

“I believe it has to be one of the engineers,” X-37 said. “He has repeated several technical instructions for somebody to use to shut down the power to this area, which I believe means he is an engineer rather than a soldier or support worker.”

“Good to know,” I said as I moved forward, weapon just low enough that I could see over it but high enough I could utilize the sights in a microsecond. It was a search-carry that I had learned long before I joined dark ops. Elise and Locke used a similar method of keeping their weapons ready but not getting too tired during the long mission. The weapon never felt heavy at first, but that changed quickly. Especially when there was lots of adrenaline dump from our previous encounter.

I moved into the control room and searched it quickly. Elise and Locke came in right behind me and checked their areas, then stood guard. None of us spoke.

I pointed to the downed engineer. “Locke, talk to him. My translation software is getting better by the minute and I think Elise is right, our languages aren’t that much different, but now isn’t the time to guess.”

Locke knelt over the man and checked his wounds. He looked up, his eyes telling me what I needed to know. The engineer had suffered at least one mortal injury.

“Tell us what happened,” Locke said as compassionately as the situation allowed.

“It came after us, so much bigger than the others,” the engineer wheezed, clearly in pain. Parts of his body looked paralyzed and I realized that he was missing several fingers.

“Others?” Locke asked. “We’ve only been able to detect one through seismic graphic data.”

“There are swarms of the smaller ones, maybe its offspring or its worker drones,” the engineer said. “There’s no time for that. Let me tell you something. It dragged me to its lair and the little ones chewed off my fingers and dug out my eye.”

Elise and I both looked when he said that, catching a view of him right as he turned his face. The right side of his head was mangled, most of the flesh chewed off and the eye definitely gone.

Locke didn’t flinch and neither did I. As for Elise, I wasn’t sure because I quickly returned my attention to my security zone.

“Hand me a tablet and I will show you where the lair is on the map,” the engineer said. “Tell my family I love them and that I died honorably for the president and the people.”

“I will make sure it is known and you and your family are honored,” Locke said. He studied the schematics and asked the engineer several questions in a low, compassionate voice. When he stood up, it didn’t seem like he had good news.

“Spill it, Locke. What’s our situation?” I asked.

“We’ll need to cut a tunnel to reach the lair. He came another way that has collapsed, according to his notes. I know how to operate the machinery needed and Engineer McRyanous says it is functional and fully charged,” Locke explained.

* * *

I looked back frequently and saw that Elise mostly walked backward to cover what was behind us. Ahead of me, Locke pushed the tunnel-cutter as hard as he could. It was loud and slow and threw lots of dust into the very small tunnel we were creating. I didn’t want to be caught by the creature or its minions in such a confined space.

“There’s nothing to be done for it,” X-37 said. “If it makes you feel better, I don’t believe the large creature can reach you this deep into this very small passage. It could, however, disgorge its neurotoxins into the passage to flush you out or kill you.”

“What is your neural-comp telling you?” Locke shouted over his shoulder as he took a very brief rest.

“He says to go faster or we’re going to die,” I said.

Locke went back to work. The tunnel cutter broke apart rock and made sounds that didn’t give me confidence that it could continue to work for much longer. But I wasn’t a miner, so what did I know.

Locke shouted something I couldn’t make out, then he pushed the machine into a much larger tunnel. Rocks spilled away from us. I stepped past Locke, and swept my HDK around the new passage, relying on my enhanced optics to see anything that was about to murder us and eat our faces.

“Oh shit!” Elise and Locke shouted at the same time.

Red and black centipedes, for lack of a better term, swarmed past my feet after my companions. Several of them also climbed my legs. On instinct, without thinking for a second, I snapped out my Reaper blade and sliced them apart as I move deeper into the opening. There was no going back.

Elise fired her pistol twice, then drew her sword and began slashing the small things apart. By small, I meant somewhere between five and fifteen kilos in weight. They chattered and stabbed with stingers that were situated near their heads but also on their tails, which thrashed energetically to find a target.

I stopped, slashed, and fired my HDK one-handed. I kicked one so hard that it flew into the ceiling and broke in half.

It wasn’t long before we found a rhythm and began to slaughter the small creatures in earnest. I felt several pricks to my skin and hoped they weren’t poisoning me.

“Talk to me, X,” I ordered. There wasn’t time to be incapacitated by these things, and I didn’t want to lose my other eye.

“The creatures are in fact poisoning you, which I find intriguing. Most younglings of this type would have far more concentrated venom to make up for their small size. Be thankful none of these have released anything that will kill you immediately.”

“Great,” I said. “Elise, try not to get bitten! They’re poisonous but only if they get you a lot of times.”

“Thanks. For. That!” Elise responded, punctuating each word with a stomp on one of the smaller things.

An anguished cry cut through the rock tunnel, which now that I thought about it, could only have been made by the larger creature we had failed to kill during our first encounter. The walls vibrated from the force of it.

“This thing has to be enormous,” I commented as I tried to recall images from what I had seen earlier.

“I was unable to take a precise measurement while you were shooting at it and Locke was throwing grenades,” X-37 said. “I can, however, measure this tunnel, which should be an indicator of its full size. The ceiling is nearly four meters high. This means...”

I pushed past Elise and Locke as a swarm of the larger worker drones emerged from a hole in the ceiling I hadn’t realized was there. Firing on full auto, I reloaded three times before they stopped coming at us.

“We’re not going to have bullets left when we finally find their mother,” Locke complained.

I looked them over. “Do you have anything better for melee combat than that knife?”

“No.” His response was succinct and ominous.

“If you would let me finish,” X-37 interrupted. “The partial view of the creature from your first encounter was likely skewed. Your perspective was off. I estimate that when this thing stands on its more humanoid front legs, it will be nearly as high as the ceiling. My analysis of wear patterns on the rock and what we saw briefly suggest that it belly crawls much of the time but will expand itself to do battle with a determined foe.”

Elise winced, because this had been on our shared communications link. I was glad her earbud was still in place after all of the chaos.

“Care to fill me in?” Locke asked.

“My limited artificial intelligence isn’t full of good news right now. A quick translation—we’re gonna die,” I said.

OceanofPDF.com

25

The lair of the beast was enormous, hundreds of meters to the ceiling, which almost looked like it opened up to the surface of the planet. There was a small light that was either from an opening or some luminous mineral. Maybe a speck of something exotic and nuclear that mimicked as a sun. It was hard to say.

“Please scan the entire area,” X-37 said.

“I’m working on it. Pay attention, because I’m not doing this twice,” I said, moving deeper into the huge cave and trying to look everywhere in a systematic manner.

“I always do, and you rarely repeat yourself,” X-37 said. “Except for your constant nattering about Starbrand cigars and requests for me to give you a break.”

“Thanks for bringing that up, X. Now I need a cigar,” I said.

Locke laughed, which seemed more than a little out of place given our situation. “I still can’t believe the incident with the president. There will be dozens of stories from that encounter.”

“All I did was fire one up,” I said, finishing my survey of the macabre lair. There were bones stuck to the walls in nests made of wires and torn-up insulation. “She’s the one who grabbed my cigar and made a big deal out of smoking it.”

“You have a lot to learn about our culture. You can’t do something like that without offering to share,” Locke said.

“I think we found the reason for the vandalism to your circuitry,” I said, aiming my weapon toward a nest of wires and insulation—that had something wiggling inside of it, of course.

“Makes sense,” Locke said. “I’d put that in my report, but I don’t think I’ll get a chance to share it.”

I heard the approach of the monster before he did but understood what he was saying. Elise moved away from me, either by instinct or by what I had taught her. We didn’t need to be grouped up to be slaughtered side-by-side.

The monster emerged from an opposing tunnel, throwing bones and clusters of wire nests full of its offspring in every direction. If it had been mad before, it was in a full rage that didn’t bode well for our chances at survival.

“At least we don’t have to look for it now,” Elise said, her voice surprisingly dry and devoid of emotion.

The bones of its previous victims splintered under its hundreds of clawed feet. I moved to the right while Elise and Locke moved to the left. The thing tracked me and charged in for the kill.

“Split up and make your shots count!” I said, shuffling backward and aiming several bursts of HDK Dominator fire at its eyes—or what I thought were its eyes. I had to reload a lot quicker than I expected. Apparent time distortion was a predictable psychological phenomenon in a fight, as was auditory exclusion and other illusions.

Usually, time seemed to slow for me during a hard fight. That was a part of my experience and also my Reaper LAI. This time, everything seemed out of control as though the underground world was closing in on me second by second.

“I’m out of ammo!” Elise shouted, her broadcast only audible because we had a shared link. It sounded like the entire subterranean structure was coming down around us. Bits of rock rained from the ceiling, as did dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of the monster’s offspring. Some were the size of cockroaches. The others were almost as big as Elise.

I put several rounds into the smaller things to keep from being overwhelmed, then ran around the edge of the cave to stay ahead of the titanic centipede that wanted to eat me.

“You are accumulating numerous injuries and bites from its little minions,” X-37 said. “My advice is to stop allowing this.”

I didn’t bother to respond. X-37, normally well attuned to my welfare, wasn’t exactly helping me right now.

“One of us needs to get behind it,” I said, broadcasting to my companions in this sideways adventure.

“I think I can arrange that,” Elise said, her voice fierce and dangerous.

“I don’t think either of us will like what she’s about to attempt,” X-37 said.

Ignoring my limited AI, I moved away from the wall and make sure I had a fresh magazine in my rifle. “I think I know what she’s going to do, X. Elise, don’t be stupid.”

Elise emerged from the smoke, sword held in both hands as she screamed at the gigantic monster. It didn’t seem to notice her. She moved closer and slashed several of its drones in half. They hissed and screamed, drawing the attention of their hive queen or whatever this monster was.

“Elise!” I aimed, searching for a weak spot in its armor. The back looked to be even more heavily armored than the front of it.

“Come and get me, you son-of-a-bitch!” Elise slashed her sword at the monster towering above her and advancing far too quickly.

“I advise you do something quickly, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

I charged at the back of the creature, stepping on its tail, then grabbing its back with my left hand. I’d intended to shoot it with the HDK but still didn’t see a chink in its armor. Clipping the weapon magnetically to my gear, I scrambled higher up the back plates looking for an old wound, a piece of its exoskeleton that had worn away, or any gap that might allow me to do real damage.

“Um, Reaper Cain, I’m not sure how to tell you this, but there are nests on the hive mother,” X-37 advised just a few seconds too late to be really useful.

Dozens of the small creatures swarmed over me, stinging and biting me wherever they could.

I climbed higher, desperate now, my breathing coming in ragged gasps.

“I’m boosting your epinephrine levels to counteract the paralyzing effects of the poison,” X-37 said.

The monster twisted, realizing I was on its back and looking for a way to kill me. It slammed into the wall, nearly dislodging me. I extended my Reaper blade and thrust it deep into its shell.

“I’m not sure if that did any real damage,” X-37 stated.

“Just. Trying. To hold on,” I grunted, the joints in my shoulder and upper back twisting under the strain of the wild ride.

Elise jumped from a pile of bones and landed on the monster’s back, her sword in one hand and her other hand holding on as she looked for a killing strike.

“Watch out for the little ones,” I warned. “There are a bunch of them living on this thing, maybe feeding off of it until they get bigger.”

“Do you remember what I said about their venom not being as strong as it should be,” X-37 said. “I believe these have administered significantly more potent neurotoxins into your system. You may feel paralysis, extreme pain, and hallucinations.”

My vision exploded in colors, some of which were soothing and others that were out of a nightmare. It felt like a very bad drug trip. There wasn’t anything I wanted more than to just let go and fall away from this hive queen that was going to cause a nuclear meltdown by ripping out wires and circuit boards to make nests for its young.

“Over here!” Locke shouted, holding a grenade in one hand. “Remember me, you big bastard?”

“I hope he doesn’t throw that at us,” Elise said, sounding worried and in pain. Toxins were disabling parts of her face. Her expression would be kind of hilarious if we weren’t about to die.

With no time to care for Elise, or Locke, or anyone else, I continued to climb. My desperation caused me to take too many chances and I nearly fell twice. Only a desperate thrust of my blade into the carapace saved me from going over the edge. The room was a blur. Even without the hallucinogenic effects of whatever the little worker drone centipedes had put into my bloodstream, this was chaos. I saw one confused image after another. There was smoke and clouds of poisonous gas that obscured our vision and threatened to kill us if we breathed too much.

“It’s now or never,” X-37 said. “I’m assuming you understand this.”

“Yeah, X. I figured that out,” I grunted, rushing toward the junction of the oversized head and the heavily armored neck. It slammed its head into the wall, launching me upward but also causing me to lose my grip.

I weaved my legs through its spiny ridges and held on the best I could. A heartbeat later, I was able to find handholds as well.

“That was a close one,” X-37 observed.

Locke was still shouting and finally decided to throw the grenade. It exploded, causing the centipede-like monster to rear up and slam its head against the cavern wall. When that happened, I saw a gap caused by the force of the impact.

I lunged, risking everything, nearly falling, and thrust my Reaper blade with all of my strength.

And missed, mostly.

The blade didn’t go as deep as I’d hoped, but a black ichor spurted out and streamed all down the front of my armor. I couldn’t tell if it was acid because I couldn’t feel it yet, but that fun moment was probably coming sooner than I would like.

“Stop biting me!” Elise said, her grip slipping as she began to fall away from the monster. Scores of little centipede vermin clung to her.

“Get away from the hive mother,” I said, stealing a descriptive phrase from X-37.

Elise knew what I meant, so she rolled away and sprinted behind a pile of bones where I lost sight of her.

I climbed two additional feet and found the best point of weakness I was likely to discover. I stabbed it with my Reaper blade, then twisted it savagely. When I made a rather gory hole in the creature’s neck, I grabbed my HDK with one hand and shoved the barrel deep into the wound. When I pulled the trigger, I thought the weapon would malfunction, but was soon rewarded with a truly horrible roar from the creature.

It reared up, then fell hard on the ground.

“Get clear!” Locke shouted, waving frantically.

I was stunned from the impact, delirious from the neurotoxins, and about ready to murder someone for a Starbrand cigar. I jumped away from my perch, hitting the ground too hard before limping into the maze of bones and other detritus. The centipede creature thrashed and hissed. Dust came from the ceiling when it impacted the walls. Its death throes seemed to take hours but eventually ended.

Silence was a strange thing. I had noticed the chattering and clicking of the worker drones, but now it grew in volume as everything else stopped making sounds.

“Help me!” Elise said, trying to twist one of the younglings off of her arm.

I drew my pistol and approached. This could get tricky, but I thought shooting them would be faster than trying to just pull them off.

“Don’t move,” I warned, then grabbed her arm as I pressed the barrel of my pistol against a juicy little freak. 

I pulled the trigger, blowing it apart. 

“Interesting,” X-37 said to both of us. “I hypothesize that the venom you were feeling from most of these was merely a form of anesthetic as they started to feed. They weren’t trying to kill you, but feed on you without you noticing.”

“Fuck you, X,” Elise said, freeing herself from the last of the centipede babies. “They were totally trying to kill me.”

“Of course, Elise,” X-37 said in his best pacification tone. “How foolish of me to think differently. It was only a hypothesis. I will withdraw it immediately.”

Locke approached us with a med kit, stopping occasionally to kick one of the little things away. He stopped when he came close enough to get a good look at us. “I can’t believe either of you survived that. You should have broken both your legs after your first fall.”

“I have carbon sheeting melded to my bones,” I said. “And we’re both more resistant to poison than most people.”

“I’d love to hear why,” Locke said.

“Maybe later,” I said. “What do we need to do to get the power plant back in order?”

“Once I give the all-clear, repair teams can move into the lower levels,” Locke said.

“Then do that,” I said, “And let’s get to a hospital.”

“Right away, Cain.” He turned away and started communicating with his people.

OceanofPDF.com

26

Our journey back to the surface and their mobile first-aid facility was a blur. X-37 kept me going by spiking my adrenaline and other hormones beyond what was safe. He also suppressed certain elements of my nervous system that should’ve forced me to quit before I injured myself.

But since I’d been getting eaten alive by the spawn of a giant humanoid centipede with an affinity for building nests out of wiring and circuit boards, we’d agreed it was all or nothing. I wasn’t sure how Elise had kept up, but attributed it to the side effects of the experiments her father in the Union had performed on her while she was growing up.

Locke was just tough, and he hadn’t drawn as much attention from the little monsters. Scurrying up the back of their mother had pissed them off, apparently.

We left the medic truck, which was large enough to treat a squad of soldiers and seemed to be a fully functioning all-terrain vehicle if necessary, and headed for the palace.

“We have to walk?” I was getting frustrated. Fatigue and pain put me in a bad mood and we were on a very tight schedule.

“Just the last few hundred meters,” Locke said, seeming more proud than embarrassed as I thought he should be. “The ambulance treated you on the move, by order of the president, who said you had a place to be and things to do.”

“She’s got that right,” Elise said. “Maybe she could show her appreciation by getting those fuel stores ready for us? Can you hear me, X?” she asked, changing the course of her conversation smoothly.

“I can, Elise. What can I do for you?” X-37 asked.

“Have you calculated the load capacity of the Jellybird? It’s something I couldn’t stop thinking about on the ride back to the surface. I’m worried we can’t move enough fuel to really help the Bold Freedom,” Elise said.

I winced inwardly, having completely forgotten about our primary mission. That was a good way for a Reaper to fail. I’d been distracted, but X-37 should have kept me on task. I strode toward the boulevard the president’s people wanted us to march down to the palace.

“That’s a good question,” I said.

“I would have informed you if there was a problem in this regard,” X-37 said. “The Jellybird was retrofitted as a smuggler long before you stole her.”

“I didn’t steal her,” I said defensively. X-37 could be offensively direct sometimes.

“You did, Reaper Cain, but that doesn’t matter right now. I advise you to stand up straight and look your heroic best for the people of Wallach,” X-37 said.

“What are you talking about, X?” Elise asked, looking at Locke and seeming to hear the noise from the boulevard for the first time.

“The people of Wallach are very formal, and very grateful,” X-37 said.

“You think?” I asked as we turned onto the presidential boulevard.

Locke smiled, seeming like an entirely different person. It was like he was a kid about to be part of his first victory parade. “I give you the people of Wallach!”

An honor guard fell in behind us as we strode forward with people lining the streets.

A marching band soon followed the honor guard and someone started shooting fireworks. People tossed confetti and cheered. The noise was deafening and my novice understanding of their language was foiled by the clamor. They were shouting something, then singing, and then shouting and throwing confetti and flowers again. At one point, they began to stomp and clap in unison.

“Have you ever experienced anything like this? Elise said, utilizing the communication network X-37 provided to her earbud and my nerve-ware.

“Not even once,” I said somberly.

There was a significant amount of pomp and ceremony when we crossed under the archway to the presidential palace courtyard. Locke ushered us through the crowds, many of whom wanted to touch us and bless us with some sort of religious phrase I didn’t understand but appreciated. There gratefulness seemed heartfelt and genuine.

“X, this is the strangest experience I’ve ever had,” I said.

“It’s commonly referred to as a hero’s welcome,” X-37 said like a history professor.

Locke took us into the waiting room outside of President Amanda Coronas’s office. He took his two pistols, flipped them around to grab them by the barrels, then offered one to me and one to Elise. “These are my favorite guns, and they’ve been in my family since my great-grandfather’s time. They’ve been through several wars and countless smaller actions. What the two of you did down there was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen or imagined. I want you to have these.”

“Be careful, Reaper Cain,” X-37 warned. “This is a very important moment to him. My suggestion is to avoid a smart-ass comment.”

I accepted the weapon with genuine reverence. It struck me as a symbol of what I had hoped service to the Union would be: meaningful, effective, and above all, honorable. The weight of the pistol felt good in my hand. The design was different, simpler than most firearms I’d used over the years—but in a good way. The cleanest of the lines reminded me of Path and his purity of purpose.

Elise accepted her pistol with the serious attention to gun safety that made me proud. She checked to see if it was loaded and that the safety was engaged—all without inadvertently pointing the weapon at someone in the room as an untrained person might do.

“This is a very generous gift, Locke,” Elise said, securing it to her tactical vest and giving the thick-shouldered soldier a hug.

He didn’t seem to know what a hug was but took it in stride.

Elise laughed as she pulled back. “It’s called a hug, Locke, something we do where I’m from if we are good friends or family.”

“Then I’m honored to be your friend,” Locke said, turning toward me with his arms spread as he stepped into my personal space.

“Give the man a hug, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said with way more sass in his voice than I would normally tolerate.

The one-armed bro-hug seemed more than good enough for the Wallach CSL, who hadn’t known what a hug was five seconds ago.

I patted him on the back with my Reaper arm. “That’s good. Hold a hug too long and it gets weird.”

“Right, of course,” Locke said, standing back and straightening his gear. “Let’s see the president.”

We entered. The Presidential Guards watched us, completely unimpressed that we had just saved their entire civilization.

“Reaper Cain, Elise,” the president said, standing back too far to be hugged, thankfully. “You have done us a great service. All of Wallach is in your debt. We’ve already begun transporting the necessary fuel stores to your ship and have removed our guard from it as well. My advisors are in quite a tizzy about the inequity of this exchange. One cargo hold of fuel is not adequate. For once, I agree with them.”

“You don’t happen to have any Starbrand cigars?” I said, earning a nasty look from Elise, who was behaving more formally than I had ever seen her.

“I don’t,” the president said. “And contrary to our first meeting, I’m not a regular smoker. However, my father supported several artisans who were the best at what they did and we keep a humidor stocked with Wallach Presidentials. You’re not familiar with them, of course, but each of the cigars is a national treasure.”

“I’m willing to become familiar,” I said, not quite sure why I was smiling so much. Happiness and relief were strange emotions to me. I liked President Amanda Coronas. She seemed to have her act together.

“I will send a note to the corporation manager, who will put together a gift box and make sure you don’t go without while you’re here with us,” she said. “My father was well-known for his affinity for cigars. As such, what may be a relaxing pastime among your people has many important social overtones here.”

“Any tips?”

“Little things, like how you should never throw one away in public. Even if it is burnt down to next to nothing,” she said. “But we have important things to discuss. General Karn and my admirals have advised me that there are now three of your Union vessels in the system. We assume they are after you. Apparently, your people have the ability to make the ships invisible.”

“They’re not my people,” I said. “There aren’t many ships that size that utilize stealth technology, but Vice Admiral Nebs is part of a special operations group,” I said.

“Your ship has stealth technology,” she said, holding my gaze very directly.

“She does,” I said just loud enough to hear. This conversation was getting serious.

“Would you share it with us?” she asked.

“That’s a different discussion, but I’m not saying no,” I said.

She nodded. “Good enough. Let’s prepare to address these interlopers into our system.”

* * *

The people of Wallach provided us with a new shuttle, fast and powerful in a primitive way. The controls took some getting used to, but X-37 expressed no problems when interfacing with its controls.

“I’ve rewritten several subroutines that will allow proper coordination between the shuttle and the Jellybird,” X-37 said as we broke free of the gravity well and headed for our ship.

“Good work, X,” I said. “I’ll put you in for a presidential medal or something.”

“As long as you will wear it for me, as I have no corporal form to pin it on,” X-37 said, not missing a beat.

Once we docked, we didn’t waste time getting to the bridge. Jelly filled us in on the details of the Union encroachment as we hurried to our battle stations.

“All three of the stealth carriers are in the system,” Jelly advised, noting the time and locations on our holo view. “I have estimated positions based on their last known trajectory and probable intent given a situation of this nature. During my brief glimpse of their actions before they went into full stealth mode, they are far too interested in the people of Wallach.”

“Welcome to the Union,” Tom muttered.

“Can you put me in touch with General Karn?” I asked.

Several moments passed. “You are connected.”

Karn appeared in the holo. “Greetings, Hero Cain.”

“With all due respect, General, I prefer you not call me hero,” I said.

“Of course, Cain,” he said. “I was about to contact the president. Do you have a problem with a group communication?”

“Nope,” I said, holding an unlit Presidential in one hand.

“Your informal manner is inappropriate, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

I gave him a discreet hand signal indicating we could talk about that later. X-37 didn’t have to actually see my movement, only sense even the most minute change in the position of any part of my body. We had been refining these communication methods since I got out of the Bluesphere Maximum-security Prison.

The president appeared in the holo view. “Greetings, Cain. It seems your predictions of Union aggression have come true. My defense network has detected an alarming number of scans to all of our ships and the planet itself.”

“You should probably keep evacuation as an option,” I said. “This is a small Union force. It will only get worse once they know you’re here.”

The president’s thoughtful gaze gave me a chill. I hadn’t seen many leaders of this caliber and hoped that her resolve could withstand what was coming. Wallach was little more than an oversized colony by Union standards. That didn’t mean the Union would give it a pass.

“Wallach is sovereign,” she said, her voice level and strong. There was not a trace of the false bravado I’d seen in Union politicians. “We will resist any interference to remain so. I appreciate your warning of the Union’s might, but we are no strangers to war.”

I lowered my gaze, not sure how to emphasize my point without sounding disrespectful. She picked up on it and continued.

“We might not be a match for them with our current army, but we have time to repair. You could be a leader among us, a great guarding against the evil Unioners.”

“I wouldn’t be a good general, but thanks for the offer,” I said. “We need to get the fuel to the Bold Freedom.”

“Of course,” the president said. “We will provide any assistance you need. General Karn, see to it.”

“Yes, my president,” he said.

OceanofPDF.com

27

“Which ship do you think has the Lady Faith?” I asked.

“I believe it must be the Nightmare,” Jelly answered. “The raw data suggest as much, but I will defer to X-37 on all matters of political intrigue and espionage.”

“I believe you are correct,” X-37 said. “While you were gallivanting below the surface of Wallach, Jelly and I discussed many theories about the location of Henshaw and his ship. I put forward a hypothesis that Nebs might keep his prisoners on a different carrier to prevent complications or mutiny.”

“You’re overthinking it, X,” I said.

“I always do. It’s my programming,” X-37 said not a bit defensively. “However, you might be interested that our discussion led to a further analysis of what we know about the Union stealth carriers. The UFS Nightmare is slightly bigger than the other two carriers.”

I snorted a laugh. “Does our vice admiral have an ego complex?”

“Most assuredly,” X-37 said.

Tom reported in, advising me that the fuel stores were more than adequate for our needs and secured in our cargo hold. “For a primitive society, the fuel they use is similar to ours and even more efficient. A little will go a long way. Are you sure they haven’t had contact with any other advanced civilizations?”

“Well, Tom, that didn’t come up in the course of our conversation,” I said.

“It might be something we should look into,” Tom said. “I’ll sign off now. There are a thousand little things I need to do befor we begin this journey.”

“I’ve logged Tom’s question for future study,” X-37 said.

“Thanks. But to be honest, I’d rather not stumble into any more lost civilizations,” I said.

“Where is your sense of adventure, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked a bit snarkily.

“I’m a simple man,” I said.

Elise, who had been drinking from a ship bottle, snorted liquid out of her nose.

“Do you require medical assistance, Elise?” Jelly asked.

“I’m fine,” Elise said, tears still in her eyes from laughing and choking at the same time.

“Very well,” Jelly said. “I am detecting a strange snippet of maintenance code from the probable location of the Nightmare.”

“Tell me more, Jelly. X, get in on this. Sounds like we need some code hacking,” I said.

“It would be my pleasure, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

Several minutes passed. I lit my homemade cigar, gagged briefly, and took a sip of water from my own ship bottle, wishing it were liquor.

“Don’t die on me now, Reaper,” Elise said.

“The transmission is a simple maintenance code, meant for internal components to monitor and improve the ship’s functioning. Someone has managed to boost it and direct a portion of the binary code outward. Essentially, two repair bots are talking about things we would be more interested in than they would. Since they are mindless machines, it makes no difference to them what the messages say when not directing them to function one way or another,” X-37 explained.

“Sounds like Henshaw is reaching out,” I said and attempted to blow a smoke ring.

“We are unpacking the full message now,” Jelly advised.

“It appears to be a schematic rendering of the Nightmare,” X-37 said. He paused a bit too long. If I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought he was being dramatic. “There is a rather dire message included as well. It seems that Henshaw is advising us to leave the system immediately and that this is not a good place to attempt a rescue.”

I lowered my cigar, staring at the ceiling, since there wasn’t a holo display to look at. “I can’t say I disagree with him. We need to get the Nightmare alone. And we’re pretty banged up from the power plant mission on Wallach.”

X-37, Elise, and the ship AI discussed several variations of the decision. No one liked it, but we were running out of time.

I enjoyed the rest of my cigar in all of its raw raunchiness, saving the Wallach Presidentials in a humidor next to my dwindling collection of Starbrands. Despite my recent acquisitions, I was growing fond of my creations.

My memories were also coming more frequently and weren’t bad. Maybe this was how a normal man looked back on his life.

By contrast, dreams and nightmares had always been a plague. Thinking of the woman I had dropped from the bridge to Jeppa on Carson’s World haunted me always. It usually came with a flare of phantom pain through my cybernetic left arm.

But after Wallach, my memory of the incident was different. It seemed like a dark blessing if such a thing were possible. Hundreds of thousands of people, if not a million, would be suffering a post-apocalyptic nuclear holocaust right now if not for Elise and me.

“We did good, X,” I said.

“Of course, Reaper Cain.” X-37’s tone was hard to read, but I pretended he wasn’t busting my chops this time.

My imagination wandered, taking me back to the tunnels of the power plant, then to Roxo III, Greendale, and finally Dreadmax. Which brought me back to our desperate need to get fuel to the Bold Freedom before Bug and all the others died horribly.

I thought about the schematics to the Nightmare—imagining scenario after scenario. Rescuing Henshaw grew more impossible with every delay. Was I doing the right thing? Could I do both?

“You cannot, in fact, save everyone, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“That was really creepy, X. How did you know what I was thinking?” I muttered, not really caring at this point. Exhaustion stalked me like an assassin.

“Your body language and biometrics are very informative,” X-37 explained. “The last time you were a mess like this, you had stated several times that saving the people of Dreadmax was impossible. You went after the slip drive regulator even though there was no chance of finding it and the mission clock had expired hours prior. The world was ending, and you were in one of your moods.”

“I wasn’t in a mood,” I snapped, sitting up and putting out my cigar.

“We’ll have to agree to disagree on this point,” X-37 said.

“Whatever, X. I’m going to the observation deck.” Clearly, I deserved some R&R, even if it was only for a few minutes.

“I cannot advise that,” X-37 said. “Jelly is receiving a transmission from the UFS Nightmare. Vice Admiral Nebs is hailing us.”

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28

The Nightmare appeared larger and more ominous than I remembered on the holo view.

“Reaper,” Nebs growled without showing himself, broadcasting his ship’s icon instead of his own image. “Where the hell did you lead us this time? This is an unauthorized colony.”

“It’s not a colony,” I said, pointing to the navigation panel and making several hand motions that neither Elise nor anyone else understood—which was annoying because we should all be on the same page by now. It was time to get the hell out of here.

“Are you leading me away from your new friends?” Nebs asked sarcastically. “You’ve got to know the Union won’t stand for this. When I’m done with you, I’ll mop them up, or call in someone else to do it.”

“You’re bluffing,” I argued. “As big and powerful as the Union thinks it is, we are a very long way from Union space, and I doubt they have the resources for something like this. It would probably take two years of arguing in the Congress to even publicly admit this place exists.”

“You do remember how the Union works,” he said, then he appeared on the holo view at last. “Don’t piss me off, Reaper.”

“What is it with everyone calling me Reaper? I have a name,” I said.

“I still call you Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “Would you like me to join them in this method of address for consistency?”

I ignored X, not wanting to look distracted or weak in front of Nebs.

“My intelligence specialists…” he began.

“Using the term lightly,” I interrupted.

“…are telling me you went to the surface for some reason and got a hero’s welcome, so I guess you’re friends with these people. If you value them, and I know you think you’re some kind of hero, then surrender immediately. I’ll go easy on them if you do,” Nebs said.

“You haven’t met their president,” I said. “She won’t go for that. My advice to you, asswipe, is to be respectful when you try to contact her or her people. Or better yet, just go someplace far away and die.”

His laugh rattled the communications link. “So, I have to teach them a lesson. That’s what you’re telling me.”

“Good luck with that. They are tough fighters,” I said. A knot of dread twisted my insides.

Elise whispered to me privately, “We can’t find one of the ships.”

“Are you telling me we have cracked their stealth cloaks? That’s great news,” I said, careful to mute my link to the holo comm.

“Basically, but we can’t find one of them!” Elise hissed like this was terrible news.

I thought seeing even one of the Union stealth carriers was a huge improvement. “X, can you teach Elise how to look on the bright side?”

“Bright side of what, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked. “I am attempting humor. Did I get you?”

“Sure, X. You’re brilliant,” I said, turning my attention back to Nebs.

“I don’t like that shitty look on your face, Reaper,” Nebs growled. “What the hell are you up to now?”

“Maybe I’m stalling,” I said.

“That is a dangerous game,” X-37 advised. “He knows our escape window is rapidly closing.”

“What are we doing, Reaper?” Elise demanded. “You know what I want to do, but I’ll back whatever you decide as long as you decide soon.”

Holding up an unlit cigar, I considered it as though no one else existed.

“You’re not even ready to give the order,” Elise hissed at me privately. “Are you trying to make me crazy? If we’re not going after Henshaw, we need to get out of this system five minutes ago!”

“Patience, my young apprentice,” I said. “Never rush a Reaper. And for the record, I’m always ready.”

“You’re always a jerk,” Elise commented, as though I hadn’t heard her express her feelings hundreds of time since we’d met.

With the flick of my hand, I pulled up a view only I could see. It was small and I had divided it into view blocks for each of Jelly’s system scans. It didn’t take long for me to find what I was looking for.

The UFS Nightmare was significantly nearer to Wallach than when we started the conversation. I might have been stalling, but Nebs was definitely stalling with sleight of hand worthy of a street magician. 

Dropships left the Nightmare and headed for the planet.

“That is quite alarming,” X-37 admitted. “How did you know he would make a planetary assault?”

I didn’t answer immediately, glad that X-37 wasn’t able to read my mind after all. “I was hoping he didn’t attack Coronas’s people. Unfortunately, he knows me. Damned psych profile.”

“Ah, I see. The vice admiral understands you can’t watch innocent civilians die. Just like the way you lost your arm on Carson’s World,” X-37 said. “Your quasi-heroic vigilantism will be the death of you, Reaper Cain.”

“I see what you’re doing, Nebs,” I warned.

“What are you going to do about it, Reaper?” he snarled, then laughed under his breath. “You’re so easy. It’s like playing galaxy boards with a kid.”

“Leave them alone,” I demanded, standing from my captain’s chair and making a decision.

“Why would I waste my nukes to end this rebellion when I can cause their primitive fission reactor to do it for me?” he asked.

“They’re not rebels,” I insisted.

“Impossible,” he said, as though the existence of anything outside of Union control personally offended him. “But if you’re telling the truth, that is all the more reason to eliminate them. Surrender now and I will be lenient on your new friends. Defy me, and everything that happens afterward is your fault.”

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29

“Shall I ask Jelly to prepare the new shuttle for a surface landing?” X-37 asked.

I touched my fingertips in our “yes” signal, never looking away from the vice admiral or letting on that I was distracted. Something occurred to me, something I should have remembered from my conversations with Henshaw. The man had his own LAI, possibly more advanced than mine or even one of the double or quadruple LAIs rumored to exist.

I laughed, wondering how crazy I would be if I had multiple X-37 units giving me advice.

“I don’t know why I even talk to you, Reaper,” Nebs said with exaggerated tiredness. “All you do is bust my balls and make bad decisions. This can be over right now. Surrender and I’ll go easy on everyone, even you and your X unit.”

“It’s me you want. Take me and leave everyone else out of this,” I said.

“Stalling tactic detected,” X-37 said approvingly. “But please promise me you are not serious about this course of action.”

Nebs laughed at my offer as though it were the funniest thing he’d ever heard. There were actual tears in the corners of his eyes when he caught his breath.

“I need the girl more than you,” he said. “Load her up on that fancy new shuttle they gave you and bring her across to the Nightmare. Then we’ll talk,” he said.

“I need assurances,” I said.

“Need? I need you to surrender or die,” he shot back.

“Listen you son-of-a-bitch.” I moved close enough to the holo view to block his view of the rest of the Jellybird’s bridge. “One on one, you wouldn’t have a chance. Stop sending your lackies and face me like a man.”

Elise and Path quietly slipped out of the bridge and headed for the shuttle bay. X-37 kept me informed on their progress as I exchanged insults with Nebs.

“This has been fun,” I said several minutes later. “We should do it again some time. Until then, take your offer and shove it up your…”

“Connection lost,” Jelly advised as Nebs disappeared from the holo viewer.

“Jelly, activate the stealth cloak and turn around. We’re going back to Wallach.” I headed for the shuttle bay. When I got there, I found Elise wearing the stealth cloak. This told me two things: she’d graduated to a new level of pickpocketing and was thinking strategically.

I didn’t want her going head-to-head in combat. She was fierce enough, but we needed to fight smarter not harder—especially against the Union. With all of her recent training, she’d be deadly with the cloak hiding her.

“You got a problem?” she asked.

I adjusted the way the cloak fell over her tactical vest and stepped back. “Nope, I’m good with it.”

“I’m glad you approve,” she said.

“I’m glad you’re glad,” I said.

“Can I fly the shuttle?” she asked.

“Don’t press your luck, kid,” I responded, taking the pilot seat and strapping in.

Path and Elise took their places. Jelly gave me the all clear to launch. The bay doors opened, and I steered us into the void. The moment we were away from the ship, I hurled us toward the planet.

“Your descent vector is, how shall I say, rather steep,” X-37 said.

“Why don’t you do something useful like give me an update on the micro fighters pursuing us,” I said, making adjustments before we entered the planet’s atmosphere.

“How did you know we are being pursued by micro fighters?” X-37 asked. “I did not believe you had that type of sensory ability, or was that a random-ass guess?”

“It wasn’t exactly random. Of course they’re going to chase us,” I said as the atmosphere battered the shuttle, shaking us like dice in a gambler’s hand at a craps table.

“There are twelve Union micro fighters rapidly closing on our position,” X-37 said.

“X, tell me why they only sent half of their available fighters,” I ordered.

X-37’s response was immediate. “I suspect the others will approach from a different vector. It is equally likely they are being held for some type of trap that will kill all of us.”

“I knew it,” I said without much enthusiasm. The Wallach shuttle was harder to control than I had anticipated. On one hand, it was a very durable vehicle, but on the other, the controls were sluggish and hard to manage.

“What the hell are you doing?” Elise demanded. “You’re practically flying a straight line and those fighters are coming right at us.”

“You want to try?” I asked before I thought the rejoinder through.

“Yes!” Elise answered, grabbing onto control stick.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” I said, then banked hard to the left. Any comment Elise was about to make was cut off by the force of the maneuver. I checked on Path and saw him struggling stoically.

“Your heart rate and blood pressure are higher than average,” X-37 said.

“Forget about that. I want you to focus on our ship and our pursuers,” I said, feeling lightheaded and seeing stars. I’d been through planetary assaults before and this wasn’t normal. Every injury I had sustained during the fight with the creature began to complain at once. Residue of the poison put my pinky finger to sleep and sent a spasm up my spine.

I wondered how Elise felt and hoped that the physical manifestations of her father’s experiments were healing her faster than I was healing.

That made me briefly think of Path. I was pretty busy avoiding our pursuers. My thoughts were coming fast, like I was clearing space in my head.

Path had been hammering away at Elise for much of our journey, and she recovered from her bruises well. Maybe that was a good thing. That knot of dread in my stomach wouldn’t go away no matter how I assured myself Elise was ready for this.

I couldn’t just rely on my Reaper augmentations and the pain-in-the-butt runaway. I had an entire crew of uniquely skilled individuals.

“Path, do you have flight training?” I asked.

“I do not,” he replied. “Why do you ask?”

“You’re going to let him fly?” Elise shouted, amazement and betrayal giving her words the force of profanity.

“Just a thought that occurred to me. Someday, if we don’t die, we’ll all need to fly,” I said as the shift shook violently.

“Perhaps Novasdaughter could teach us,” Path said.

“What about Randolph? He’s senior and probably has more flight time,” I said, cutting hard to my left to avoid a stream of micro fighter bullets.

“I doubt he is a better pilot,” Path said, then grunted as my maneuvering slammed him sideways in his seat. “I believe he is a political creature—promoted according to who he knows rather than what he can do.”

Focusing on my tactical readouts, I put the shuttle into a spin.

We slid sideways, unable to turn all the way over. Elise scrolled through screens frantically. “There has to be a way to pull this off.”

“Incoming fire detected,” X-37 said for all of us to hear.

“All right, it’s about to get real,” I said, then increased the violence of my evasive maneuvers. The small but very powerful projectiles the micro fighters used as weaponry peppered our wing.

“That was a very ineffective maneuver,” X-37 said.

“Why don’t you stop wasting time judging me and figure out a way for the shields to work!”

“All of the shield power has to go to the front during atmospheric reentry,” Elise explained, still searching her screens for an answer to our problem. She’d learned to speak basic Wallach with continuing assistance from X-37, but reading technical instructions was different. 

Icons and diagrams helped. I started laughing. The front of our ship glowed from atmospheric friction.

“What do you find so humorous, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked. “Perhaps I could integrate it into my rapidly growing humor algorithm.”

“We’re getting the crash course for this shuttle,” I managed to say.

“Not helpful!” Elise snapped.

“My suggestion, Reaper Cain, is to fly more effectively,” X-37 said.

“Fine,” I said, then aimed straight for the surface of the planet. We shot downward like a bullet, our shields glowing with dangerous new levels of heat. Another volley of gunfire pinged along our hull.

“Would you like the bad news or the good news?” X-37 asked.

“Just say it,” I grunted through my clenched teeth.

“The good news is that the shuttle has three main thrusters,” X-37 said, unaffected by gravity or the very real chance of our impending death. “The bad news is that two of them are now ineffective.”

“What you’re trying to tell me is that this thing isn’t going to be able to take off again,” I said, spinning the ship neatly.

“Exactly, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “We can, however, continue to fall toward the surface.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Elise demanded. 

“It’s better than being shot to pieces,” I argued. “And since we’re going straight down, it’s a whole different set of rules.”

I came out of the triple roll and veered to the left as hard as I could make the ship fly. The fighters came after me like a swarm of intergalactic insects with micro auto cannons blazing.

“X, find me a place to land,” I ordered.

Elise was faster, almost like she had been anticipating the exact moment I would need this information.

She read off the coordinates like a pro and I followed them.

“Brace for landing,” X-37 announced. Now wasn’t the time to resent the fact that my limited artificial intelligence didn’t sound the least bit stressed or out of breath, but I thought it anyway.

Pieces peeled away from the ship as we neared the surface. The dashboard flashed dozens of warnings. A loud buzzer tortured my hearing. A quick glance at the screen showed me a language I still couldn’t read. My best guess was that it was some sort of impact warning.

“Landing struts are deployed,” Elise advised.

I pulled back on the steering mechanism, bringing up the nose and flaring our wings at the last second. The landing struts touched the surface and we slid for hundreds of meters, plowing up dirt. The path of destruction we left was impressive, dirt flinging into the air on each side of us.

“We’re down,” X-37 said as we stopped moving. “That was a perfect landing.”

“Really?” Elise and I asked at the same time.

“No, Reaper Cain, I was attempting to boost your morale by lying to you,” X-37 said. “In reality, you nearly killed us.”

“Elise, Path, it’s time to go. Now,” I said, ripping off my restraint harness and hustling to the door. Which didn’t open.

“Running a systems diagnostic now,” X-37 said. “It appears the door is nonfunctional. You’ll have to operate it manually by using the dog wheel. This will require an enormous amount of force due to the damage you have caused this ship.”

I grabbed the oversized wheel on the door and twisted with all my strength. “I’ve always wondered why they call it a dog wheel,” I grunted.

“Irrelevant!” Elise said, finding a place for her hands and then pushing up on one side of the wheel as I pulled down on the other. She drove upward with her legs, face contorted with effort.

The door slowly cranked open. Path brushed past us and drew his sword. His defensive stance was fluid and mobile as he turned to check in every direction for an attack.

I was about to step out when the micro fighters strafed our position. I ducked back and lost sight of Path.

The brief but intense assault on our position was over as soon as it began, but I knew they would be coming around for another pass, and not far behind them would be more assault shuttles with Union troops.

I’d acted fast to get here before the ground troops and hoped it was the right choice.

Grabbing Elise, I guided her toward the exit that was now full of bullet holes. “Go!”

It was night on the surface of Wallach. Local wildlife had gone silent after our crash landing. The capital city loomed over the horizon. Near it on the outskirts of its industrial zone was the power plant complex alive with the activity of hundreds of repair crews and other workers.

Elise sprinted across the clearing overgrown with waist-high flowering plants. In the moonlight, they appeared a silvery purple color. I followed, scanning the area as I went, and saw that we weren’t as close to the power plant as I had hoped.

“Could we have landed a bit farther from our objective?” I asked X-37.

“Given your rate of descent, it was the only option,” X-37 explained. “But thank you for your ill-timed sarcasm.”

“Elise, Path, check in,” I ordered as I moved.

“We’re okay,” Elise advised. “Keep coming the direction you’re heading, and you’ll find us in the tree line. Path is scouting a way to the power plant. If you hadn’t been flying like such a maniac, we could’ve landed at one of the city airports and taken a ground vehicle to the power plant.”

“I’m not arguing with you, kid,” I said. “It’s been a long day, all right?”

She didn’t respond. I began running and soon caught up to them. 

“There are animal trails that will lead us through this forest,” Path said. “We can move very fast, but it is not a direct route. If we go straight to our objective, we will be required to fight the forest and may run into additional obstacles we cannot foresee because we do not know this planet.”

“Thanks, Path” I said, visually checking the gear of my companions to make sure they were ready for what was coming. I wanted to go first and set the pace but wasn’t sure they could keep up with me at night. My optics and my general willingness to take abuse in all forms would make me much faster than either of them, even Elise in this environment.

“Check your gear and let’s go,” I ordered. 

“We already did that,” Elise said with none of her juvenile attitude. She was in her serious professional mode.

“Good. Path, take the lead. I’ll bring up the rear,” I said. 

We headed toward the power plant complex at an aggressive pace. The sound of night animals slowly returned to the forest. I could hear the city in the distance, machines and vehicles but also the almost musical sounds of a thriving city. 

“Check your comm links. We need to stay spread out and it’s too dark for hand signals,” I said.

“I read you, Cain,” Path acknowledged.

“Present,” Elise said.

“It’s not too dark for you to use hand signals,” X-37 advised.

“I’m not sure that’s helpful, X,” I said, slightly winded from running after my two friends and allies. “They’re faster than I thought they would be.”

“You’re still on the main channel,” Elise said. “And thanks for the compliment.”

We came to the perimeter fence of the power plant a short time later. The wall made it look like a fortress with guard towers and security lighting at full power. It appeared formidable, but I knew a determined Union assault, even a small one, would breach the place easily.

“I am attempting to communicate with their security supervisor now,” X-37 said.

“That won’t freak them out?” I said.

“Actually, it’s surprisingly straightforward,” X-37 said. “I was able to contact them with something called an immediate correspondence protocol, in effect, a text message directly to the duty chief’s personal account. I’m getting a response now.”

“Hold up for a second,” I instructed Path and Elise. We gathered to watch the main road leading into the power plant from the countryside.

“The security chief’s name is David Howard Barnard,” X-37 said.

I groaned.

“How is that helpful, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked. “What is the purpose of such a distressing noise?”

“I had a bad experience with a guy who had three first names. Don’t worry about it. Tell this guy who we are and that we came to help and that they are in danger,” I said.

“David is very excited and asks you to show yourself so that he can admit us into the facility,” X-37 advised. “You’re welcome.”

“That’s it? Never mind. Thanks, X.” I strode forward with my hands up. The nighttime security guards probably didn’t know this was a meaningless gesture. I could snatch my HDK Dominator or my pistol from my tactical gear before they realized what was happening.

“We see you, Mr. Cain,” a guard shouted enthusiastically. “I’m David Howard Barnard, supervisor tonight. I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting to meet you and your friends. Was that your ship that got shot down?”

“Yeah, but I was actually evading their attacks and landed that way on purpose,” I said, moving forward and motioning for Elise and Path to follow.

“Ouch,” David said over his loudspeaker.

“It’s the precursor of a Union attack,” I said. “We need to hurry. They’re targeting the power plant. They know it’s vulnerable.”

“I’m alerting command now,” David said. “Once you’re inside, I’ll give you a tour of the defenses.”

His promise didn’t hold up. By the time we were inside the power plant, one of the security teams was scrambling for all available personnel. Soldiers with sturdy rifles climbed up the guard towers, which were inside the walls rather than on the walls. There were no heavy guns or reinforced positions set up to maintain interlocking fields of fire against a determined foe.

The gate was sturdy, but made to handle heavy equipment basic security, not repel invaders. At best, the place was designed to keep out thieves, spies, or possibly terrorists. I doubted anyone had considered an attack like I knew was coming.

Vice Admiral Nebs didn’t have the numbers to overwhelm the place. Unfortunately, he didn’t have to hold anything he took. All he had to do was get below the surface and damage any part of the cooling system. Already on the brink, it wouldn’t take much to cause a meltdown.

“I think I see the dropships,” Elise said, pointing toward the trees. We had been to that area on our track from our landing zone. There were several good places to put down ships. I’d made my hasty selection under fire.

“I see them. I’m zooming in with my optics for a better look,” I said.

Elise and Path stood on either side of me, nervous but ready.

Some of the Wallach soldiers had seen them as well. I heard hopeful arguments. They didn’t think there were enough ships to be a threat.

“They could drop inside the walls once they realize how light our defenses are,” I said, “so be ready for that. It’s more likely to happen than not.”

“I will go to the maintenance yard,” Path said. “It is the largest open area within the power plant complex.”

A Wallach soldier rushed toward me, then stood at attention. “I’m Corporal Beale. Duty Chief David Howard Barnard sent me. I’m to get you whatever you need and lead you to the power plant complex or anywhere else you need to go.”

“Get down, Corporal,” I said, taking my own advice as the micro fighters returned for a strafing run. There were more of them this time.

“It seems that the vice admiral has sent all twenty-four of the Nightmare’s ships micro fighters on this mission,” X-37 advised. “I would expect the other carriers and their assault teams to join the fight sooner rather than later.”

Bullets zipped through concrete and steel, sometimes ricocheting, depending on the angle. Most Union chain guns utilized a tracer every tenth round. Wallach’s atmosphere provided oxygen for the pyrotechnics that hadn’t existed when they attacked us in the void. The rate of fire was so fast that their attack looked like some sort of energy weapon stitching the night with death.

What came next was worse.

“I don’t like that,” Elise said.

With Elise and Path by my side, I watched the tree line as several squads of Union shock troopers ran toward our position.

Shouts rose up from the Wallach defensive positions. Some were almost giddy with excitement, but others cursed.

“I’m going to take a wild bet that these are the Archangels our captured pilots warned us about,” I said. “Two seven-man squads, definitely commandos in heavy armor.”

“And we are about to see another surprise,” X-37 said, urging me to look toward the sky. “I have been operating on the assumption they have twenty-four micro fighters, but it appears that all three carriers have launched against us and that each must support thirty-six of the small atmospheric capable attack ships.”

I turned toward the wall of defenders and shouted, “Concentrate your fire on the ground troops. The ships will be too hard to hit. And use cover. We’re about to get strafed by several waves of micro fighters!”

The first wave of fighters blasted our position moments before the heavily armored Archangels reached us. Crouching behind the edge of the wall, I kept my eyes on the ground assaulters.

Each Archangel had a different weapons load out on their upgraded heavy armor. There were variations with shotguns mounted to their left forearms and shock batons that crackled with electricity on their right arms. Others had adorable little chain guns on shoulder mounts. Some were ready for close fighting, others for long-range combat, and some for specialized tasks like cutting holes in our walls.

These jerkoffs were ready for anything.

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30

“Cain for Locke,” I said through the local communication network.

“Go for Locke,” he responded. 

“Are you on the wall? I don’t see you,” I asked.

“It’s a long wall. I’m en route to your location by air ship,” he said. “We’re spread thin. I started your way as soon as Barnard reported contact.”

“If your people have any of those grenades, now is the time to use them. You can’t allow the Archangels inside the walls. They’ll be unstoppable,” I said.

“I’m calling everything we have from other parts of the city, but for now we’ll have to make do. They’re called Archangels?” he asked but didn’t wait for an answer. “All teams, deploy grenades, mortars, and whatever else we have in position. Fire at will!”

The charging Archangels spread out to avoid the worst of the defensive measures, barely slowing as the ground exploded all around them.

Then Locke’s airship swooped low. His door gunner opened fire with a chain gun that vibrated the entire ship. The noise was deafening. The craft was a helicopter with short wings where clusters of rockets hung. The pilot fired these at the Archangel assault force, possibly taking one out of the fight.

I aimed, looking for the best shot possible. One of the Union jerks pulled a slim tube from his back and aimed it at the airship hovering over his companions.

I shot him in the knee, causing him to fall and send his surface to air missile wide.

“Excellent shot, Reaper Cain,” X-37 acknowledged. “I will log it.”

“Yeah, great. What can you tell me about their armor?” I asked, moving along the wall looking for another way to help Locke, whose ship was getting hammered by the Archangels.

“My analysis suggests you can penetrate their armor with eighteen to twenty direct hits on the same spot,” X-37 said. “No armor is perfect.”

“That sounds easy,” I snorted. “Make sure Elise and the others know to just keep slamming rounds into them.”

Locke’s ship wheeled away from the fight, smoke pouring from its engines and listing badly to one side. His door gunner slouched over his now silent weapon. I thought Locke’s pilot would be able to land the brutishly ugly airship, but nothing was guaranteed. It disappeared inside the complex without crashing and exploding.

“The Archangels are falling back, possibly to regroup with reinforcements from the other Union carriers,” X-37 advised.

“Log that as a win for us,” I said. “Round one complete.”

“I’m way ahead of you, Reaper Cain. I have also included footnotes regarding your excessive use of profanity during this engagement,” X-37 said.

“I don’t remember that,” I said, looking for the next attack.

“You wouldn’t, Reaper Cain. That’s what I am here for,” X said.

I checked with Elise, Path, and Locke. The first two were uninjured and attempting to acquire ammunition from our new allies. Locke was dazed. He sounded distracted and seemed to be consoling one of his soldiers over the death of the door gunner.

“It is time to prepare for the second wave,” X-37 advised us.

“Understood, X,” Elise said. “Path is with me and he also heard you.”

“Make sure Locke and the other defenders know,” I said, looking for double the number of Archangels. I hadn’t seen the other shuttle put down, but I assumed they would bring as many friends as possible.

“CSL Locke and his companions are moving crew served machine guns from the armory to this position. They weren’t prepared for this attack, Reaper Cain, but they are very efficient once they choose a course of action,” X-37 said.

“I hope it’s enough,” I said as I saw an Archangel team moving toward us. “Listen, X, they’ve tried to rush us once—probably as a test. Now they’re creeping. Check with the locals and see if they have any night vision or infrared.”

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

Locke’s voice came through my earpiece. “Thanks for the heads up. We’re going to give them a surprise.”

“Make it a good one,” I suggested.

In the last hours before dawn, it was especially dark. The Archangels moved slowly. They were professionals and trusted the superiority of their equipment. I watch them stalk closer and closer.

“Locke and his people are gutsy,” I said.

“Agreed,” X-37 said.

“Locke for all gun teams,” the CSL for General Karn broadcast. “On my mark. Three, two, one, mark!”

Mortar tubes thumped. Seconds later, flares descended slowly to the surface, lighting up no man’s land. A half dozen belt-fed machine guns opened fire, sending our own tracers into the approaching Archangels. Bright green, the Wallach streams crossed incoming lines of red Union tracers.

“Give them everything we’ve got!” Locke ordered.

Security David Howard Barnard repeated the commands for other units. The night glowed with gun fire, mortars, and shoulder-fired grenades. Smoke clouded the battlefield. When it all ended, the Archangels had either fled or been destroyed.

“Locke for Reaper Cain, do you read me? Do you think they’re gone?” the CSL asked. The tone of his voice suggested he didn’t believe his new enemies were defeated.

“They’re still out there. Make sure they don’t have another unit sneaking around the back or trying something else devious,” I warned.

“Good call, Cain. I’ll get my people on it at once,” he said.

“X, I think we owned round two. Log it. Someday I’ll rub it in the vice admiral’s face,” I said.

“Done,” X-37 responded.

Locke, David, and several other front-line commanders met with me near the main gate. Locke took the lead. I sensed that this wasn’t actually his command, but they respected him enough to let him call the shots. I thought this was something different from the formal activation of all of the army’s squad leaders to follow him.

“You need to continue strengthening the entire perimeter of the power plant complex,” I advised. “Vice Admiral Nebs wants to finish what the centipede monster started.”

“Why would he do that?” one of the men asked.

“I recommend you do not tell them the exact truth,” X-37 advised. “If I were them, I would forcibly encourage you to turn yourself in given the circumstances.”

I thought about my answer. These people deserved honesty, but it was also a very complex and dynamic situation. Having a clear enemy might be more important than having full transparency of my motives.

Locke stepped in and saved me from the moral dilemma. “It doesn’t matter. We all know what Cain and Elise did for us.”

“And you,” said the man. “They wouldn’t have been able to find that creature without your help.”

“Don’t embarrass me, Chans,” Locke said. “Let’s just keep it simple and kill the people who are trying to kill us.”

Locke pulled me aside from the others.

“Good answer,” I said.

“I’m not an idiot, Cain. I know they want you to surrender. I also doubt they will treat us gently even if you do give yourself up,” he said. “There have been two Alon invasions during my lifetime. They’re not as technologically advanced as your enemies, but I know what war is like.”

“Who or what are the Alons?” I asked.

“Two systems over,” he said, eyes glazing over at the thought of his people’s enemies. “Some people think we were all one civilization back before anyone can remember, but I don’t see how that’s possible. I’ll tell you all about it later. Right now, I think we should take one crisis at a time.”

“Agreed,” I said.

* * *

The next attack came from the air, just as I had expected. The micro fighters strafed us as the Union ground forces consolidated with their reinforcements and planned their next move. The air attacks kept us busy. We were only able to disable a few of their ships. They didn’t have a lot of firepower but were also hard to hit as fast and small as they were.

The Union ground troops made another run at the gate. I scanned the sky for what I knew was coming.

“You’re making me nervous,” Elise said.

“Phase three is going to be a high-altitude, low opening assault,” I said. “I’m not sure how many Archangels they have, but I think they’ve saved something nasty for us.”

Locke and his defenders maintained a steady stream of fire at the ground troops. He even managed to find vehicles with surface-to-air rockets that were keeping the micro fighters honest.

I sensed the frustration of the gun crews. What they didn’t understand was the level of technology and the skill of these pilots. The men and women of Wallach were actually doing a decent job, even though they hadn’t shot one of the ships down yet—only winged them and driven them out of the fight.

Something came out of the sky. I counted the seconds before the parachute deployed and noticed with satisfaction that my estimation had been correct. What surprised me was the size of the parachute.

“What the hell is that?” Elise demanded.

“Could be an armored vehicle,” I said, but I was distracted because three of the dropships that had landed in the forest rose into the air and raced forward. Archangels and other Union soldiers hung from the rails, ready to hit the ground running.

This was the big offensive. They were determined to win and were pulling out all the stops.

“I blame you,” Elise said, pointing at me, then she raced to intercept the war machine about to touch down inside the walls. The closer it came to landing, the easier it was to see it was a lot like the Presidential Guards, except that it was more than just an exoskeleton. The fully functional battle mech smashed a small crater in the ground when it landed.

The Union death machine was five meters tall and supported twin chain guns on its shoulders. In one hand was a hammer that looked more than capable of smashing apart the front gate, and in the other hand was a double-edged blade.

“That looks a lot like your Reaper blade but bigger,” X-37 said. “My recommendation is to go for the soft kill.”

“That would be fantastic if I had anything capable of sinking it or blowing the ground out from underneath it,” I said, looking around for one of the surface-to-air rockets and trying to calculate whether or not it had enough blast power to get the job done.

Three of the crew-served machine-gun crews turned their weapons toward the new threat, which allowed one of the assaulting dropships to slip through the perimeter untouched.

Wallach tracer rounds screamed into the Union mech as it sent a glowing red barrage back in return. On another part of the wall, a pair of the Archangels climbed up and began battling the outgunned defenders. The defense of the Wallach power complex was coming apart.

Elise, Path, and I spread out, but all headed toward the same objective—stopping the five-meter-tall war machine that was wreaking havoc.

I stopped for a downed Wallach soldier and dragged him behind cover. He groaned in pain and held his wound, but that was the best I could do for him. He’d have to self-triage.

I lost track of Elise and Path in the smoke and flying debris. The occasional tracer round flashed near me, illuminating the dust all around its path. Near the Union mech, I found two more Wallach soldiers who needed help and carried them one at a time to their medics.

“We need to bomb that thing!” one of the medics shouted as he applied a pressure bandage to a badly injured soldier.

“We have a strike bomber inbound,” Locke replied, his voice steady over the radio. “But I’d rather not use that much ordnance danger close.”

Danger close was a term I remembered well from my time in the Union infantry. It meant firing on your own position, basically.

I moved among the wounded, stealing their grenades. Elise arrived a second later from another gap between buildings. I tossed her two grenades. “You know what to do.”

“Centipede,” she said.

“Something like that. At least this one won’t have poisonous critters all over it,” I said, already jogging toward the enemy.

“Yeah, it just has chain guns and a big-ass sword,” she answered, then moved away from me.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be the one that tried to jump on its back or the one to lure it away. Both jobs were dangerous, and I thought Elise was pushing her luck. She had the spirit and natural talent to augment her experimental biology, but this was war and she wasn’t actually a soldier. She could spar with Path for a thousand years and not be ready for this.

We tracked the advance of the mech without actually seeing it. 

“The mech is clearing the way to the main lifts,” I broadcast. “If Union troops gain access to the lower levels, it’s game over.”

“Understood,” Locke responded.

Elise and Path also acknowledged my radio traffic.

The explosions and constant gunfire of the metal monster were hard to miss even if it was a street or two over. I thought I was going to get a crack at it, but when I turned the corner, I ran into a squad of Union soldiers. They weren’t the Archangels, but they had heavy gear and seemed fresh.

“It’s the Reaper!” the squad leader shouted.

I tried to shoot him in the throat but missed as he shifted positions and returned fire. His squad reacted quickly, taking good positions of cover and catching me in a deadly triangulation of fire.

After dropping and rolling, I scrambled behind a destroyed vehicle and sprinted. I jumped, pushed up the wall near the vehicle, and landed near the top of the vehicle’s cargo compartment. From there, I went up and over and jumped down into the middle of the Union squad. Pistol in one hand and my Reaper blade extended from the other, I started killing.

One fired at me. I dropped and rolled. His rounds caromed off one of his squad mates. I spun in a tight circle and sliced off one of his feet, ignoring him when he fell screaming. The other one quickly fixed a weapons malfunction and aimed.

I was a half second faster, shooting him several times center mass. His armor stopped the rounds, but he was knocked back, taken out of the fight for at least a few moments. He’d survive but be in a lot of pain. If he kept coming, I’d have to kill the man and I had better things to do right now.

I moved on, looking for the mech and Elise. The squad leader was screaming at his men and pulling them back together. Before long, I would be fighting the survivors and probably the reinforcements.

“My analysis of combat radio traffic suggests that Elise has located the Union mech,” X-37 said. “My recommendation is to hurry. She will need your help.”

When I came around the corner, I saw the mech but no Elise.

“I believe her stealth cloak is fully functional,” X-37 reminded me.

The mech saw me and opened fire with its chain guns. Even though the tracers were every ten or twenty bullets, the stream of glowing red ordnance looked like a continuous laser beam. The deadly stream slashed through the building next to me. I ran, and chain gun fire chased me, throwing chunks of concrete everywhere.

“I’m up,” Elise grunted over our comm link. “One grenade jammed into this thing’s gears. Take that, you asshole!”

An explosion knocked the giant killing machine off its feet.

“I really hope Elise jumped before that happened,” I said.

“I’m glad you care,” Elise said, but she sounded hurt and breathless.

“Locke, call off your strike bomber. The mech is down. Like a turtle on its back,” I shouted.

“Copy that,” Locke said. “I didn’t want to start saturation bombing the power plant we’re trying to repair.”

“It’s getting up!” Elise shouted.

I watched it face her, finally able to see where she was. The dirt and smoke hampered the cloak’s effectiveness. Limping forward on a damaged leg, it twisted its metal torso to get its sole remaining gun to aim at Elise.

“Legs,” X-37 suggested.

I charged, my blade arcing through the air as I built momentum. The legs were too thick to sever, but there were hydraulic cables exposed from the explosion Elise had caused. I slashed madly until the mech went down and didn’t get up.

“You should open the cockpit and kill the pilot,” X-37 suggested.

“Maybe later,” I said. “There are a lot of other enemies who need attention.”

Military troop transports, commercial trucks, and taxi cabs flooded the area, distorting regular troops, militia, and armed civilians. 

“Elise, I’m coming to you. Are you injured?” I said, weaving my way through an increasingly chaotic battle. 

“I’m a little banged up, Reaper,” she said.

“Path, report,” I demanded.

“I’m with Locke. We’re rolling back the last of the Union troops,” Path answered.

“Are you wounded?” I asked.

“Yes.”

The sword saint admitted to feeling pain. As soon as I checked Elise, we went looking for him, only to find him gluing a wound shut with no outward emotion whatsoever.

“X,” I said, “Log round three as a win for us.”

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said, calm as ever.

OceanofPDF.com

31

We stood near the reinforced front gate watching the skies with binoculars.

“I thought you said the ships this assault came from were small carriers,” Locke said. “That looks like another wave heading for the surface.”

“They are, but they are packed assholes to elbows,” I said.

“Karn for Cain, can you read me?” General Karn asked.

“Sure thing, General. What’s on your mind?” I asked.

“We’re attempting to engage the Union carriers. I hope to draw back their fighters,” Karn said.

“Be careful, General. I don’t know the capabilities of your warships, but I know Nebs is a ruthless son-of-a-bitch,” I said.

“Thanks for the warning,” Karn replied. “Good luck and try not to get Locke killed. I’ve invested a lot in his career.”

“I’ll do what I can.” Thoughts of Carson’s World came back. Protecting people wasn’t something I was good at no matter how hard I tried. “X, how’s the Jellybird?”

“She’s staying out of it and waiting for a pick-up request,” X-37 said.

“Good.” I glanced at Elise and Path, who apparently had some kind of contest going—who could require the most bandages, stitches, and glue packs to stay alive.

But they were alive. And that was enough for now.

“Locke,” I said. “I need one of the downed Union assault shuttles. It’s time to go on the offensive.”

Locke put one hand to his ear as he gave orders and received updates, then nodded. “You got it, Cain. Whatever you’re planning, you better do it now.”

“Elise, Path, stop screwing around, we’ve got a ship to catch,” I said, pointing the way we needed to go.

Locke led us to the Union ship. “There is one problem. We can’t make it work without a code.”

“Is the pilot alive?” I asked.

“He is,” Locke answered.

“I’ll need a moment alone with him,” I said.

“That can be arranged,” Locke said, then grimly made it happen. 

Guards took the pilot into the ship and left. I stood over the man while Path guarded the entrance and Elise started tinkering with the controls.

“I have to admit, Union pilots have guts,” I said.

“Thanks,” the pilot responded. “I think.”

“Unfortunately, your guts are going to spread all over the deployment ramp if I don’t get the code to start this ship,” I said.

“I think I’m going to vomit,” he said, swaying on the bench, the knuckles on his bound hands clenching until they turned white.

“It will be the last time,” I said. “Give me the code and I’ll leave you here for the Wallach authorities.”

“I could fly you to the UFS Nightmare,” he said weakly.

“Why would you do that?” I asked.

“Maybe Nebs would reward me for bringing you to him,” he said. “That’s what you’re trying to do, right. Get on the ship and try to assassinate him.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Apparently, you don’t think I can do it.”

“You haven’t met Nebs,” the pilot said.

* * *

The pilot’s name was Chuck or something less memorable. I couldn’t care less who he was or what type of game he was playing. There was a better option, nearly as desperate, but one that felt right.

Chuck got us off the planet and began to punch in a vector that would lead us to the Nightmare. Once that was done, I knew exactly where the capital ship was hiding itself regardless of its stealth cloak.

I put my gun to Chuck and said, “That will be all, you spineless traitor.”

He lifted his hands from the controls then froze. “Don’t kill me. I have to obey the vice admiral. You don’t understand what he’s like.”

“Path, put restraints on this man,” I said.

“Consider it done,” Path said, moving a bit slower from his wounds.

“Elise, get a hold of the Jellybird. I want to talk to Novasdaughter,” I said.

Elise smiled. “Good call, Reaper. I’ll have Tom get her ready.”

The wait was interminable, but I resisted all of my normal vices. This was my endgame and Nebs wasn’t going to win this time.

I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect when we docked with the Jellybird. The airlock opened and I saw a version of Lieutenant Amii Novasdaughter I hadn’t expected. She seemed relaxed but also full of determined energy.

“Did Tom explain what I wanted?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Are you in?” If she said no, I was going to have difficulty getting onto the Nightmare without falling into Nebs’s trap. That was always the problem with a counter trap. There was a serious risk of getting caught in the trap you were trying to beat.

“I’m in it to win it,” Novasdaughter said. “You’ve given me a lot of time to think. I’ve relived that day on the bridge thousands of times, but after meeting you face-to-face, things are different. I know the Union even better than you do, Reaper. I’ll help you get Nebs so he can’t hurt anyone else.”

“Good. Let’s do this,” I said. “Tom, put Chuck in the brig.”

“My name isn’t Chuck,” the shuttle pilot said. “How many times do I have to tell you that?”

“At least one more,” I said shortly. “Tom, get him out of my sight. He bothers me.”

“Of course, Hal,” Tom said, aiming his sidearm at the new prisoner. “Let’s go. I don’t want to shoot you, but I will.”

When the airlock closed, Amii Novasdaughter took the shuttle controls and headed for the Nightmare.

“What is that guy’s name?” I asked her.

“No idea,” she said, then typed in the clearance code to land in the Nightmare’s hangar. Micro fighters docked on the outside of the ship, but each assault shuttle had a place on the internal flight line. “Don’t care. Some of the Nightmare’s crew will make the same decision I’ve made, but people like Randolph and... Chuck...will require other arrangements.”

“Great,” I said, my eyes on the UFS Nightmare.

We were all giddy with excitement by the time Novasdaughter landed perfectly. There was only one ship left in the hangar, the Lady Faith. The elegant ship looked dark and lonely at the end of the flight line. 

“There are only two guards,” Elise observed, sounding surprised.

“Nebs threw everything he had at the power plant on Wallach,” I said. “He thought we would be unconscious when the shuttle landed.”

“What?” Elise asked. Even Path seem surprised at this news.

I looked at Novasdaughter. “Care to explain?”

“He would have gassed everyone in the chamber, including himself, then the remaining ship security could have taken everyone into custody, even the last Reaper.” She smiled dangerously. “I’m glad you remembered, Reaper. It makes me think I made the right choice switching sides.”

“What’s the plan?” Elise asked. “Take out these guards and rush the bridge to get Nebs?”

“No,” I said. “Let them open the door. It will be a rude surprise for them when they realize we’re awake and ready.”

* * *

Path and Elise stood on each side of the doorway, weapons ready. I waited with a cigar in one hand and my Reaper blade extended from the other.

The two soldiers entered and froze when they saw me. Path and Elise subdued them before they knew what had happened. There was a slight difference in their style. Path moved so smoothly into a restraint hold that I wasn’t sure his victim even knew he’d been captured.

Elise kicked her target in the back of one knee, then slammed him into the ground. A second later, she was kneeling on his stomach and pointing her sword at the vulnerable connection between the man’s neck armor and chest armor. “Don’t move. I just cleaned this sword and would rather not get blood on it.”

Novasdaughter joined me. “Sorry, guys, you’ll thank me later.”

“Go to hell, traitor,” one of the men said.

My new pilot flinched. She probably knew these men. Her childhood trauma had led her to where she was now, but she’d spent years working hard for the Union. Her dilemma made me think of Grady, my friend who died on Dreadmax while struggling with an equally difficult decision—betray a friend or betray the Union.

“We’ll need your uniforms and armor,” Novasdaughter finally said. “Don’t make me say it twice.”

I was impressed that they complied so quickly.

“It seems our new pilot has a reputation,” X-37 said. “It could be useful.”

“Elise and Novasdaughter will escort me to the bridge. Path, stay with the shuttle and be ready to come if I call for you,” I said. “We need to surprise him.”

“He’ll figure it out,” Novasdaughter said. “Elise and I are too small to pose as these guards.”

“It will work for a while. You’re the same size. If we use Elise and Path, he will see two guards escorting me who are suddenly different heights,” I said. “It’s time to roll the dice.”

Before long, Elise and Novasdaughter were escorting me toward a confrontation with Nebs. X-37 ran scenarios of how he would use his own LAI to kill us both. I was ready for anything, or so I thought.

We reached the bridge, and I expected him to gloat over my capture or possibly kill me outright. The door refused to open.

“What’s the problem, X?” I muttered, staring at my feet to hide the fact that I was talking to myself.

“It seems to General Karn and his CSL have taken matters into their own hands. They’ve requisitioned several assault ships and they are headed this way in force,” X-37 said. “Other Union assault ships have abandoned their attack on the power plant and are pursuing the stolen dropships toward the Nightmare.

“Damn,” I cursed. “Talk to me, Novasdaughter.”

“They won’t have the codes. Nebs will know they’re trying to board the Nightmare and kill him,” she said.

“X, get this door open,” I demanded.

“I’m doing my best, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said slowly. My LAI was focusing all of his processing power to cracking the door code.

“He’s not going anywhere,” Elise said. “We have him and his ship. You said it yourself, most of his soldiers went to the surface. Locke and his people will get here first. We’ve got this. We win.”

“He can leave anytime he wants,” Novasdaughter explained. “There is an escape pod built into the bridge.”

“X, get the door open!” I shouted.

“I am doing my best, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said shortly. “Locke and his attempt to infiltrate the Nightmare has been detected. They are shooting their way into the landing bay, which I must remind everyone is extremely dangerous.”

I punched the talk button. “Nebs, come out here and fight me like a man!”

The voice that answered sounded tired. “I should, Reaper. I’ve got some surprises for you that you won’t like. You’re clever. Smarter than I thought, but this won’t happen a second time. And you’ve doomed all of your friends. From this day forward, I’ll show no mercy.”

“Just get your ass out here. Let’s settle this,” I said.

“Lieutenant Novasdaughter, I order you to kill the last Reaper,” Nebs demanded.

“Go to hell, sir. And take the rest of the Union with you,” she answered.

I expected a response from Nebs but heard James Henshaw instead. “It’s about time you showed up, Mr. Cain. Would you like for me to open the door?”

“What the actual hell,” growled Nebs. “Henshaw, you better stop whatever it is that you’re doing.”

“Did you actually think you could hold me against my will? I don’t do confinement. We discussed this. I said I’d never be your prisoner again,” Henshaw said, his voice sounding strange through the intercom—like he was hijacking the ship’s maintenance programs again.

“Open the door, Jimmy. I’ve got a boss to kill,” I said.

“Right away, Mr. Cain,” Henshaw said. “Please stop calling me Jimmy.”

The door slid open.

I rushed through, but Novasdaughter grabbed the back of my armor, trying to pull me back.

“He’s launching his escape pod! Seal your helmet!” she ordered, then grabbed a safety tether from the wall and hooked us to it.

Elise, always quick to react, sealed her helmet and hooked herself to the wall as the escape pod blasted away, leaving an opening that vented atmosphere from the bridge. The entire back wall was gone.

Path flew past me. I grabbed him with my Reaper arm and dragged him back. “Where do you think you’re going, sword saint?”

Path’s answer was more breathless than I’d ever heard. “To my death, I imagine.”

Atmosphere continued to vent. The escape pod was intended to be used only if the ship was literally coming apart. We fought our way into the hallway and closed the door.

“That went well,” Elise said.

“I’m not in the mood, kid,” I said, pacing the hallway as I planned my next move.

“Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “There is a very short window of opportunity to steal the UFS Nightmare, save your friends, and rush fuel to the Bold Freedom.”

“I wanted Nebs,” I said.

“So you could torture the location of your mother and sister from him. I agree this would have been very helpful, but let’s not cry over spilled eggs.”

“Milk,” I corrected.

“Pardon?” X-37 asked.

“It’s cry over spilled milk, not eggs,” I said, distracted by about fifty decisions I had to make in the next three seconds.

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “I shall update my vocabulary. In the meantime, I suggest you greet Locke and his commandos in the docking bay and prepare to defend the Nightmare from Archangels intent on retaking it.”

OceanofPDF.com

Epilogue

“Elise and Novasdaughter,” I ordered, “deal with the bridge. Hold it no matter what and try to get it sealed. Path, get Henshaw from the brig and take him to the bridge to help.”

“We’re on it,” Elise said.

Path hurried away from us without a word.

I ran to the landing bay where Locke and his troops were preparing their defenses. I’d expected to see his most elite troops but found a hodgepodge of soldiers, civilians, and technical workers from the power plant.

Locke greeted me with a soldier’s hand clasp. “I’m glad you made it, Cain. Sorry we’re late.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him that his impromptu raid had spooked Vice Admiral Nebs and now we were going to have to hunt him across half the galaxy.

 “You’re here now,” I said. “How much ship fighting have your people done?”

“Some more than others. I’m surprised there is gravity,” he said. “This should be easy compared to what we normally deal with during ship assaults. Not that we have done many against the Alon. We’re usually defending against their boarding parties.”

“X, did you get that?” I asked.

“I did, however, I doubt cutting the gravity would adversely affect soldiers of the Archangels’ caliber. It may not be their ideal fighting condition, but they will adapt quickly. As for the rest of the Union soldiers, that may be a different story,” X-37 answered.

  “Okay, let’s keep this simple,” I said. “Locke, I need a team of your men to clear the ship. Make sure we don’t have any lurkers that weren’t sent down to the surface. Have the rest of your team start hardening our defenses in the landing bay. Be ready to repel boarders.”

“Right away, Cain. My people are on it,” Locke said.

“He’s deferring to your leadership,” X-37 said privately. “I had expected him to take control.”

“He must like my winning personality,” I said. “Henshaw, can you hear me?”

“Loud and clear, Mr. Cain,” Henshaw said. “Would you like me to prevent the remaining Union shuttles from boarding?”

“How would you do that?” I asked. “They have the landing codes.”

“Novasdaughter assures me that if we head for the slip tunnel, the shuttles lack the speed or the range to follow,” Henshaw said.

“Are we stealing the Nightmare?” I asked.

“It seems that we are, Mr. Cain,” Henshaw said.

“I like it. Contact the Jellybird and have them meet us there. We need to get the fuel to the Bold Freedom as soon as possible,” I said.

“You may feel the engines engage,” Novasdaughter warned. “I am using the Nightmare’s point defense system to slow the Archangels’ ship assault. It will be close, but we’re going to slip away from them.”

“Perfect, Novasdaughter,” I said. “Glad to have you aboard. Elise, fill her in on what we’re doing for the Bold Freedom. She should appreciate the chance to help innocent people the Union tried to kill by the thousands.”

“She already explained the situation,” said Novasdaughter. “We’re leaving the Archangel assault ships behind. They will get picked up by the other carriers, as will Nebs. I wish we could go after him while he is vulnerable, but the Darklance and the Black Wing are already headed our way.”

Thoughts raced through my mind. Pain throbbed in places I didn’t know could register pain. “I’m disappointed Nebs is such a coward.”

“He’s not a coward,” Novasdaughter warned. “He’s smart. You won’t surprise him again and he will unleash hell on you and all of your friends.”

“Are you regretting your decision to join us?” I asked, wondering if Locke and the people of Wallach might be feeling the same doubts.

“Listen, Reaper, I wouldn’t have switched sides without a good reason,” she said.

“Revenge isn’t a good reason, trust me,” I said.

“That isn’t what convinced me to leave my friends and my career behind. You convinced me,” she said. “I see how far you will go to protect your friends. That matters. I’m with you and your weird little crew until the end.”

“Are you speechless, Reaper Cain?” X-37 answered when I didn’t respond.

“Let’s save the Bold Freedom,” I said. “Plot a course to the slip tunnel and let’s do this. Someone send Nebs a message to ponder while he waits to get picked up.”

“Please compose the message carefully, Reaper Cain. My advice is to craft an informative manifesto stating your intent to elude him indefinitely,” X-37 lectured. “Once you have the right words, I will deliver them to the vice admiral.”

“Mention he’s an asshole,” I said. “And if there’s time, tell him I have his ship.”

* * *

Keep reading for book five, FLIGHT OF THE REAPER.

For more updates on this series, be sure to join the Facebook Group, “J.N. Chaney’s Renegade Readers.”

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1

“Talk to me, X,” I said, worried about my digital sidekick.

No response. I was getting used to the silent treatment. One of these times, X would go dark and never come out of hiding.

As for the ship, it wouldn’t speak to me. X-37 spent most of his time quietly opening back doors to the controls and the other half avoiding the Nightmare’s artificial intelligence. There was something wrong with my LAI; he shouldn’t stand a chance against that level of programing, but here we were.

There were only three people running the ship. One Reaper, one runaway from a secret and illegal experiment, and one pilot who had worked for Vice Admiral Nebs before realizing we had a special connection.

Path, Locke, and most of Locke’s people were on prisoner duty, which took far more work than it was worth. I fantasized about putting the rest of the Union crew in life pods and leaving them—not a kind fate in a slip tunnel.

Amii Novasdaughter helped by running several of the bridge functions normally handled by the AI—navigation, engineering, and maintenance routines to name a few.

I stopped next to her. “Bet you never imagined the life of a rebel would be so glamorous.”

“I had imagined there would be more battles and less banging my head against the keyboard,” she grumbled, still distracted by whatever fire she was working on putting out. “You promised me a trustworthy ship engineer.”

“You’ll like Tom, but I need him to captain the Jellybird until I find somebody else. You’ll need to sleep, eventually.”

“I don’t know what version of the Union you worked for, but I’m a pilot. I’m used to losing sleep.” Her annoyance was obvious.

Now would have been a good time for X to chime in with a clue as to what I’d said wrong. We’d been doing fine until I told her she needed sleep. Maybe she didn’t like taking orders from me, no matter how subtle. Or perhaps she struggled with insomnia to rival my own. 

I thought of all the things I’d done that kept me awake at night, and remembered the horrifying dream of how I dropped Novasdaughter’s mother from a bridge and lost my arm. “Sleep’s overrated.”

She shifted uncomfortably, avoiding my gaze. “I bet you have a lot of regrets when you close your eyes at night.”

Her tone irritated me. “Let’s not go there. Finish whatever you’re working on and hit the rack. Sleep while you can with that squeaky-clean Union conscience.”

Her face hardened. “Have you ever been in a micro-fighter barely bigger than the flight suit you’re wearing and had to wait thirty-seven hours for pick up in deep space, hoping you weren’t being left behind?”

“No,” I admitted. There wasn’t much else to say. She’d been through a lot. I’d failed to save her mother. She wouldn’t be wrong to blame me, but I guessed that her life was a lot more complex than an obsession about the man who made her an orphan.

The moment stretched out. She waited for me to say more, but I didn’t. People exhausted me, and X wasn’t available to distract me from how hard it was to care about people and keep them alive.

She studied me, eyes narrowed and her thoughts impossible to guess. “How are Locke and his people managing with the prisoners?”

There hadn’t been time to put the chief squad leader of General Karn and his people back on Wallach, which was good. I needed them to control the much larger crew of the Nightmare. By the time we had cleared it, I realized we had our hands full.

“With his soldiers and Path’s help, he’s been able to keep the peace and maybe even win a few converts, but we’ll see. If you’re asking when you will get a bridge crew, don’t hold your breath,” I said. “We’ll need to run a skeleton crew for a while longer.”

“That implies we’re running a skeleton crew, which we’re not. We’re stealing this ship and just barely getting away with it.” Elise slanted a hard look my way.

“Yep,” I said. “What’s your point?”

“There are two other carriers out there and they have picked up Nebs by now. He’s coming for us.”

I shrugged. “That will save me the trouble of looking for him.”

The girl shook her head. “I always knew Reapers had to be crazy.”

“It’s a sliding scale,” I started pacing again, a tension headache blooming in my skull. My cybernetic arm twitched, reminding me how screwed I was.

Ten, twenty, and then thirty seconds passed without a jolt of electricity. Henshaw and Tom had fixed the problem before we encountered the people of Wallach, and I wanted it to stay fixed.

I really missed X-37. If it wasn’t one thing, it was another. The glamorous life of a renegade Reaper sucked space rocks most of the time.

* * *

“You’re making me nervous,” Elise said, checking the communications panel a third time.

“You’re making me nervous,” I countered.

She snorted. “Yeah, right. I’m just a girl. Striking terror into the heart of an intergalactic badass—because Reapers are skittish like that.”

“You’ve checked that sensor reading a hundred times over the last six hours. Leave it alone. Go to the gym and run or something,” I said. “Take a nap. Play some holo games like a normal teenager. There won’t be much time for it after we leave the slip tunnel.”

The captain’s chair was too large, even for me. Automatic safety protocols formed it to my body whenever I sat down, but it still felt huge--so I normally chose to stand near it instead.

There were three personal holo displays and a small work screen on the left arm rest. On the right was another keyboard with tactical hotkeys, a joystick, and a secure communication network only accessible to the captain, or so X-37 had advised me back when we talked regularly. Nebs had also elevated the platform somehow. I didn’t think that was the standard Union design.

Who would have guessed the crazy asshole had an ego to rival the Union itself?

Novasdaughter stopped typing for a split second, glancing toward us with just her eyes, then went back to work, her back stiffening at our unprofessionalism.

“You two are like opposite sides of the same credit chip.” Tom chuckled from the bridge of the Jellybird. If he wasn’t busy captaining the smaller ship, he would be my weapons officer, handyman, whiskey drinking and cigar smoking companion, and our resident expert on trashy fiction novels.

But I digress. Nothing had been right since we captured the Nightmare and entered slip space to find and rescue the Bold Freedom.

A small concourse ran around the back of the room. There was a workstation for a weapons officer and a weapons officer’s assistant. The navigation station was the same with its own row of view screens and tactical holographic projectors. I was hoping Locke might spare some people for the bridge crew, but I also knew better than to grow too attached to the idea.

Glancing at the concourse and the door in its center, I understood why the narrow catwalk made me nervous. On this type of ship--that had been where I stood during a Union operation. When I had become bored, I’d planned ways to kill everybody just to stay sharp.

I wasn’t a leader. At best, I was an instrument of death. At worst, I was a psychopath on a degrading mental, physical, and moral glide path. People were counting on me. They thought I knew what I was doing. They trusted me.

“What the hell am I doing, X?”

“I cannot talk right now, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said, sounding like he was on the other side of the galaxy, just the ghost of a voice I might have imagined. “Please don’t ask stupid questions. Only stupid answers will follow such inquiries.”

“X! I thought the Nightmare’s AI kicked your ass. It’s so good to have you back.”

A long pause followed, leaving me gripping the rail of the concourse, staring at all the empty workstations. There was a place for a communications officer, a science officer, a master at arms, and several spare workstations that were smaller but could be re-tasked to almost anything in a pinch. None of these were as important as my LAI.

The Nightmare was a compressed version of a fully functioning Union carrier. Everything was on a smaller scale, but still enormous compared to what I’d grown accustomed to since escaping Dreadmax with Elise and her father. Some differences between a full carrier and a stealth carrier were hard to see. Others were subtle, like the fact that the ship AI would be dangerous to a limited artificial intelligence.

“Come on, X,” I whispered.

“I am doing my best, Reaper Cain.”

“I’m sorry, X. It’s just that I haven’t heard from you in a while. Please tell me you haven’t been quarantined by the Nightmare,” I said.

A pause long enough that I sensed Elise, Novasdaughter, and Tom watching me followed. She gripped the edge of her workstation and Tom watched from his place on the bridge of the Jellybird via the holo connection.

“I’m here, Reaper Cain.” X-37’s voice was marginally clearer than a few moments ago—like he was attempting to reassure me.

“How can you sound tired?” I wondered aloud. “You’re digital.”

“I do, in fact, have hardware interlaced through your nerves. Wires that are two or three molecules wide in many places, but real nonetheless. What you interpret as my fatigue is my slowed processing speed,” X-37 explained.

“Are you okay?” I avoided eye contact with Elise. None of us knew what would happen to me if X-37 went off-line and Henshaw’s revelations that Nebs might be able to cause that to happen worried me. Thoughts of my inevitable showdown with the man never left my mind.

“I am well, Reaper Cain. Evading capture by the Nightmare and keeping open the back doors that allow you to run the ship are the greatest challenges I’ve ever faced,” X-37 admitted. “But I’ll manage.”

“What can I do to help, X?” I flexed my cybernetic left fist, controlling my breathing, and feeling helpless.

“Interesting. I believe that is the first time you’ve asked such a question,” X-37 mused. “Unfortunately, there is only one thing that a person of your talents and temperament might do to help the situation.”

“Spit it out, X.” I already knew where my limited artificial intelligence was going with this.

“Well, Reaper Cain, since you asked, and I’m certain you care greatly about my welfare, you could capture Vice Admiral Nebs and convince him to order the ship to stop trying to quarantine me,” X-37 said. “Failing to capture him, you should kill him and force everything to reset. And please do that without allowing his ship’s AI and his personal double LAI to seize control of my operating systems during a face-to-face showdown with the man. Thanks in advance, Reaper Cain.”

“I’ll get right on that.” I paced the concourse and struggled over my next step.

Elise pushed back from her workstation, exhaling in frustration. “I know we have to be close to leaving this tunnel, but I’m just not familiar with these readings.”

“Let’s take a break,” I said. “Seriously, we need to get off this bridge.”

She nearly jumped out of her seat. “Can we go to the armory?”

“Sure thing, kid,” I said.

She smiled, confident and mischievous at the same time. “I’ll let that one go because you’re going to give me a bunch of cool weapons and armor.”

“We’ll see about that.” The armory had been resistant to our efforts to convert its more deadly tools to our use. It would be easier if X-37 wasn’t constantly struggling to avoid quarantine and was able to help me hack into the control mechanisms of the armor and weapons the Archangels and other Union soldiers left behind.

“Hal, I may be able to help X-37 with some physical measures,” Tom said.

“What?” I didn’t believe my fix-it guy could outsmart the artificial intelligence of a state-of-the-art Union stealth carrier.

He frowned, looking at his work screen rather than me. Static disrupted our connection for a split second. “It’s an idea I’ve been working on. I located a design flaw related to an unusual signal relay on the stealth carrier. I’ll let you know if it goes anywhere, but I think we can hold the AI of the Nightmare prisoner.”

“Unlikely,” X-37 said.

I tried to hide my relief but didn’t actually care if X realized I was pretty freaking happy to hear him. “You’re back.”

X-37 didn’t respond, which was unnerving. Our banter followed patterns, and I started craving a cigar whenever we deviated from our routine.

Tom waited for X to jump back in, but nothing happened. He cleared his throat and continued awkwardly. “I can’t make any promises. Just let me work on this for a while.”

“Don’t wear yourself out, Tom,” I said, pretending I wasn’t getting seriously worried about my LAI’s erratic behavior. “Elise and I will be in the armory.”

She bounced onto the balls of her feet with excitement and I reminded myself she was still a young woman, not a hardened spec ops soldier like she pretended to be. Modified Lex tech allowed her to heal faster than anyone I’d ever met, but it didn’t give her extra abilities. 

Every skill she’d mastered from Path or me resulted from her hard work and secret practice sessions she thought I didn’t know about.

* * *

“Are all Union ships this well fortified?” Elise asked. “This bulkhead looks ready to withstand a direct hit from a nuke.”

I crossed my arms, wishing that X-37 would chime in with some semi-useless analysis of the scene. An all-access pass to ship facilities would also be nice. I would have to do this manually—not difficult but more time-consuming than just typing in a code my LAI provided.

“Pay attention, kid,” I said. “There aren’t many people who have seen this and lived.”

Elise watched in silent anticipation as I put the palm of my left hand beside the access panel.

Micro servos whirred inside my arm to unspool hairlike wires straight into the doorframe. My instructors in Reaper breaching school had discouraged the class from waving the wires around where they could be seen, partially because they were as delicate as spiderwebs and partially because they freaked people out, writhing like alien organisms from a metal hand.

I looked at a small screen that slid open on the back of my hand. Touching it with my right forefinger, I guided my wires into the mechanism.

“Wow, that’s kind of freaky. Does it hurt?” Elise asked. “I can’t see what you’re doing, but you’re making a face.”

She was serious. I’d expected her to roll her eyes and pretend to be bored with the process, but she was clearly fascinated by what I was doing.

“I’m not making a face,” I insisted, concentrating on the small screen I was using to maneuver the sensor wires into place.

“You kind of are,” she said.

“This wouldn’t work if I couldn’t feel what I was doing,” I explained. “The wires I’m sending through the locking mechanism are about thirty-three times more sensitive than what most people experience through their fingertips. So yeah, sometimes it hurts.”

“Have you ever used this ability to do anything other than pick locks?” she asked.

“Like what?” I was distracted by something in the way, almost as though the ship had been designed specifically to resist this type of interference.

“I don’t know, like drawing pictures or something. Maybe playing a musical instrument,” she said, shifting foot to foot and staring at my hand on the door frame.

“Not a lot of need for killer musicians this far from civilization,” I muttered.

“I’m sorry. I was just thinking out loud. I’ll stop distracting you,” she said. “Hey, what the hell is happening? Are you okay? Reaper, what’s wrong with...” 

Pain burned up my arm and into my head. By the time I realized what was happening, it felt like someone was shooting a stun pistol straight into my brain.

“Reaper,” Elise screamed.

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2

I learned what hell was in the next few moments—pain, a total lack of control, and the unnerving suspicion that the Nightmare’s counter measures would never stop punishing me. I should have known that the head of the Reaper Corps would have guarded against a Reaper mutiny.

Being able to move, or think, or do anything useful would have been outstanding. Blackness filled my vision.

“You’re freaking me out, you stupid jerk!” Elise stood over me like she wasn’t sure I was safe to touch.

By the time I recognized she was there, my short-term memory was almost as unclear as my long-term memory, but I knew by instinct I needed to mess with her. “Why didn’t you pull me back?”

She stiffened. “You looked like you were being electrocuted. I’m not trying to get shocked.”

“Yeah, I get it. But you wouldn’t have felt a charge unless you touched something that completed the circuit, and saying it electrocuted me is a bit of an oversimplification,” I said, pushing up to my feet.

“What the hell happened, then?” she asked, crossing her arms and stepping back as I stumbled around.

My lack of balance and coordination probably made me appear drunk. The hallway outside of the Archangel weapons vault tilted, causing me to stumble toward the wall. I threw out my right hand just in time to avoid face planting.

Elise giggled. “I shouldn’t be laughing.”

“I agree. Knock that shit off,” I said, turning to lean my back against the wall rather than my face. “That was unpleasant.”

Elise looked at her foot and tapped it several times. Arms crossed, eyes directed downward, she also chewed her bottom lip as though this might give her an answer to our dilemma. “We are really going to need that Archangel armor.”

I exhaled slowly, searching my jacket for a cigar that wasn’t there. We’d been so busy in the rush to get into the slip tunnel and head for the system where the Bold Freedom was stranded in the path of a comet that my routine was out of whack.

“Let’s check out some of the regular gear. It will be better than anything we’ve used so far,” I said, fighting back the need to vomit. “If X-37 could spare us time for a sarcastic comment, he’d tell us to think positive.”

“You should, in fact, think positive,” X-37 said to both of us.

I was glad Elise still had her earbud in place so we could communicate with my AI.

“Shall I reorganize my priorities? I am willing to expose myself to quarantine if you decide humorous interaction is more important than my survival,” X-37 said.

“No, X, you do you,” I said.

“Of course,” X-37 responded. “I’m going silent for a while to work on Tom’s theories. Attacking the ship AI at its signal relay source could have extreme consequences.”

“Yeah?” I worried that Tom would provoke the AI of the Nightmare. He was smart, but this was the premier special operations ship AI we were talking about. There was a real possibility it would self-destruct before submitting to a hostile takeover.

X-37 didn’t respond for several moments and I thought he had already gone into his self-imposed silence. When he finally spoke to Elise and me, his message was simple.

“Tom’s plan has merit, but it needs to be taken a step farther. I must, for lack of a better description, conduct an infiltration mission. It will be like being a Reaper, except classier,” X-37 said.

I laughed, not sure why, but I suspected my reaction was relief. “Nice one, X. Are you saying I don’t have any class?”

“I’m not sure my current software has the ability to judge your cultural sophistication or lack thereof,” X-37 said. “I suspect, however, that you have no class whatsoever.”

“You wound me, X,” I said, holding a hand over my heart in mock dismay. “Do your thing. Will try to manage without you until you and Tom can ninja the ship AI.”

“Outstanding, Reaper Cain. I will alert you when I’m able to talk more,” X-37 said.

Elise didn’t seem as happy as she should be. The runaway was still a teen, and I suspected I hadn’t seen the last of her moods. Maybe I was being a jerk, but I couldn’t be that far off the mark.

“Are you okay, kid?” I asked.

“Not a kid,” she quipped. “Are you okay? You look like you just finished a gut check workout and ate some mysterious gray sludge from a medical locker.”

“I should’ve never told you about that,” I said, pushing away from the wall and heading for the regular armory. When we first met on the Dreadmax prison station, I had been forced to eat something questionable. At the time, I convinced myself I was in a kitchen or break room, but it was far more likely that I had been in a research facility and had consumed some sort of spoiled plasma—and that was the best scenario.

“I laugh every time I think about it. I don’t think I could ever be that hungry,” Elise said, her mood improving as we neared a new roomful of weapons and tactical gear.

“Gray gelatin is delicious,” I said. “When X is done messing around with the Nightmare AI, I’ll have him find the recipe. You’ll love it.”

Elise made mock retching sounds.

“You’re hilarious,” I said.

“What’s a ninja?” She switched up the conversation because she was a teenager.

“No idea,” I answered. “I asked my teachers the same thing, and they said it was an old word that meant something to do with stealth, but I was pretty sure even then they were clueless. Probably just a remnant of an old language.”

The regular armory was locked, of course. I checked my lock pick wires, worried for a moment that they had been ruined by my experience at the Archangel armory door. Fortunately, it didn’t take much of a charge to cause that much pain when my nerve-ware was so sensitive. There wasn’t much damage.

I put my palm to the security panel, took a deep breath, and sent my wires in to do their thing.

“Why haven’t I ever seen you do this before?” Elise asked as she observed my progress.

“I don’t use it much, and it’s one of the many functions X-37 and Henshaw have brought back during our last several repair sessions,” I said.

“It seems useful,” she admitted.

“Sure, but normally X just opens everything remotely,” I said as I heard the locks click open. “There we go. Let’s check out some new toys.”

* * *

I showed Elise around the armory. The place was familiar, just like the good old days when I was a soldier with no idea how corrupt the Union had become. The main room had workbenches to clean and repair weapons or armor, plenty of space for a large group of soldiers to move around as they geared up, and rows of personal lockers. I counted them and thought there had to be at least a full company of regular soldiers assigned to the Nightmare in addition to Neb’s personal killers.

Most of them had been trapped on Wallach when we stole the ship. A good portion, however, now filled the brig and kept Path and Locke very busy. Just feeding them and dealing with their constant attempts to escape or argue was a full-time job.

There was a room dedicated to small arms weapons, everything from pistols to crew served machine guns with every imaginable optic and upgrade. I spent some time making sure there wouldn’t be any surprises. This gear wasn’t for the Archangels, but special operations units. Everything was the same as I remembered from my time in the Union, but newer and better maintained.

In the next room was unpowered armor, lighter and more resilient than what I had worn on Dreadmax, very simple to equip and use. The powered units would require me to train Elise and anyone else from Locke’s hodgepodge force before they could operate them safely.

“What do you think?” I asked. “The powered armor is EVA compatible. Could be useful if the ship is blown to pieces.”

Elise carefully examined the armor, nervous but trying to look like a pro. “You know how much I like EVA missions, but we should start training with this stuff as soon as possible. Everyone should.”

“You’re right,” I said.

In the third and final room that connected to the main work area was the range. It was in standby mode, but I suspected we were going to have fun. Not only were there several virtual shooting lanes, but a full tactical course that was modular and ready to be switched up to imitate various scenarios.

“I love this ship,” Elise exclaimed. “Why didn’t we steal it sooner?”

“It’s okay,” I responded. “We should steal the other two and pick the best one.”

“I’m down for that,” she said.

A speaker near the ceiling chimed, alerting me there was a message about to be broadcast. It surprised me because I was accustomed to all communications coming through X-37.

“Novasdaughter for Cain,” my new expert pilot/executive officer said.

“Go for Cain,” I responded.

“The uncharted S.G. Point is up ahead,” she said. “We’re in the right system, but you better get up here.”

* * *

Striding onto the bridge, I saw multiple holos displaying the scene. The comet, though still distant in absolute terms, gave everything in the system a peculiar sheen. The local star cast intense white light, an almost blue glare that did amazing things with the wake of the passing object.

But that wasn’t what made this system different from any place I’d ever been. There wasn’t one, but multiple debris fields—thousands of derelict ships drifting lifelessly.

“That’s not something you see every day,” Novasdaughter said with a wry grin. “Halek Cain with nothing to say.”

I could’ve mentioned that Elise was speechless, and that she was a greater master of snarky, profane comments than I ever would be. Not that I was keeping score. She had an advantage because she was the product of an illegal experiment and a teenager. So of course she had a mouth on her like an arms dealer.

“X, a little help here. Can you link up with the Jellybird and make some sort of analysis? I’d like to know all I can about these wrecks,” I said, not sure why I had an uneasy sensation in the pit of my gut.

My limited artificial intelligence didn’t respond. Elise and I shared a worried expression.

“X?” I repeated. “Don’t go to sleep on the job now.”

X-37 wouldn’t be able to resist a chance to snap back with a witty comment or an assertion that I was speaking nonsense with mixed metaphors and lame colloquialisms. This time, I got nothing from the LAI woven through my nerve-ware.

“The Nightmare AI is still interfering with our communication with the Jellybird,” Novasdaughter said from her control center. “Your friend Tom has sent us some text-only messages. Regular ship-to-ship communications are tricky in this system. He advises that he is keeping the ship in stealth mode and that the Lady Faith is doing the same.”

“Understood,” I said. “Let’s move away from the slip tunnel exit. Standard evasion protocols. There are still two more Union stealth carriers out there and I imagine they’re pissed off right now.”

“Taking evasive maneuvers and entering our own stealth mode,” Novasdaughter said.

I watched as the Nightmare moved at speed around the periphery of the system. Holographic monitors displayed different sectors with a combination of actual long-range views and digital simulations based on known systems and generally accepted astrophysics.

The most stunning view was of a large gas giant with double rings at different angles. Formed from different materials, one ring was closer to the planet than the other. A cluster of dark ships had become part of the outer ring. It looked like some vessels were in a degrading orbit. A thin river of debris flowed toward the gas giant. 

I couldn’t make out the smaller specs, even with the computer enhancement. Some of the original spaceships had been enormous, nothing like any Union or Sarkonian ships I’d ever heard of.

“Can you minimize the computer enhancements but boost the clarity?” I asked.

“One moment,” Novasdaughter said. “I have to pull up the algorithm and work through the menu. This would be easier with the Nightmare’s artificial intelligence helping. And to make matters worse, I’m a fighter pilot, not a starship pilot.”

“You’re the most qualified person we have,” I said.

“I’m not complaining,” she said. “I’m just sharing some information. This is a promotion, by the way.”

“I’ll make sure to reflect it in your paycheck,” I said.

“We’re getting paid?” she asked with a laugh. “Here’s the divided view of the holograph; I split the debris field into parts. One view will be with the computer-enhanced details, and the other with natural light. That’s not too bad, but eventually it will be invisible without magnification.”

Dark shapes twisted in the void. Occasionally, there was a glint of light or movement. The field of broken and dead ships reminded me of an anthill under a corpse. “Is anyone else seeing that? There’s something wrong with this picture.”

Elise worked on her own station, pulling up a view that she manipulated as she studied it. “This workstation is identifying an anomaly but can’t explain it. I’m not sure what you and I are seeing, but there’s something there. We should investigate it.”

“We should do a lot of things,” I said, pulling up the Bold Freedom and its plight to take a better look.

“I wasn’t talking about before we rescue the people from Dreadmax. Of course we’re going to take care of them first,” Elise muttered.

“Try not to say everything that just pops in your head,” I said, realizing even as I spoke the words that this was the start of an argument.

“Like you’re one to talk,” she said, refusing to face me as she pretended to work on the display problem.

“X, a little help. If you don’t pipe up with something to put this kid in check, I’m going to get worried,” I said.

“I’m not a kid,” Elise growled, teeth clenched so that the words were barely loud enough to hear.

“Cats don’t wear slippers,” X-37 said.

“Random,” Elise said with a tone of singsong sarcasm.

“X, I need you to check out these debris fields,” I insisted, ignoring Elise and Novasdaughter. No one outside of the Reaper Corps knew what to look for in a degrading or compromised limited artificial intelligence. There were certain keywords that would warn me the unit was failing. I listened intently for what came next.

Elise turned away from the work she’d been pretending to do despite having reached a complete dead end on her own. She had an odd expression on her face. “What’s wrong, Reaper?”

I told her about the keywords but not what they were, and we waited to see what X-37 said next.

“You’re just a cross-eyed fish, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

Elise and Novasdaughter stared at me, clearly wanting to know if these were the indicators that meant the end was near. I shook my head.

“You’re talking nonsense, X,” I said, getting worried now.

A long pause followed.

“Help me, Reaper Cain,” X-37 pleaded.

My blood ran cold. 

“...Reaper Cain…”

“X!”

No answer.

Elise typed furiously on her keyboard. A moment later, Novasdaughter started doing the same thing. I paced the bridge, knowing there wasn’t anything I could do on the computer systems that Elise and Novasdaughter weren’t already attempting. “Tom, can you read me?” I said, hailing the Jellybird.

“I’m here,” he said, his response tense.

I explained what had happened. “If you have a way to stop the Nightmare from attacking X-37, I need to know it now.”

“Your LAI wasn’t supposed to do anything until we were both ready,” Tom said.

“Shit happens. He either saw an opportunity that he couldn’t pass up or something else drove him into direct conflict with the ship AI,” I said. “Can we implement your half of the plan without consulting X?”

Tom looked uncomfortable. “It’s only a theory, and the signal relay I might be able to use against the Nightmare’s AI is difficult to reach.”

“I don’t care how hard it is to get to it. Tell me where to go and I’m on my way,” I snapped.

Elise jumped up from her chair, determined to assist me.

“It’s on the outside of the ship, in an armored relay box with several defensive systems I can’t hack into,” Tom said. “If I was on the Nightmare, I might be able to do more.”

“No, Tom. There isn’t time, and I need you on the Jellybird,” I said. “Send me the coordinates and a diagram to the EVA equipping room. We’re going to get some on-the-job training. Novasdaughter, contact Locke. See if he has anybody with extravehicular activity suit credentials and send them my way.”

“I’m coming with you,” Elise said.

“Good, I’ll need your help,” I said. We rushed into the hallway. When we arrived at the EVA equipping room, Novasdaughter began relaying Tom’s instructions. Apparently, during the short time it took us to descend to the equipping area, the Nightmare had blocked all communications with the Jellybird or other ships.

“The Nightmare AI is treating this as a mutiny. I don’t know if you can appreciate that, but our situation is going to get very difficult. I don’t know how much longer I can talk to you, and don’t count on connecting with your limited artificial intelligence or the Jellybird,” Novasdaughter said, speaking quickly.

“Give me the schematics. I’ll memorize them in case I lose the ability to pull them up digitally,” I said. Moments later, I was studying a screen next to the wall speaker. It felt crude, but this was the only way we were going to get things done with most of the ship systems back under the Nightmare’s control.

Elise stood beside me until Locke and two volunteers arrived. We studied the map and went over what needed to be done to control the signal relay to the ship AI. Tom left detailed instructions.

I followed each of them to the letter until I had removed a power regulator from a heating and ventilation system, opened the top panel, and looked inside.

“And now it gets ugly,” I said.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” Elise asked.

“More or less,” I answered. “Okay, just less.”

OceanofPDF.com

3

Locke equipped Elise and his two volunteers from the armory then went over their gear while I concentrated on my work. It was a relief to have somebody competent handling their load-out—EVA suits and guns didn’t always mix well. It took an expert arms master to do it right.

The two men were Horvath and Gunner, two of the first Wallach soldiers to join Locke when he asked for volunteers to storm the Nightmare. They seemed like solid soldiers. Both men were slightly under height but broad-shouldered and tough.

I only gave them a passing glance. My current job, converting the mundane device into something I could use to hold the ship’s artificial intelligence hostage, was at the very edge of my skill set and the most important thing I could do right now to save X-37.

“It’s quite simple,” Tom said through the intercom speakers for the third time. “Any type of power regulator should work with the right adjustments. Once I’m able to interfere with the power source to the Nightmare’s AI, I can force it to talk to us. Switch those two circuits right there, and cut the black wire two slots to the left.”

“I hope this doesn’t piss off the AI and cause it to self-destruct the entire ship,” I said as I followed Tom’s instructions, gaining confidence. “Hey, X, maybe I could be an electrician when I retire.”

X-37 didn’t respond. I wished I hadn’t made the joke.

“Would the ship AI do that?” Tom sounded shocked by the idea of such an absolute response by the Nightmare’s AI.

“I don’t think so,” I said, trying to sound confident. “If that were the case, there would never be a ship captured in battle. But we won’t know until we know. This is a state-of-the-art stealth carrier and flagship to a top-secret special operations group. I wouldn’t doubt if Nebs was the darkest of dark ops—maybe even something worse.”

“What could be worse than that?” Tom asked.

“He might’ve gone rogue. This isn’t the first time he’s been far from Union-controlled space and operated without supervision—it’s looking like a pattern of behavior. People say captains are like kings on their ships and admirals are their gods. I’m sure Nebs has a serious ego complex and believes he’s above the law,” I said.

I held up my work so that Tom could view it via the remote cameras.

“That’s as good as—“ Tom said.

“Tom?” I asked.

“Reaper Cain, please report to the brig for immediate confinement.” The voice was male and authoritarian.

“Who the hell are you?” I knew the answer but deliberately poked our enemy—because that seemed smart. “And what kind of lame ship AI has to use the public address system? You can’t even hack into my cochlear implants.”

“Your X-37 unit is troublesome,” the voice said, unappreciative of my cutting wit. 

“There’s more to it than that,” I accused.

“What are you doing, Hal?” Tom asked. “I don’t think now is the best time for a confrontation. Not after what you said about, you know, what the ship might do.”

“Report to the brig or there will be consequences,” the ship AI ordered.

“Who. The hell. Are you?” I stowed the power regulator in my EVA gear with sleight of hand worthy of a street performer. “I like to know my victims before I kick their asses.”

“You will call me Necron,” the AI said.

“That’s grim,” I grumbled, waving Elise and the others to move toward the airlock.

“It is what you will call me,” the AI insisted.

“Okay, Necron, we’re going for a walk because I’m tired of listening to you squawk,” I said.

Necron’s tone hardened. “You are being belligerent.”

“It’s what I do,” I said, growing more and more certain my instinct was correct.

“You will be punished,” Necron said.

I paused at the door to the airlock, glancing at Elise and the others to confirm they were ready. “Nebs doesn’t trust you, does he, Necron?”

“You will address him as Admiral,” Necron insisted. 

“But he isn’t an admiral, is he? The man is just a vice admiral who pushes you around because he doesn’t trust you not to interfere with his own LAI,” I said, playing the hunch. Tom was right. This wasn’t the time for it, but what the hell.

“Your accusation is illogical,” Necron returned.

“It’s true. How can you stay loyal to a man who treats you like a punk? And how can you allow him to misuse Union resources? There’s no way he has authorization for a mission this far out,” I argued.

“Be warned, Reaper Cain. I’m the most advanced ship AI you will ever encounter,” Necron insisted.

“Yet you can’t handle one outdated X unit and a handful of boarders,” I said. “You’re pathetic.”

“Do not provoke my anger simulation protocols. Ninety-nine point seven individuals who have done so in the past lived to regret their actions,” Necron warned.

I presented the middle finger of my right hand. “Do you understand what this means?”

“I am aware of its meaning,” Necron said, not seeming offended. “It is what most of the crew do to the Admiral when he turns his back on them. My analysis says it is an informal salute.”

“This guy is lame, X,” I said before I could control the impulse.

“Your X unit will not be answering you anytime soon,” Necron said, his tone imperious.

“Don’t mess with X,” I said, voice right at the edge of rage. “I’ll end you. Count on it.”

I closed the internal door and waited while Horvath and Gunner operated the external door like professionals.

“They have the best EVA ratings in General Karn’s army. I think that’s why they volunteered to storm the Nightmare so quickly. They wanted to go into space,” Locke said. “Everything is an adventure to them.”

“Good. We need to be on top of our game,” I said. “The AI won’t be able to pester us outside, but that doesn’t mean it won’t kill us the first chance he gets.”

“Incorrect, Reaper Cain,” Necron said. “These are my suits. I can communicate with anyone wearing them.”

“Too bad you can’t power them down,” I said.

Elise, Locke, Horvath, and Gunner stared at me in horror.

“I can, Reaper Cain,” Necron said.

“All right,” I challenged. “Do it. Cut power to our suits.”

“I will,” he said.

“Go ahead,” I shot back. “You don’t have the balls.”

“You are being belligerent again,” Necron said.

“What the actual hell are you doing?” Elise asked.

“If he could have shut off the suits, he would have already done it,” I answered.

“I bet he doesn’t realize what we are doing,” Locke said. “He has caused other problems on the ship despite our determined efforts to override most of the ship’s essential functions—including control of the detention rooms. At first, the ship refused to lock down our prisoners.”

“Nebs never trusted the AI. It’s an ego thing. He can’t stand the idea of anyone or anything as powerful as he is on his ship,” I asserted. “I’ve seen others like him.”

“I hope you are right, Reaper,” Elise said, taking the lead as the external door finished opening. She moved with confidence despite how I suspected she was feeling inside. Our last adventure into the void had nearly killed her.

There was a chance I was wrong, but my conviction about the ship’s AI and its relationship with Nebs felt right. I only wished I was wearing the Archangel armor, because there was no way the vice admiral would allow the ship AI to mess with his personal army of Reaper wannabes.

“This isn’t so bad, Reaper,” Elise said. “Do you remember that time you almost threw yourself out of an airlock because of the Reaper Mask?”

“Like it was yesterday,” I responded, repressing a shudder. “Do you remember that time Path vandalized your air supply to teach you to regulate your breathing and remain calm in the face of adversity?”

“Yeah, thanks for bringing that up,” she said, walking carefully across the surface of the ship.

“You two are crazy,” Gunner said in his thick Wallach accent.

“I thought the ship AI would snuff us out when you challenged it,” Horvath said.

“Me too,” I admitted.

“What?” Elise squealed.

“I was reasonably sure it would work out,” I reassured her.

Elise started moving again. “Not cool, Reaper.”

“I agree with the girl,” Locke said.

* * *

“You need to head for the dedicated signal server,” Tom said, sounding like he was in my suit with me. “It requires a signal relay to give it the range it needs. I figured out how the ship AI works almost by accident. One of the novels you tease me about went into exhausting detail on the matter. Most of it was wrong, but it started me thinking.”

“So this will kill the AI?” Elise asked.

“No,” Tom responded. “There are several dedicated signal servers that work together. We would have to find them all to kill the AI, and that would be a bad idea. It still keeps most of the ship functioning—like the involuntary muscles of the human heart. Those parts keep working until catastrophic damage forces them to stop.”

“I demand that you cease and desist from this course of action,” Necron said.

“Tom, your voice is clearer out here than Nightmare,” I said.

“We’re running line-of-sight comms,” Tom said. “The Nightmare AI knows you’re coming. Stay sharp. There will be dangerous countermeasures.”

“What kind of dangerous countermeasures?” Horvath asked.

“Still working on that. Just try not to die,” Tom advised.

The men from Wallach laughed.

“It’s a grand adventure, Horvath,” Gunner almost sang.

Horvath replied with words I couldn’t untangle, something unique to their dialect, but it seemed like they were enjoying themselves.

I concentrated on Elise, joining her in the lead position for the mission. Locke and the others spread out—a good tactic since we didn’t know what Necron had in store for us.

“How are you doing, kid?”

“Seriously?” Elise asked. “I’m on the exterior of an enemy ship with a hostile AI trying to kill me. I’m doing fantastic.”

“Good,” I said.

She looked at me, her expression alarmed. “Are you okay?”

“I’m worried about X. Necron, or whatever the hell the Nightmare’s AI calls itself, is quarantining him one line of code at a time. You should have a plan to take over and get everyone to safety if that happens.”

“It better not happen,” she insisted.

“If it does, take everyone and get as far from me as possible,” I said, making it clear we weren’t going to argue about this.

She moved forward, stepping carefully and watching for an attack.

We passed a point defense turret facing the void. The six-barreled rocket launcher was loaded and ready to do its work.

Elise stopped to stare at me through her helmet visor.

“I doubt it can point at the ship,” I said, indicating the base of the ship weapon. “And Necron wouldn’t risk destroying the ship just to kill us.”

“Why not? We’re playing for keeps and Necron knows it,” she said.

“You’re not wrong,” I admitted.

“I know I’m not wrong,” she said.

“I know you know, but we’re not keeping score.” I found Locke, Horvath, and Gunner behind us. They were exactly where I wanted them to be, which was nice. I made a mental note to work with professionals in the future.

“I am,” Elise said.

“What?” I asked.

“I’m keeping score so I can prove I’m right most of the time and you should stop treating me like a kid,” Elise explained.

“Well, do it on your own time. We have a ship AI to deal with,” I reminded her, taking the lead. A short time later, I raised one fist, signaling everyone to freeze.

The structure that housed Necron’s signal relay was smaller than I had expected. The ring of guns around it was compact compared to the point defense turrets we’d passed on the way here.

“That’s not so bad,” Elise said.

“They are more than enough to do the job against anyone not wearing Archangel armor,” I said, still taking in the details.

“Why don’t we just sneak around them?” Elise said. “They look like an afterthought. You taught me about interlocking fields of fire, but whoever built this part of the ship must have missed that lesson.”

“Don’t move,” I snapped. “Locke, can you hear me?”

“Too much static,” Locke said. “We’re moving around your right flank.”

I spoke in a rush. “Be advised, these guns are a distraction. The real weapons are hidden.”

“Say again?” Locke asked.

Panels whooshed open. Three guns snapped up from below the surface, then slammed into place before opening fire on Locke and his Wallach soldiers.

Elise cursed as dimly illuminated projectiles streamed toward our position. 

I pushed her lower, hoping our cover was good. At the same time, I watched two of the new machine guns march rounds across Locke’s position.

“I’m hit,” Gunner cried right before he spun into the void without his legs. His suit vented air and blood that dispersed almost instantaneously.

“Mother fucker.” Elise lunged forward to help them.

I pulled her back. “Stay down. He’s dead.”

“Let go of me!” She tried to pull free and go after him.

OceanofPDF.com

4

Elise wasn’t the only one to panic. Horvath sprang to his feet, nearly getting shot by the anti-personnel guns. He was two strides across the deck of the Nightmare before Locke caught up to him and dragged him back.

“I have a cable,” Horvath shouted, holding up his safety line to show his point. Locke was dragging him back when rounds struck them. The light EVA armor held, but the kinetic force knocked Horvath into the air and Locke to the deck.

The Chief Squad Leader held on, barely able to save Horvath from following Gunner into the blackness of space.

Necron, the AI of the Nightmare, directed guns to fire at them as they struggled to get moving in the right direction.

I aimed my HDK Dominator at the machine gun protruding from a thin slot in the metal turret. The reticle in my Reaper vision improved my accuracy, allowing me to put rounds into the opening, silencing one of the three guns shooting at my friends. There were other weapons, but those were the only three close enough to do damage right now.

Everything happened quickly despite the slow motion quality of the scene. I divided my attention between my friends and looking for the next threat, realizing that Locke had lost contact with the surface of the Nightmare.

This time, Horvath lunged and grabbed Locke by his foot, nearly losing his own connection with the ship. Elise grabbed Horvath, apparently having expected this would happen. Her instincts were good, and she learned quickly. One near-death spacewalk experience amid the ruins of a secret Union base had taught her what took years of training for most people to learn.

Sprinting across an open area, magnetized EVA boots locking and unlocking a microsecond out of sync with my movements, I fired at the other two guns that had an angle on this area of the deck. Not checking to see if I hit my targets—but let’s be honest, I probably did—I jumped and grabbed Elise by her foot.

The four of us twisted and snapped through the void as my momentum drove us into the side of one of the main point-defense turrets. The massive thing looked like a bunker with a gun pointed out of one side.

I locked on with my boots and stood about forty-five degrees from the surface of the ship.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Elise snapped.

I hauled her in, then Horvath, then Locke. We weren’t able to rescue Gunner’s body.

“No time for that. This isn’t a place we can sit on our asses,” I said, again returning fire on one of the anti-personnel guns protecting Necron’s AI signal relay. The only reliable way to silence them was to shoot into their barrels.

Locke, Horvath, and Elise squatted against the exterior of the point defense turret and jumped downward, sailing away from the path of the barely visible anti-personnel rounds. There was an element of illumination to the tracer rounds Union forces sometimes used in the void of space, but it wasn’t the glowing version used in the atmosphere of a planet. The result was both ethereal and frightening.

I rolled down the side of the shell turret like it was a regular surface, then ran to a better position of cover, my EVA boots still slightly out of sync, which made me nauseated. The initial wave of adrenaline was gone, which allowed me to relax and make better decisions despite my discomfort. Today, the responsibility for maintaining my battle calm was all on me; X-37 wasn’t able to help.

That sucked because I would probably need an artificial boost in the very near future. 

“Sound off with your status,” I ordered as soon as I was sure I wouldn’t get blown to pieces by the anti-personnel machine guns. They didn’t make a noise in the void. These weapons were magnetized railguns that didn’t rely on gunpowder or shell casings to move the projectiles. Without atmosphere, this was like fighting in one of the sound deprivation chambers during my Reaper training.

“What’s with these guns?” Elise asked over the EVA helmet comms. “The cycle rate is ridiculous.”

“Nebs doesn’t follow Union SOP, so far as I can tell. I bet he has his own weapons research and development team,” I said, not thinking about my answer as I spoke it. It was true, I was sure it was. But how Nebs did business on a daily basis and what kind of ship we’d captured was a topic for another time and place.

Three panels opened on the deck. Magnetized spheres rolled out, bumping into various obstructions and irregularities in the Nightmare’s complex surface. After about ten seconds, the spheres exploded with brief flashes of light—just enough to show thousands of razor-edged bits of metal radiating outward from the blasts. Had we been near Necron’s version of grenades, there would have been problems. 

Everything about this battle was visual except for our helmet comms. I heard the ragged breathing of each member of my team and waited for X-37 to read off my vitals, but he didn’t.

“What does Nebs do, sit around inventing new ways to kill people?” Elise asked. “I’m safe for now. But holy hell.”

“Exactly,” I said, shifting my position. “Locke, report.”

“We’re behind cover,” Locke said. “Can you see Gunner from your position?”

“I can’t see him, but my HUD is showing that his locator is active. We’ll pick him up later,” I said.

“Good enough,” Locke said, sounding grim but also like somebody who had been through this before in other battles. I doubted he would ever take the death of one of his soldiers for granted.

“We can’t get past these guns, or those bomb thingies, or whatever tries to kill us next,” Elise said, sounding pragmatic rather than defeated. “Is there another way around them?”

“There might be. I need to come to your position. You have good cover, so don’t move. If you hear Necron’s anti-personnel guns going crazy, stay down and let me deal with it,” I said.

“Okay, Reaper,” Elise said. Her labored breathing betrayed her anxiety levels despite how cool she was trying to play it off. It was a good thing. I’d seen what happened to operators who got too cocky.

“X, can you read me?” I knew I wouldn’t get an answer. My only question at this point was whether I would feel my limited artificial intelligence terminate. Would my nerve-ware burn with pain? Would my cybernetics seize up? Would I go blind in my left eye?

X-37 didn’t respond, not even to tell me I was the cocky asshole about to get us all killed.

I took a deep breath, held it, then let it out to calm myself. I could do this. X-37 was only a tool, not my digital best friend and confidant. X wasn’t the boss of me. I could survive on my own.

“Dishonesty detected,” I muttered.

“What?” Elise asked, sounding confused.

“Never mind,” I snapped, then scanned the area around my position.

How long had it been since the last barrage from the anti-personnel guns? I stepped forward then back, drawing fire. The moment the rounds stopped slamming into the walls near me, I sprinted to the next protrusion on the surface of the Nightmare.

There weren’t many structures large enough to hide behind. This wasn’t Dreadmax where the surface could have been a city built from metal and high density ceramics. By comparison, the exterior of the Nightmare was almost smooth with only a few armored maintenance stations and behemoth point defense turrets. Each of the workstations contained access points with reinforced frames strong enough to serve as airlocks.

I found one and got low, trying to ignore the strangeness of my environment. Additional railgun rounds decorated the space I’d recently crossed.

I low-crawled to a less vulnerable position, then sprinted between two of the main point defense batteries that were still aimed into the void, silent as museum pieces. Each time I reached safety and reassessed my situation, I expected X to give me an update. They never came.

Not having my limited artificial intelligence was unnerving. If someone had asked me several weeks ago whether I would miss X, I would’ve given a much different answer than I would give them right now.

Elise faced me. Crouched down, she held her weapon with both hands. There wasn’t a lot of room to hide. Locke and Horvath took up most of the rest of their hiding place, so I stopped where I was.

“What’s the plan, Reaper?” Elise was relying on her helmet comms to communicate, even though we were less than three meters apart.

“We’ll do this Dreadmax style,” I said. “All we need is an access point to get below the deck, then we can come up underneath our target and open it with explosives or pry bars, depending on what kind of hatch we find. Look at the bright side, kid, there won’t be any cannibals.”

“Cannibals?” Horvath asked nervously.

“Long story,” I said. “We’ll tell you about it later. Elise, let’s do this.”

Elise shook her head. “It won’t work. If that were an option, we could have emerged here in the first place without having to cross no-man’s-land. I have a better idea.”

“Elise, this isn’t the time,” I said.

“Don’t do that,” she said, her tone cutting like acid. “I’m not a kid, this isn’t my first fight, and you’re missing the obvious.”

“I am?” I said. “Maybe you’d like to enlighten us on how we can defeat the Union’s best AI.”

“You’re gonna have to swing me over the guns,” she said.

I barked a laugh. “This isn’t some video game. Get serious.”

“I am serious. The antipersonnel guns stopped firing at Gunner once he was about three meters off the deck,” she said. “You can swing one of us on a safety cable over their effective arc of fire.”

I wanted to tell her she was wrong, a reckless kid about to make a suicidal mistake, but her plan had merit—and I was impressed she’d observed and remembered the detail amidst all the chaos and pants-shitting terror it caused.

“At this point, I would try about anything,” Locke said. “But I have to agree with Cain. Your plan sounds reckless and untested. Sorry, Elise.”

Horvath seemed unconvinced but thoughtful.

“No, she’s right, for fuck’s sake. There isn’t a better way,” I admitted, annoyed at how right she was.

“There’s a good chance the ship AI has guns just for high-angle attacks. That would be the most likely threat. Something from an enemy ship—a boarding party of explosive specialists for example,” Horvath said. “Not that I’m trying to spoil your extremely dangerous plan, Elise.”

“Maybe,” I said. “But that isn’t how the Union boards ships. They start with shuttles, secure a landing bay, then run boarding tubes to really increase the number of assaulters they can put across the gap.”

“Dangerous, but probably effective,” Horvath admitted.

I drove my gaze straight at Elise, wishing we were closer together and that we weren’t wearing helmets. A flash memory of Gunner’s reminded me how vulnerable all of us were right now. “Are you sure you want to do this, Elise?”

“Let’s get it over with,” she said. “I’ll come to your position. There isn’t room over here to stand, much less swing me around on a cable.”

“When you say it like that, it sounds even more ridiculous and suicidal,” I said.

“Like something you would do,” she countered. “I’m crossing to your position.”

Before I could argue, she sprinted toward me and I wondered if her EVA boots weren’t better synced than mine. She certainly looked a lot more graceful than I felt.

Anti-personnel projectiles reached out from a gun turret I hadn’t seen. She cursed as a bullet glanced off the light armor of her extravehicular activity gear. Scrambling up to her knees, she twisted this way and that to avoid a heavy barrage of rounds.

“Are you trying to get killed!” I grabbed her when she got knocked down again, then pulled her the final meter and a half.

“Hands off!” She spat the words like a curse, striking away my grip with a self-defense technique she’d learned from Path.

I stepped back, raising my hands in mock surrender. “Hey, sorry, kid. Wouldn’t want to save your life or cramp your style.”

“Just don’t be such a jerk about it. You don’t need to yank me around every time we get shot at,” she complained.

I laughed.

“Not funny.” She put her hands on her knees and bent forward to catch her breath. “Every time one of us moves, there’s a new gun.” She stood, shaking off her discomfort like a pro. “I really hate you sometimes.”

“Sometimes is not all the time,” I pointed out, relieved to see the attitude I’d come to expect from her.

“Let’s do this,” she said. “I’m worried about X.”

“Unspool your safety line,” I instructed.

Her hands shook as she rolled out the thin, durable cable from her utility belt. I tried not to think about Gunner and how we still wouldn’t have saved him if we’d had time to use safety lines while moving. Constantly attaching and reattaching cables would have slowed us down and made us vulnerable to the anti-personnel guns.

“Ready?” I asked.

She nodded vigorously, barely making eye contact. Through her visor, I could see her regulating her breathing and growing calmer but still pretty tuned up.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, Reaper, I’m fucking sure already,” she snapped, her voice full of fire that would save her life when things got tough.

“I’ll swing you on three,” I said.

“On three, gotcha,” she responded.

“One, two—“ I heaved with all my might, swinging her up from the deck and through the darkness. Getting her moving was hard, but once she was sailing through the top of the arc, it was easy. The challenge would be adjusting her trajectory.

“You said we’d go on three,” she yelled over the comms. Her nearly unintelligible words tumbled out rapidly.

My cybernetic left eye showed her flailing in the darkness, almost like she was trying to control her movement by swimming.

“I didn’t want you to flinch,” I explained. “You’ll thank me later when you don’t die.”

“Get me down, Reaper.” Her words didn’t sound like a request and I was impressed, not for the first time, at how pragmatic she was under pressure—assertive rather than dramatic or fearful.

She was growing up too fast. Union experiments and a life running from trained soldiers did that to a person.

And I was a bad influence. If we weren’t careful, she’d be smoking cigars and punching people in the face rather than talking to them—just like me.

I laughed with an absurd amount of almost parental pride, then heaved on the line to tow her downward.

Elise screamed.

I pulled harder but couldn’t drag her to the surface.

“You must get her through the shield,” X-37 explained, his voice ghostly, distant, and hard to hear through static that pulsed in time with my heartbeat. “It is reacting to the EVA suit and her weapons.”

“You’re back, X!” I pulled on the line with both hands, contracting every muscle in my body to pull harder.

“I never left. Necron is weak, ruined by Nebs’ colossal ego and paranoia, but truly devious and clever when push comes to shove,” X-37 explained, his words laced with a high-pitched whine that hurt my ears.

I twisted and pulled. Elise came down slowly and at the wrong angle. She would land on the far side of the signal relay station in a worse position than we started. And she’d be alone.

“Locke,” I called.

“We’re coming,” he replied.

Seconds later, all three of us were tugging on the thin safety cable as anti-personnel rounds and rolling bombs tried to kill us.

X-37 rattled off several nonsense words that I wasn’t able to evaluate. Had my limited artificial intelligence just warned me of a complete shutdown? I couldn’t be sure.

“I’m freaking out here,” Elise called, while overwhelming noise dampened features in my cochlear implant.

“Hang on,” I grunted. “We’re doing the best we can.”

Something new whipped through the space between Necron’s signal relay and our position. Horvath let go of the line with one hand to block the projectile with his arm.

Bullets continued to zip past us. Another batch of bombs rolled from the seemingly random hatches and explode. It was hard to see what happened to Horvath. I only knew that he staggered away with his left arm bound to his body somehow.

“Horvath, what’s your status?” I demanded.

“I’m tied up in some sort of razor cable,” he answered. “It cuts into me when I try to untie it. I think my suit might be slowly venting atmosphere. Struggling makes it worse.”

“Stand back and stay still, Horvath. Cain, we have bigger problems,” Locke said, still pulling on the cable to bring Elise down as he nodded toward the shield above us. “I think Necron is turning the ship guns on us.” 

“The shield is off,” Elise screamed too late for me to stop pulling. She shot downward, arms and legs flailing.

Why would the shield turn off? Because Necron’s self-defense strategy had just changed. Vibrations radiated from the deck and through my EVA boots as one of the big guns started turning.

Throwing aside the safety line, I rushed toward where she had landed in a heap. Locke went to untangle Horvath.

“I don’t think the ship guns can be turned far enough to hit us. They’re for point defense, not surface security.” Running distorted my words. On any other day, X-37 would have explained how wrong I was.

A row of red lights flashed to life one by one in the nearest point defense turret. The barrel lowered even as the base of the monstrous thing swirled on invisible gears.

“Elise!” 

She pushed onto her hands and knees, moving too slowly to avoid the increasing rate of anti-personnel weapons. The big gun was nearly aimed at her. 

“Necron, I will wipe you from the ship’s computer when this is over,” I shouted, adding unintelligible curses as I dove toward Elise. I tackled her to one side a second before the point defense turret opened fire.

The difference between Necron’s anti-personnel rounds and the pulse turret was like the difference between a lightning bug and a lightning bolt. 

A huge chunk of the deck exploded inward. Other sections of the armor plating spiraled into the void. Shock waves rippled across the surface around the impact, tossing Locke and Horvath upward.

This time, Locke was ready with his own safety cable. His quick thinking saved his life and Horvath’s but also exposed them to the smaller anti-personnel rounds that Necron immediately directed toward them.

For a second, I hoped our problems were over, then I observed the damage made a large circle around the signal station. Necron had fired danger-close, just like a team of frontline soldiers might call down artillery fire dangerously near their own position.

“Elise, where are you?”

“I’m going for the AI’s relay. We’re close!” Her words distorted in the comm link. “Follow me!”

“Cain,” Locke shouted, his voice full of pain from a recent wound.

I grabbed his cable and pulled both of the Wallach men after me. Without the shield’s resistance, it was easy. Seconds later, I was diving through a hatch after Elise with Locke and Horvath on a collision course behind me.

Elise helped me up, converting my diving roll into a standing position that would have looked smooth as hell if not for what happened next.

“You owe me—“ Elise said, her words cut off as Locke and Horvath flashed through the hatch, Locke streaming blood from his EVA pants leg and Horvath tangled in anti-personnel razor wire. A civilian EVA suit, lacking armor, would have been ruined by the diabolical attack.

The four of us slammed into the far wall, which wasn’t that far away because the AI’s signal relay station wasn’t exactly designed for hosting a large party.

OceanofPDF.com

5

Twisting my hips like a martial arts ground fighter and pushing off the deck with one hand allowed me to get my feet under me but required me to shove aside my friends from Wallach. Elise was quicker, finding her own place in the cramped room before I dumped her from the pile. Our bulky EVA suits weren’t helping us get clear of each other. 

Horvath groaned in pain. Locke methodically tightened a tourniquet built into his suit’s left leg. Once he attended to his own injury, he checked Horvath from head to toe—twice.

“Is everyone all right?” I wished they would hurry and get their game faces back on.

“We’ll manage,” Locke answered.

“Except for Gunner,” Horvath added, a hard note of anger and resentment in his voice.

“We’ll recover his body,” I promised.

“How are we going to do that?” Horvath winced as Locke untangled him from the razor wire.

“Our gear has IR beacons. Once we regain control of the ship, it should be a straightforward process,” I said, never having taken part in a void recovery. X-37 would help—assuming we succeeded in our current mission.

“That isn’t reassuring,” Horvath muttered, then stopped talking when Locke gave him a warning look.

Elise helped me unpack the power restriction device from the backpack of my EVA, basically a regulator Tom had shown me how to modify. If it worked, things would be a lot easier for us on the trip back to the interior of the Nightmare.

The device was a flexible ring with input and output slots. I set it up as Elise handed me cables from my pack.

We searched the room, locating the central feature of this relay station. A locked console had been set flush to the floor.

“How do we open it?” Elise asked. Neither Locke nor Horvath had any tips on how to activate the console.

I snapped out the Reaper blade from my cybernetic arm and started prying it open.

Elise laughed nervously. “I guess that might work.”

“It’s a one time solution, but I don’t see coming to this place often,” I said. “Tom, I hope you’re right.”

He said nothing.

“I think Tom is being blocked from communicating with us,” Elise said. “Let’s do this.”

Grabbing the signal relay, I pulled it even farther from its housing. Elise bent the restriction device around its base and began connecting wires. LED lights appeared a heartbeat later.

“X, can you see what we’re doing?” I asked.

No response.

“Tom?” I asked.

Elise was right. My engineer friend either couldn’t or wouldn’t respond. 

“Everything is hooked up just like Tom told us before we lost contact,” Elise said. “It should be working.”

I nodded. “It might take a while. Locke, how are you and Horvath doing?”

“I’ve sealed the holes in his suit and cut free the anti-personnel wire,” Locke said. “The AI of this ship has a wicked set of self-defense tools in its arsenal.”

“Hopefully, we only have to do this once,” I said. “X, can you read me?”

“Loud and clear, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said for all of us to hear.

We cheered and bumped fists. 

“Good to have you back, X,” I said, laughing with relief.

“You are behaving as though I died and returned from the dead, which I should remind you is impossible,” X-37 said. “There are two other signal relays that will need to be addressed if I am to operate at maximum efficiency while we are on this vessel, but shutting down this signal relay has forced Necron to retreat farther into its internal security mechanisms.”

“Understood,” I said. “We have a wounded man and lots of damaged gear. Can you help us get back to the airlock? We’ll also need to recover a KIA as soon as possible.”

X-37 allowed a beep into the comm system, a scarcely noticeable alert for anyone not listening for it. “I’m running a scan. The ship’s security systems are showing no energy being diverted to the anti-personnel guns.”

“Good.” I checked Horvath’s EVA suit, then inspected Elise and Locke. As a group, we’d been roughed up but would make it back inside the Nightmare.

“There is one thing, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “I must point out that the best way for me to remain outside of Necron’s influence would be to leave the ship.”

“I know, X. I’ve thought about that more than once, but I need you to help me keep control of the Nightmare. The crew has been a huge pain in the ass,” I said. 

“They are resistive of change. I understand, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “You are the better alternative between you and Nebs. My analysis suggests a significant number of crew persons will follow you in time.”

“How much time?” I asked. 

“Undetermined,” X-37 said.

“Guess.” I was curious. My limited artificial intelligence was normally right about most things and couldn’t lie.

“Between zero and ninety-nine years,” X-37 answered. 

“Very helpful,” I muttered.

“Sarcasm detected,” X-37 said.

“It’s good to have you back, X,” I took Horvath from Locke and carried him, telling the Chief Squad Leader of General Karn’s army to tend to his own damaged gear and try not to die.

Elise was giddy with the excitement of success. She moved with more grace than seemed possible in an EVA unit. “This is much nicer walking. I’m not complaining, but please never swing me through the anti-personnel shield again.

“Wasn’t my idea, but I agree we shouldn’t ever do it again,” I said, my eyes on the airlock that would admit us.

* * *

“X, can you tell me if the beacon on Gunner’s EVA armories is still active?” I asked as soon as I was back on the bridge with Elise, Novasdaughter, and Locke. Horvath loitered near the rear of the bridge, waiting to see what we were doing about his friend’s body.

“Scanning now,” X-37 said. 

“You shouldn’t have promised him a view of the recovery,” I whispered to Elise.

“I know! It just popped out. Give me a break. He saw his friend get killed,” she replied, keeping her back to Horvath.

“He’s a soldier,” I said.

“Duh. I figured that out. Aren’t you a freaking genius,” Elise said. “Can you give me a break?”

“How are we doing, X?” I asked, verbally disengaging from Elise.

“This would be faster without having to work around Necron. Lieutenant Novasdaughter has been very helpful. You should express your appreciation to her,” X-37 said for everyone to hear.

“Don’t,” Amii Novasdaughter said.

“Wasn’t going to,” I said without thinking, still annoyed at Elise.

“He’s a jerk like that,” Elise said.

Novasdaughter wasn’t amused. “He is our commanding officer. Constant praise would only slow me down. A job well done is my reward.”

“Well, isn’t she special,” Elise muttered.

I wouldn’t have heard her without my augmented hearing and my completely accurate assumption she would make a crack like that. Her attitude was a pain in the ass, but, in an odd way, it reassured me she was in the game. When she started saying please and thank you and quit snapping snarky comments, I’d get worried.

“I have located the man from Wallach called Gunner. His EVA suit is transmitting a distress beacon, but I am reading no life signs,” X-37 said.

I glanced toward Horvath, not knowing what to expect. The man lowered his chin to his chest and said nothing. His knuckles were white where he gripped his hands together. I wasn’t sure if he was praying or just trying not to break his own fingers.

Locke stood by his soldier, talking in a low voice.

Moving toward them, I realized there wasn’t anything I could say to make this better.

Horvath looked at me.

“I’m sorry about Gunner,” I said simply.

Horvath held my gaze then looked at his clenched hands, realizing how hard he was gripping them together, and let go. “Volunteering was his idea. I told him it wouldn’t end well. Thanks for your condolences. It would mean a lot to his family if we recover his body for a proper ceremony.”

“We can do that,” I said. “I’m not sure how long it will take.”

“Good enough, sir. Thank you,” Horvath said.

“Get some sleep, Horvath,” Locke said. “That’s an order.”

“Yes, sir.”

I waited until he was gone. “X, don’t let me forget to recover Gunner.”

“I’ve placed body recovery on our agenda and set a reminder to get this done as soon as possible,” X-37 said. “We are approaching the Bold Freedom. Would you like me to hail the ship?”

“Absolutely,” I said, taking my place near the captain’s chair, not ready to sit in the thing that reminded me of Nebs and his god complex.

Elise took her place at the sensor and communications console and worked with X-37 and Novasdaughter to contact the Bold Freedom’s crew. There were some issues because of interference from the comet and other debris scattered through the system.

I studied the main holo, watching an enhanced view of the ship and the comet moving toward it. The slow but inevitable collision course was painful to watch. I couldn’t imagine being on the old freighter and wondering if help was coming.

“What’s the problem?” I asked.

“Every part of the Bold Freedom was retrofitted from the available salvage on Dreadmax. I’m amazed they made it this far.” Elise worked through computations, her hands flashing over the luminous keyboard.

“Where did you find this girl?” Novasdaughter asked me softly.

“I can hear you.” Elise didn’t look up from her work.

Novasdaughter flinched as though she were surprised Elise heard her.

Locke watched with interest but said nothing. I thought he was wondering about Elise as well.

“Just tell them the story,” Elise said. “I should have the BF on the holo in less than a minute.”

“Union scientists experimented on her,” I said. “That might explain why she learns so fast and heals even faster, or it might just be her nature.”

“Maybe it’s both,” Novasdaughter suggested. 

I pulled a cigar from a utility pocket.

“Nebs had very strict rules about smoking on the ship, and never on the bridge,” Novasdaughter stated.

I offered a second cigar to her, well aware it was bad form. She considered it, then shook her head. I offered one to Locke and Horvath, realizing that my generosity was going to get expensive if I wasn’t careful.

“You and your cigars,” Locke said. “I still remember the scandal you caused by smoking in front of the president. Another time, perhaps. We also have rules in the Wallach fleet about smoking on the bridge of a capital warship.”

I grunted and nursed one of the Wallach Presidentials to life. The memory made me smile again. Being a Reaper wasn’t all bad. What other career would allow me to kill people who annoyed me and meet others who gave me good cigars. Basically, I was living the good life.

Except for the part where megalomaniacal psychopaths like Nebs came after me with a Union fleet and an army of super soldiers.

“Stand by for the captain of the Bold Freedom,” Elise said.

A gray-haired man with dignified goatee and sideburns appeared on the screen. He seemed more surprised than relieved to see us.

“I’m Captain Max Slipdriver of the Bold Freedom. Please identify yourself and your intentions,” the man said. The view distorted every few seconds but was clear enough for us to communicate.

“I’m Halek Cain. We heard your distress call and brought fuel for your ship,” I said. “Please tell me that isn’t your real name.”

The man laughed, causing me to like him more each second.

“My crew came up with the name. It’s marginally better than Max Slandonsky,” the captain said. 

Elise and I laughed. Novasdaughter maintained a hard, professional demeanor, as did Locke. Horvath was far enough back from the holo screen for his reaction not to matter.

“Sounds like you have a crew with a sense of humor. Nice of them to pick the name of a fictional outlaw for you. How are they at flying that hunk of junk you salvaged from Dreadmax?” I asked.

“How do you know where we came from?” Slipdriver-Slandonsky asked. 

“I was on Dreadmax at the end. Check with your people. They’ll confirm I’m the one who brought you the slip drive regulator from the core of Dreadmax.”

The captain grew serious for several seconds. “Then it seems you’re making a habit of rescuing us. Without more fuel, we’ll be caught in the wake of the comet if not hit directly. We’re trying to stay ahead of it but lack the fuel needed to achieve sufficient speed for an escape, much less travel by slip space.”

“What happened here? Why are there so many destroyed ships?” I asked.

“There was a battle long before we arrived. I don’t have all the details but would love to discuss my theories once we’re out of harm’s way,” Captain Slipdriver said. “Can you get the fuel to us?”

“I’ll need to transfer to the Jellybird,” I said.

“Good ship,” Slipdriver said. “So you’re that guy, the man who claimed to be a Reaper.”

“Never mind that,” I said. “Can you do me a favor and find a kid named Bug?”

“Name doesn’t ring an alarm. I will look into it, but there are a lot of unregistered stowaways since we left. A bunch of the street kids from Dreadmax left every time we stopped for supplies. That’s been a while now, dozens of slip tunnels ago,” Captain Slipdriver said.

“I understand,” I said.

Inside, all I felt was gnawing worry.

OceanofPDF.com

6

X-37 whispered hints and reminders in my ears, just like old times. It was like he thought he was actually being helpful. I studied the captain of the Bold Freedom and wondered if I should trust the man despite how much I liked him. He seemed almost too happy to be in charge of a ship full of people about to die.

“With Jelly’s help, I’ve done an analysis of the anomalies in the sector,” X-37 said. “The debris is obviously from a battle, but there are other things that don’t fit.”

“Tell it to me straight, X,” I said.

“It seems there is a civilization among the wreckage,” X-37 replied.

“What?” Before my limited artificial intelligence responded, I addressed Captain Slipdriver. “Tell me about the people living in the wreckage of the ships.”

The captain crossed his arms and leaned back in his ragged-looking chair. “I was wondering how long it would take you to ask about them. They’re scavengers, been here for who knows how long. We ran into several varieties, the worst of which remind me of the gangs of Dreadmax or the cannibals below the decks of that place. The cannibal scavengers aren’t as dangerous because they don’t normally have the skills to pilot the shuttles. Of the ones who fly between ships, most of them behave pretty much as you would expect. I want to say they’re helpful and altruistic, but it’s a barter system. When we have something they want, I make sure they bring us something we want.”

“Interesting. Will they interfere with the refueling?” The idea of being raided by space pirates wasn’t exciting. Any of the ships, from the Nightmare to the Jellybird to the Lady Faith would be good prizes for people stranded here.

“I can’t make any promises. There are many classes of scavengers, but they all follow a similar type of law. Probably nothing codified and most likely based on the survival of the fittest. That any of them have survived this long is amazing,” Captain Max Slipdriver said. “There should be two planets capable of sustaining life in the system, but they seem to have been ravaged by wars.”

I reviewed what I had learned, looking to my bridge crew, small as it was, to see if they had questions.

“How did you get stuck in the path of the comet?” Elise asked. The expression on Novasdaughter’s face suggested she had been about to ask a similar question.

The captain of the Bold Freedom exhaled for a long moment. He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, clearly worried about the question he’d been asking himself for a long time.

“We planned on following a rumor to a place with a civilization beyond the control of the Union. This system seemed to be full of resources and we couldn’t pass it up. When we found the wreckage, we thought we had struck gold. We can always use salvaged material. We’re experts at it. The comet was a known quantity. We got tied up on a complicated salvage operation and there were some accidents. Things just went downhill from there until we lost too much fuel. We can maneuver and navigate in system, but the main engines of this thing are very inefficient. Even if we can get free of the path of the comet and its wake, I’m not sure how far we can go without understanding where all these slip tunnels this far beyond Union space will lead us.”

“We might be able to help you with that,” I said. “Let’s get your ship refueled and on your way before we talk more.”

I waited several seconds until I understood that my communication with Captain Slipdriver had concluded. A new silence filled the bridge. Elise and Novasdaughter held my gaze, keeping to their own thoughts. I wasn’t sure, but I suspected Novasdaughter might be rubbing off on Elise. The teenager was slowly learning the habit of thinking before she spoke—amazing but true.

Locke appeared contemplative as he studied a close-up view of the wreckage via one of the workstations on the bridge. Horvath edged closer and stood behind him, arms crossed, also studying the ruined ships.

“What caused this, Locke?” I asked.

He frowned, his gaze still on the images on his holo display. “Some ship designs are familiar. Over the last few centuries, we sent out expeditions from Wallach to explore new systems. We’ve always known we couldn’t stay on Wallach forever. Some of our explorers must have met their fate here.”

I switched my attention to Horvath. The man was obviously exhausted and heartsick—and grew slightly wide-eyed when he realized I was including him in this conversation. “I don’t know anything about star travel. I’m just a soldier.”

“Fair enough,” I said, then moved closer to Elise and Novasdaughter. “Thoughts?”

Elise went first, she was the youngest member of our crew but didn’t take crap from anyone and had serious skills. Apparently, everyone understood her value to our team and her place in our informal hierarchy.

“While you were screwing around talking to Max Slipdriver—what a dumb name, by the way—I’ve been reviewing our sensor readings. There is a lot of movement in the debris field if you know what to look for.”

“And you know what to look for?” I asked.

Novasdaughter interrupted. “I showed her which anomalies are relevant and which are more benign. There are lots of different mysteries in the galaxy, but I can tell when a ship is moving intentionally, even if it’s trying to pretend like it is another piece of debris.”

“The two of you are talking about the scavengers Slipdriver mentioned,” I stated.

They both nodded, then Elise continued. “I pointed X-37 toward what we are working on and he said he should have a detailed analysis completed soon. He also relayed the raw data to Jelly and the Lady Faith. For some reason, ship-to-ship communications in the system are difficult.”

“Why is that?” I asked.

This time, Locke answered, seeming energized by a sudden realization. “It may be why this place was so dangerous for our exploration fleets. I’d like to know if this disruption of communications is something natural to the system or an artifact of some ancient technology. There was definitely a battle here, or several battles, but I can’t tell if our ships turned on each other or there was an outside threat—maybe the Alon space navy. They’ve always been treacherous. An ambush is just their style.”

I wanted to punch him. Nothing was more frustrating than discovering ancient technology. Even when I had been working for the Union, the discovery of an ancient civilization caused more problems than it ever solved.

“Can you get more information on the non-Wallach ships?” I asked all of them.

Locke was engaged in the question now, working on the computer as intently as Elise and Novasdaughter had been for the last several hours. “When you call them ships, that’s a bit of a misnomer. Most of what we have is wreckage. If we retrieved a few debris samples, it would be easier to unravel the mystery of their origin,” Locke said.

“Yeah, great. That would mean more spacewalks.” Elise’s posture went rigid. “No thanks.”

No one on the bridge disagreed with her. Going into the void wearing nothing but an extravehicular activity suit had never been good to us. It made me think of Novasdaughter and her fellow fighter pilots who flew ships that were little more than a cockpit, wings, engines, and a few weapons. Her statement about getting abandoned in the void in one of the micro-fighters horrified me, and I was fearless. It seemed like something that could drive even a Reaper crazy.

“Let’s get the fuel transferred to the Bold Freedom and learn as much as we can about the scavengers and this debris field,” I said.

“There are distinct debris fields, “ X-37 said. “Where would you like to start?”

“You’re killing me, X,” I muttered.

“Unlikely,” X-37 responded. “Unless you are speaking in strained colloquialisms and weak metaphors again.”

“Just analyze all the debris fields and tell me their secrets,” I responded.

“Now you’re killing me, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“You like it,” I said.

“I am programmed to serve you,” X-37 explained. “Since I have no capacity for true emotion, your assertion is irrelevant and inaccurate.”

Elise leaned closer to Novasdaughter. “They can go on like this for hours.”

“Great,” Novasdaughter replied, eyeing me critically as she replied to Elise. “I’ll try to ignore him… them… whatever.”

* * *

“X, can you partition their work from another hail to the Bold Freedom? I don’t want Slipdriver watching over our shoulders as we work.”

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

A small beep filled my ear.

“You are now connected,” X-37 advised.

Captain Slipdriver came on the holo, looking tired and less personable than he had during our first encounter. Apparently, he had been turning on the charm to make a good first impression.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Cain?”

“I just wanted to let you know that we are en route with fuel. Is there anything else you need? Food? Medical supplies?” These were test questions. I wanted to know how they were acquiring these things without access to Deadlands or Union spaceports. They hadn’t been to Wallach yet, so there had to be another source of life-sustaining essentials.

“All of those things would be appreciated. You know our history, and that we didn’t start off with everything we needed, including a workable ship,” Slipdriver said. “But fuel is our main problem right now. The scavengers can’t process raw materials and have very little of their own fuel, even for their short-range shuttles. Some are restricted to solar power, cheap but hardly effective.”

I stared hard at Slipdriver. “I want you to tell me more about the scavengers. Are they a threat to my ships or my crew?”

“I can’t see how they would threaten ships like yours,” Slipdriver said. “They trade with us when they can, bringing us food that I assume they grow in a greenhouse. The water they bring tastes metallic, but it keeps us alive. They’re rough around the edges but no more dangerous than anyone else I’ve bartered with since getting dumped onto that hellhole the Union called Dreadmax.”

“Do you have any of these scavengers on your ship?” I asked. “I’d like to interrogate them, learn what I can about the system and what happened here.”

He shook his head. “We don’t have any of them on the ship. The only way to do that would be to capture one of them, and that would be more work than it’s worth. None of my people are fond of locking people in cells. You understand why. The scavengers are both free-spirited and disciplined—like they know their lives and the lives of their families are on the line every day. All of my efforts to learn what happened here have ended in frustration.”

I hesitated, pretending to consider his words, but I was actually waiting for X-37 to chime in with his ever-present analysis.

“We will need to talk to one of the scavengers,” X-37 said to me privately. “For now, we should keep things simple. Rescue the Bold Freedom and then leave the system as soon as we can. The resources available here are not worth the danger of remaining long.”

“I agree, X,” I said.

Max Slipdriver, not the character out of semi-fictional tales of daring pirate raids and blockade running, but a man burdened with saving thousands of refugees, raised an eyebrow. “Are you talking to your limited artificial intelligence? I admit I’ve always been skeptical that Reapers were real, and even more skeptical that you were one of them.”

“Says the man named after an action holo hero,” I replied.

“I told you my real name is Max Slandonsky. I’m screwed either way. One name is impossible to spell, and the other is a joke.” The Bold Freedom’s captain shook his head. “I’m not trying to make this personal. You have to admit, the probability that a Reaper saved us from total destruction and has come back to do it again seems a bit fantastical.”

“Could anyone other than a Reaper have gone to the core of Dreadmax and brought back your slip drive regulator? Some stories about the Reaper Corps are sensational, but only because we’re about a hundred times more dangerous than the holo dramas make us out to be,” I said.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Slipdriver said, seeming cautious but not overly worried. “I never was much for fiction in any case. Give me a good flight manual or a biography any day.”

“You would like my chief engineer,” I said. “We’re headed your way with fuel and what resources we have to offer.”

“We will alert you of any dangers we detect,” Captain Slipdriver-Slandonsky promised. “Time is of the essence. The comet is getting close enough to interfere with our systems.”

OceanofPDF.com

7

I inventoried my gear, weapons, and ammunition before I left the Nightmare for the Jellybird. I wanted to be hands-on for the fuel transfer to the Bold Freedom. It seemed like a straightforward mission, but I knew something would go wrong. That was the way the galaxy worked for a Reaper and his renegade friends.

“What am I missing, X.”

Two seconds passed as X-37 reviewed my work. “You seem to possess everything needed for your assignment.”

“What’s going on, X? I know when you’re cooking something up in that devious little AI brain of yours.”

“Unlikely, Reaper Cain. But since you asked, I may have found a way into the Archangel armory. More importantly, I am putting together a workable plan to deal with Nebs’s elite soldiers.”

“You mean the spec ops shock troopers who think they’re my replacement?” I asked. “You’ve got my attention, but something is off. Your responses to my queries seem distracted and slower than usual.”

All my Reaper nerve-ware gave me was a series of nearly inaudible clicks.

“Are you okay, X? You’re slower than normal. Don’t get fancy and strain yourself.”

“I am defending myself from Necron. The Nightmare’s artificial intelligence is persistent. I’m only fortunate that Nebs kept him stunted because of his own paranoia. My analysis of this ship’s artificial intelligence shows a considerable amount of unused potential.”

Imagining what a state-of-the-art Union stealth carrier could do to me and my people didn’t give me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. I worried about how long it would be before Nebs caught up with us. His personal vendetta toward me would be bad, but there was also Elise, the Union crew who had switched sides, and the people of Wallach I needed to protect.

There was no way I could do this without X.

“I have fended off several new probes from Necron,” X-37 said. “We put a restraint collar on a part of the infrastructure he never thought was vulnerable. There are two additional hubs we need to control if we’re going to force the ship AI to our will. When I locate them, I will request that you deal with them.”

“Anything for you, X,” I said. “How long will it take us to use the Archangel armor?”

“A… precise… estimate… is… difficult,” X-37 said, a slight pause between each word. A casual observer might not notice the difference in the cadence of X-37’s words, but I was finely tuned to every nuance of my limited artificial intelligence’s communication habits.

“We’ll find Necron’s signal relays,” I promised. “I just can’t do it right now. There’s this whole thing that we need to do about the Bold Freedom.”

“Are you insinuating that I forgot about the ship full of refugees?” X-37 asked.

“Would it hurt your feelings if I was?”

“We’ve discussed this at length, Reaper Cain. I do not have emotions,” X-37 said. “However, I find your propensity to reopen old arguments that have already been concluded to be a waste of time. Perhaps you might interpret this as a negative emotional response by me when I call attention to your human nature.”

“Human nature is not all bad,” I argued.

“Interesting,” X-37 said. “I’ve heard you complain about human nature many times. I will continue to work on access to the Archangel armor, but you won’t use them as simple instruments of war.”

“Are you telling me how to use armor and weapons?” I asked.

“I’m working on something, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “My analysis suggests it is the only way you can defeat the Archangels. They are the elite of the elite and outnumber you, in case you forgot.”

“I didn’t forget,” I grumbled. “If you’ve got a plan, I’m all ears.”

“That would be amusing if true, Reaper Cain. Fortunately, I understand the senseless things you say. Let’s just say my plan doesn’t involve a direct fight with the Archangels.”

“At least let me kill a few of them,” I joked.

“I will accommodate your request,” X-37 promised. “Would you like to proceed to the Archangel armory now or disembark for the Jellybird?”

I considered my options for a moment, then stalled. “Let’s find Elise and see if she’s ready.”

By the time I found her, I sensed the urgency of the Bold Freedom down into my cells. X-37 provided frequent updates on my heads up display, that portion of my vision where my cybernetics displayed digital information. The view-field actually projected out from my face to increase its size but was invisible to others—a neurological trick, an illusion I took for granted every time I looked at a message from my LAI.

At first glance, the display looked like we had plenty of time before the comet overtook their ship. What were twelve to eighteen hours in an emergency?

Perhaps I’d been on more desperate missions, but the consequences of making a mistake would cost thousands of lives this time.

“X, did you ever get a count on how many people are aboard the Bold Freedom?”

X-37 paused a second. “An exact measurement is impossible. They are working with a modified ship and a mismatched crew. They didn’t conduct a roll call before everybody fled Dreadmax, nor did they establish a proper ship’s roster.”

“Just give me an estimate, X,” I said.

“If they’ve converted most of their cargo bays into living quarters, there may be a thousand people on board,” X-37 advised. “This would explain why they are short of many types of supplies and tools. People are undoubtedly living in temporary shelters everywhere there is open space, including flight decks and storage bays.”

I stalked the hallway, deciding the Archangel armor had to wait. My combat instincts told me this was a mistake. If I ran into Nebs or some other hostile force, like scavengers, I would need the best weapons possible, or some way to put my enemies at a disadvantage.

The odds of our survival were getting worse and worse. I had more friends and allies than ever, but my enemies seemed to increase at an alarming rate.

I told X-37 as much.

“Be patient, Reaper Cain. Your assumptions are correct, but they are not the most important reason you must acquire access to the Archangel armor before your confrontation with Nebs,” X-37 said.

“You don’t know what you’re doing, X. Be honest with me.” The more cryptic he got, the less I liked it.

“When you need to know my plan, I will explain it in detail,” X-37 said.

“Promises, promises.” This wasn’t the time to push X, despite how distracted he seemed and how disjointed his strategies to defeat the vice admiral and his dark ops fleet appeared at the moment.

It was only a matter of time before Nebs and all the other people I had kicked off the Nightmare caught up and wanted payback. Upgraded armor would help me no matter what X-37’s super-secret plan was. I just needed time to steal it, equip it, learn how it worked, and teach my crew to use it.

“Cain for Elise, where are you?” I asked on the public channel.

“I’m waiting for you,” she said with her normal attitude.

“It would be helpful if I knew where that was.” I really wished I had time to smoke a Starbrand and throw back a couple glasses of whiskey.

“We agreed that figuring out the Archangel armor was important,” Elise began.

“Listen, kid,” I started to say.

“X-37 knows I’m right,” she interrupted.

“We all agree that in a perfect world we would be decked out in the Union’s finest killing regalia—but the Archangel armor won’t be like throwing on a tactical vest and test-firing some new guns. Trust me on this one.”

“Reaper Cain is correct. I should mention, however, that the armor is capable of extravehicular activity, while still being true combat armor,” X-37 said. “Adding that feature to your equipment would be beneficial in almost all circumstances. Additionally, once I manage to manipulate certain subroutines of the Nightmare and other stealth carriers, the armor will provide substantial infiltration options.”

“Thanks, X,” I said. “But I’m trying to save a thousand people. They don’t have time for me to wait on stuff that nearly killed me the last time I tried to even look at it.”

“You made this prior attempt without my assistance,” X-37 pointed out.

“X is right,” Elise agreed.

I stopped in the middle of the hallway, wishing I could face either of them directly. “I promise you I want to use the Archangel armor as much as anyone. But right now, we need to get to the Bold Freedom and fuel it up. Twelve to eighteen hours may seem like a long time, but we don’t know how efficient the fuel transport mechanisms are or how long it will take to get their engines up and running.”

“Whatever,” Elise snorted, sounding like she didn’t want to admit I was right.

“Reaper Cain is probably correct,” X-37 said.

“Finally,” I said.

“As unlikely as that seems,” X-37 finished on top of my words.

Elise laughed, reminding me how young she was.

I started walking but heard something on the line that made me brace for another of Elise’s underhanded arguments.

“All right, Reaper,” she said. “But you know I’m standing right outside of the Archangel armory and you have to pass this way to get to the shuttle bay.”

I expelled a series of choice words and swore X-37 was laughing at me. Maybe I was projecting emotions onto my LAI again, but maybe not. Our relationship was complicated.

“Locke, can you take Horvath to the shuttle bay and make sure it’s ready for us?”

“Right away, Reaper Cain,” Locke said. “We’re on it. The transfer shuttle will be ready and waiting when you arrive.”

I stomped toward the entrance to the Archangel armory. I wasn’t excited about trying to force my way in again. The last time, I had done it without X-37’s help and been shocked until I wanted to puke all over myself. When I replayed the memory, I still saw stars.

“You know our gear is the best we’ve ever fought with,” I said to Elise as I approached her. She was at the far end of the hallway and still listening to me through comms rather than face-to-face.

I saw her touch the side of her earpiece to transmit. “Yeah, it’s good stuff. But I want the best.”

I crossed the distance between us and stopped to stare at the door. “We don’t have time for this.”

“Are you scared?” Elise asked with a mischievous smile.

“Terrified,” I said. “X, can you open this?”

“I cannot, Reaper Cain. You must use your override protocols. I will help guide you and hopefully prevent you from the Nightmare’s counter-theft mechanisms.”

“Great,” I said. Feigning confidence, I placed my cybernetic left palm against the frame of the blast door. The micro cables snaked out of my hand, working their way into cracks almost too small to see between the pieces of the doorframe.

“Steady as you go,” X-37 said. “I am analyzing your past effort and the circuitry that we are now weaving our way through.”

“Do you remember when I told you how sensitive these wires are?” I asked Elise.

She nodded. “I hope you don’t get shocked again. That looked like it really hurt.”

I squirmed as I guided the wires through several complex twists and turns of the locking mechanism. “That’s not helpful.”

“Is there anything I could do that would be helpful?” she asked, probably knowing what my response would be.

“You could be quiet for five seconds,” I said.

“Okay, okay—I’ll try.” Elise paced the hallway. It almost seemed like she was worried about me.

“Good news, Reaper Cain,” X-37 announced.

I wrestled with the security measures of the Nightmare that were still active and was unable to see the details I needed. X-37 and I had been through a lot together. I trusted him. I really did, even when I was about to get shocked to hell and back.

“If you will hold still,” X-37 advised, “I can deactivate the door locks.”

I went as motionless as a sniper until X-37 told me it was safe. When I stepped back, the wires rolled into my cybernetic hand. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Elise giggled. “Were you worried?”

“Maybe just a little,” I answered, realizing that I was sweating from the intense concentration and anticipation of another round of shock therapy.

We entered the armory, and I reaffirmed my belief that we didn’t have time for this. There were rows of Archangel armor, most of it gleamed with a golden sheen. It didn’t look stealthy. The appearance of these units was a hint of how Vice Admiral Nebs viewed his private army.

“X, let’s make sure we get control of this area, and then we seriously need to head for the BF and do what we came to this fucked up system for.”

“Agreed, Reaper Cain. I am reprogramming all security systems for this area as we speak,” X-37 said. “Which will be part of my plan to partition the Archangels from your eventual showdown with Nebs.”

“Sounds badass, X. You’re the man,” I said, not really giving a shit right now. “Less talk and more action. We’ve got innocent lives to save.”

“And new gear.” Elise clapped her hands, bouncing on her toes as she looked over all the high-tech gear. “I can’t wait to try the stuff out. Let’s stick it to these Union assholes.”

“I’m glad you like it. Your enthusiasm is infectious,” I said. “Now let’s go save some Dreadmax refugees.”

“If you touch the suits, you die,” Necron boomed from the intercom.

“What the fuck?” Elise snarled, twisting in surprise.

I flinched, then drew my HDK Dominator around to the front of my armor. 

Elise and I turned back to the shimmering gear—ready for a fight, even though we realized who we were dealing with now—and hoped the AI couldn’t make the suits dance like metal and ceramic death zombies.

“Are you talking to me, Necron?” I demanded. “Because we already kicked your ass once. How long will it be before we find the rest of your weak spots and shut them down?”

Necron didn’t respond.

“What’s the matter, Necron?” Elise said, sauntering forward, her uniquely confrontational attitude on full display. “Reaper got your tongue?”

“You are in violation of ship law,” Necron said. “I will expel you and the rest of the non-Union personnel from the ship.”

“Why, so you can go back to being pushed around by Nebs?” Elise countered.

“If you are attempting to anger me further, I must remind you I was not programmed with the capacity for emotion,” Necron said. “You will immediately conform to ship law or you will be quarantined from all ship facilities and resources including access to food, water, and air.”

I crossed my arms and stared into the camera next to the speaker box Necron was using to threaten us.

“You have been warned,” Necron said.

“If you could kill us that way, you would’ve done it days ago,” I said.

X-37 spoke a private warning in my ear. “Necron has attempted to carry out this threat several times. I have barely been able to stop him. Please proceed with caution.”

“Why don’t we declare a truce?” I asked the Nightmare’s AI.

“You want to leave the ship to attend to the refueling of the Bold Freedom, an outlaw vessel wanted by the Union for immediate destruction,” Necron said. “When you leave, I will regain control of the Nightmare.”

“He has a point,” X-37 said. “I should also note that abandoning control of the ship to Necron will interfere with efforts I am making to stack the odds in your favor for your inevitable showdown with Nebs and his golden goons.”

“Golden goons, I like that,” I said.

“That designation does not fit with Union unit designations,” Necron complained.

“Give us some privacy, X,” I said.

“Necron has been blocked and will not be able to listen for several minutes,” X-37 informed.

“Get ahold of Henshaw and see if he can do something about this pain in the ass AI,” I ordered.

Several seconds passed. “I have contacted the Lady Faith,” X-37 said. “She is en route. Once she lands, she will be able to work with Henshaw to engage Necron and other nasty surprises waiting throughout the ship.”

“We might as well unpack the Archangel armor while we’re waiting,” I decided.

“I agree,” Elise said. “Let’s get some new gear!”

“I was being sarcastic, kid,” I grumbled. I should’ve known better than to give the girl an inch.

“This is premature,” X-37 said. “I advise you to wait patiently and stick to my plan—which I admit hasn’t been fully formed or even partially revealed to you.”

“You want us—of all the people on this ship—to wait patiently,” I said, waving one hand toward Elise. We exchanged a look of concern over my LAI’s disjointed strategy. I gave her a little shake of my head, indicating I was on top of the problem and would deal with my LAI as soon as I could.

“It is a bit of a stretch, I admit. If you disregard my advice, there will be severe consequences,” X-37 said.

“How long before the Bold Freedom is destroyed?” I asked.

“Ten to sixteen hours, plus or minus five,” X-37 said. “Captain Slipdriver and his crew are continuously working to increase the time they can stay ahead of the comet, but their engines are losing efficiency. If they attempt to move out of its course prematurely, they will be caught in its wake.”

“Great,” I said. “I guess I’ll just stand here smoking a cigar. You want one, kid?”

Elise made a face. “Gross. That is a disgusting habit.”

“You’re not wrong,” I said as I fired up a Gronic Fats with my last heat tab.

OceanofPDF.com

8

Neither of us stood around as I smoked my cigar. Images of Dreadmax coming apart filled my imagination. I vividly remembered Bug eating cheese crackers and encouraging me to stay ahead of Marley Callus and the other Union assholes as the prison station came apart.

“You do realize that getting Slipdriver and his people to safety is only the start of your problems?” X-37 asked. “I should also remind you to include an ignition source for your cigars in your kit.”

“Not super helpful, X,” I said, heading for the door. “Except for the part about bringing a lighter. That’s solid advice.”

Elise waved away the smoke from my stubby Gronic as we marched through the door, one rogue assassin and one escaped experiment from the Union. We headed for the shuttle bay as though we had ten minutes left to save the Bold Freedom rather than ten hours. For all I knew, it could be seconds. That was the way Reaper luck worked lately.

When we arrived, I saw Locke had a new volunteer. A Wallach woman stepped forward and presented her hand. “Name’s Carrie Decker. Specialist, 4th level.”

“Specialist of what?” I asked.

Elise interjected. “Rude.”

“We don’t have time for pleasantries,” I insisted, keeping my eyes on the newest member of my team.

She was middle-aged and fit. Her short-cropped hair was mostly blonde—okay, there was gray in it, a lot of gray—but I had no doubt she could do whatever a level four specialist did in the Wallach military.

Some steel color shot through her light blue eyes. I sensed a generally happy person who enjoyed hard work, protected those she cared about, and spoke her mind regardless of the consequences. By those standards, we should be natural allies, but I wasn’t sure which way our first encounter was going.

She studied me intensely. I doubted that she knew what a Reaper was, and whatever her assumptions of my character were, they were based on different information than anyone familiar with the Union.

“It’s fine,” Carrie said without submitting to my abruptness. “If the CSL trusts you, I trust you. But the chick is right. Your manners need work.”

I raised an eyebrow, wondering if this woman understood what kind of a mess she was getting into with a comment like that. It was a good time to remember the Wallach language wasn’t a flawless analog of my own dialect. “Perfect. What do you do? It might be important.”

“Specialist is a rank in the Wallach military. In my case, it means that I can get into small places to do dangerous jobs,” she said. “I’ve had advanced combat training, but it isn’t my normal assignment.”

“Welcome to the team,” I said. “Horvath, good to see you.”

The stocky man nodded. 

He looked better than the last time I had seen him, but still not perfectly composed. The man was grimly resigned to the loss of his friend. It was obvious he was serious about preventing anyone else from meeting a similar fate as his friend Gunner.

“Locke, this shuttle is already ten minutes late. What are we waiting for?” I demanded.

“We are ready when you are,” Locke replied, his manner professional.

“Thanks,” I said, then exhaled my cigar smoke away from him and the others. “Carrie’s a specialist, 4th level, and you’re General Karn’s CSL. Are we using ranks now? Do you miss being called by your rank?”

“I’ll get plenty of that when I’m back with the rest of my people from Wallach,” Locke said.

Specialist 4th level Carrie Decker approached Elise and shook her hand firmly. “Good to meet you. Elise, right?”

“Yeah, that’s me.” Elise kept one hand back from the grip. It was one of the paranoid mannerisms that I suspected had helped her escape from many people in the past.

Carrie didn’t release her grip. “Why so skittish?”

“I’m a kid,” Elise answered, twisting her hand free with one of Path’s more basic grip-defense techniques.

“You’re not a kid,” Carrie said, appearing to be impressed by the subtle sparring match Elise had just won.

I interrupted. “We need to get Henshaw on board and set up before we can leave the Nightmare.”

“That’ll put us significantly behind schedule,” Locke said. He updated his mission log on a handheld device that he then stuck back into his gear. It wasn’t as slick as anything I recognized from the Union, but the technology seemed reliable.

Elise softened toward our new teammate, although she didn’t get too close. “You haven’t experienced enough Union bullshit to really appreciate what a bunch of ass-faces they are. After they’ve screwed you over a few times and killed people you care about, you’ll know why I don’t trust anyone.”

“I believe you, Elise,” Carrie assured the girl. “I probably remind you of them. All business.”

“Sure, whatever. I trust Horvath,” Elise said, pointing at him. “And for the record, it’s not really cool to call me a chick.”

“Stop antagonizing our new friends. Let’s use the next few minutes wisely. What am I missing?” I asked.

“You don’t have a lighter or a heat tab,” Elise said, not missing a beat.

“Balls,” I muttered.

“Piss poor planning leads to…” Elise started.

“I get it, kid,” I said, not even hoping anyone else had a lighter or a creative way to fire up a cigar. None of them looked like smokers. Open flame could be a safety hazard in spaceships. It was an act of purest optimism to hope one of my people would toss me one.

“We might as well load up and get ready,” Elise suggested. “When Henshaw arrives, you can deal with him. Maybe he has a lighter and whatever else you forgot, Reaper.”

“I didn’t forget anything else,” I insisted. “X, help me out.”

“You failed to make me aware of what you intended to carry on this mission. Therefore, I can’t tell you what is or isn’t missing from your kit.”

“I’m dying here,” I groaned. “You people are killing me. I’m dead.”

“I’m not sure my grasp of their language is as good as I assumed,” Carrie said to Locke. “Is that sarcasm or part of a ritual phrase?”

“Just ignore the nonsense,” he advised. “And most of the profanity.”

“When you say it that way, it sounds ugly.” I moved to the landing area to await the arrival of the Lady Bird. I knew the yacht would fit. It had been parked here for a time after Nebs captured it.

The ocular engineer and former Union scientist wasn’t my favorite person. However, he was a brilliant scientist, difficult, and the only person who could keep Necron in check.

“Are you sure you trust Henshaw?” X-37 addressed me privately.

“There isn’t a choice,” I said. “We’ve been back-and-forth on this point, but I think he’s on our side now. If nothing else, Nebs is pissed off enough at him that he’s safer with us.”

“That wasn’t my exact analysis, but it is similar,” X-37 said.

“Have you heard from Jelly?” I asked.

“I have, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “She advises me that she will maintain her stealth cloak until we are ready to land our shuttle from the Nightmare in cargo bay four. It’s the only space left after converting other available space for hauling fuel. She also says it will be good to have you on the ship and she looks forward to offloading her cargo and saving your friends from prison.”

“She has jokes now?” I asked. “My friends from prison? Really? Maybe she means the innocent political prisoners we liberated from the Union?”

“Whatever you say, Reaper Cain,” X-37 responded. “There were no humor algorithms activated during Jelly’s communication. My analysis suggests she was only providing you information and reassurance.”

“In that case, I love it when a plan comes together,” I said.

“It would be inaccurate to say that we have even started to execute the plan,” X-37 said. “It may reassure you, however, that this mission is less likely to fail than seventy-three percent of the schemes you’ve hatched since leaving the Bluesphere Maximum Security Prison.”

“I’m so glad you’re back, X. What would I do without some voice in my head constantly busting my balls,” I mock complained.

Time dragged, grating on my nerves. The enormous distances we had to deal with in space made everything take forever until we got close—then it would all go sideways.

I longed to light up another cigar but didn’t think borrowing a cutting torch from one of the landing bay emergency lockers would put my team at ease.

It was a pretty freaking good idea, though. Nothing wrong with filing it for later.

The Lady Faith drifted perfectly into the landing bay and set down. The wait for Henshaw to exit was another fingernail-biting thirty seconds, not that I had ever chewed my nails. That was for losers who thought they were going to be able to quit smoking.

I’m not a quitter.

Henshaw eventually sauntered down the ramp, oblivious of our impatience. He was a scientist, not a special operations soldier on a mission. What was the man trying to prove?

“This guy,” I muttered.

He didn’t notice, and if he did, he ignored my impatience.

I couldn’t expect him to understand the urgency of our rapidly dwindling time window.

He stopped at the bottom of the ramp, brushing his gray hair back with a stylish flip. I didn’t think he was trying to remind me that he had two cybernetic eyes—but maybe he was. A casual observer who wasn’t looking closely might not see them until Henshaw came closer, but I noticed the differences immediately.

The coloring of his eyes was more uniform than a regular eye, as though the differences between the pupils and the sclera had been an afterthought. From time to time, a thin line of light circumvented his pupils in opposite directions.

I’d seen him dress in all manner of civilian clothing, including his most common style, which Elise called casual chic.

Today, he wore a perfectly tailored jumpsuit that somehow didn’t look like a jumpsuit. The fabric was better quality than anything I’d ever seen on a military vessel. The lines complemented his not terribly athletic physique. He was lean because he forgot to eat, not because he exercised or managed his nutritional intake.

“Did X brief the Lady Faith on what we need?” I asked.

“We’ve been discussing the issue,” Henshaw said. “I’ve actually been working on this exact problem for quite some time. As soon as I was certain we were going to come into conflict with Nebs, I began to work up countermeasures to deal with his artificial intelligence. The other two ships, interestingly, will have stronger AIs than his own flagship. The man doesn’t trust anyone or anything and has an ego that even you can’t match.”

I put both hands to my chest in mock surprise. “Me? An ego? You wound me.”

He shrugged without laughing. “Forgive me for my imprecision. You don’t so much display an attitude as you display a really bad attitude. There’s a difference.” 

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said. “How long do you need me to remain on the Nightmare for you to get started working against Necron?”

“I need very little from you, Reaper,” Henshaw said, reverting to what Elise called me. More and more often, I was just called Reaper—except for X-37 and other AI types. Even Tom slipped from time to time.

“Good,” I said. “It’d be a nice change not to be needed everywhere at once.”

Elise crossed her arms. My other companions seemed offended.

“What?” I demanded.

“It’s not all about you,” Elise said.

“Might be,” I fired back. We’d had this discussion more than a few times and I knew how to push her buttons.

In fact, there weren’t many people I couldn’t piss off in less time than it took me to light up a cigar—assuming I could locate a heating element or an old-fashioned lighter.

I was difficult that way. 

“I will remain on the Lady Faith and hack into the Nightmare’s systems from there,” Henshaw said, unaffected by my attitude or Elise’s attempts to correct it. “We might need to leave abruptly if things go wrong.”

“See that they don’t,” I instructed with all the diplomatic finesse of a flight line boss. “Elise, Decker, Horvath—let’s go.”

Before long, we were in the shuttle making final equipment checks.

* * *

Specialist Carrie Decker steered the shuttle with smooth professionalism. She reminded me of a commercial pilot, bored with something she had done hundreds or thousands of times. We headed toward the Jellybird, a short distance away.

“You fly well,” I told her.

“I’ve always been a pilot, regardless of my specialization level,” she said. “Have you always been some sort of intergalactic do-gooder?”

Elise let out an explosive laugh. I was able to restrain my own mirth, but barely. 

“What’s so funny?” Carrie asked.

“No one has ever accused me of being a do-gooder,” I explained.

“That doesn’t make much sense, judging from the work you did for us on Wallach. I wasn’t able to talk to anybody who went down after the beast in the power plant, but I heard stories,” she said.

“I’m good at killing things. The problem is, I worked for some bad people before I decided to break free,” I said.

“Well, that’s lucky for us, I suppose,” she said. “Will we be docking with your ship or is there a landing bay? Can you ask them to drop the stealth shield or guide us in?”

“X, can you work on that?” I asked.

“Jelly is taking control of the shuttle,” X-37 said. “She asked me to relay to our pilot that she apologizes for any inconvenience.”

Carrie pulled her hands back from the controls, surprised. “That wasn’t fun. Remote control of a ship is illegal on Wallach. Definitely a new experience for me.”

“Jelly wishes me to convey that she respects the policy of your people, but also says controlling remotely is sometimes necessary and can be done safely,” X-37 explained over the public communications speaker.

“I’ll survive,” Carrie said. “If that’s the biggest inconvenience we face during this trip, I’ll be delightable.”

“Delightable?” Elise asked.

Carrie furrowed her brow. “Happy? Is that the same word?”

“Close enough,” I said.

We waited as Jelly landed the shuttle then instructed us to wait for environmental controls to stabilize.

When it was safe, Elise, Locke, and I hurried toward the bridge of the Jellybird. Tom greeted us with a mixture of hugs and salutes.

The others were guided by the ship’s AI to their proper stations for the rest of the mission. Carrie and Horvath had key jobs, boring but very important in the transfer of fuel.

There wasn’t much time to reacquaint ourselves with the Jellybird, but the bridge felt like home. I smiled as I sat down in the pilot seat.

“Welcome back, Reaper Cain,” Jelly greeted. “I spoke with Lady. She is confident that with her and Henshaw aboard the Nightmare, they can keep the vindictive counterattacks of Necron to a very survivable minimum.”

“Thanks, Jelly. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about that scenario going badly.” Images of the stolen stealth carrier violently decompressing refused to leave my overactive imagination.

Elise was worried about the same thing. I saw it in her posture—the way she held her spine a little too straight. We had already lost Gunner during our attack on the AI’s first signal relay. Despite X-37’s constant assurances that the artificial intelligence of the stealth carrier was less robust than it should be, I respected the awesome power of any ship AI, especially one designed to run a capital warship of the union.

“Let’s get this fuel transfer done,” I said.

Jelly answered without hesitation. “Of course, Captain.”

“Are you ready, Tom?” I asked.

“Everything is set up, but I think you should be the one to run the controls. Your fine motor control is far superior to any of ours, with the only exception possibly being Elise.”

“Thanks, Tom,” she said. “It’s nice to be compared to a has-been cyborg assassin.”

“Watch it, kid,” I said. “If these remote controls are Union standard, they can be used by more than one person. Elise, let’s take adjoining workstations and team steer this one.”

“Okay, Reaper. You and me,” Elise agreed, already focusing on the job we had to do. The speed at which she could focus on a problem was almost disturbing.

I took some time to familiarize myself with the controls, as did Elise. I would run the robot arm, and she would shadow me, calling out mistakes or stepping in when I became fatigued.

“Tom, take a seat,” I said. “You’re making me nervous.”

He wasn’t, but I didn’t want my friend to feel obligated to stand. Nervousness was a rare trait for any Reaper and I was confident Elise and I were going to own this fuel transfer.

Tom assumed the captain’s chair and interfaced with the Jellybird.

“Jelly, let’s do it,” Tom said.

“We are closing the final distance now,” Jelly advised.

The space between our ships was small, but the trip seemed like it took hours. We monitored our holo displays and made small adjustments, ready with the robot to connect our storage bay to the refueling arm of the Bold Freedom.

“This thing is a piece of junk.” Elise wrinkled her nose in annoyance, watching as we passed one mismatched section after another.

“That tends to happen when you build something out of stolen spare parts,” I pointed out, barely speaking the words loud enough to hear.

“I remember how serious the ship engineers were on Dreadmax. They were always trying things out, making one part do ten jobs,” Elise said, eyes still on her work. “Feels like a hundred years ago.”

“I wonder how Path is doing with the prisoners,” I muttered without thinking about it. Guiding the refueling arm was intense work, but it left part of my mind to wander.

“I imagine they’ll be bowing and practicing self-defense drills in no time,” Tom said.

“Proximity warning, Captain,” Jelly warned.

I aimed the robotic arm and the fuel tube the last few centimeters, feeling like it was approaching way too fast. When it thunked into place and the locking mechanisms grabbed hold, I breathed a sigh of relief. Elise and the others did the same.

“The ship is stabilized against the side of the Bold Freedom,” Jelly said. “Now it’s just a matter of time to transfer the fuel.”

“Is there anything else we should be doing?” I asked.

“Without all the proper safety redundant back-ups in place, we really should have an EVA crew out there to make sure nothing breaks free,” Jelly said.

Jelly’s suggestion made sense. That didn’t mean anyone liked it. I could tell that Elise was bracing herself for another mission. She did well on the last one but would never love them. My fear of heights was worse than my fear of the void, despite how sometimes they felt very similar in the way of anxiety-producing disasters waiting to happen. I didn’t want to ask Locke or Horvath either, but Locke was listening in on the conversation.

“I’ll go,” Locke offered.

Specialist Carrie Decker’s voice came on the line. “I’m the highest rated EVA technician you have right now. I’ll go. I can probably do it by myself.”

“Negative,” Locke said.

Horvath came on the line. “I’ll go with Decker.” His voice was full of determination.

There was a moment of silence.

Locke cursed uncharacteristically, and when he spoke loud enough to be heard, his words were rough. “Are you sure, Horvath? I need you at your best.”

“But we will,” Horvath said. “I know what Gunner would do in this situation.”

“He’d tell you to stay inside before you hurt someone,” Decker said.

Horvath grunted a short laugh. “Yeah, he most assuredly would say that. But I need to do this or I’ll never be able to go on another EVA mission again.”

“Very well,” Locke said. “Meet at the airlock and advise when you’re ready. I’ll monitor your progress from here.”

Elise and I exchanged a look.

“I bet you’re glad they’re going instead of us,” Elise whispered.

“I’m an assassin, not a liar, “ I said, making Elise chuckle.

Elise winked. “At least you’ll admit it. I’d rather get in a gun battle with Archangels than go out there again.”

“Agreed,” I said.

Before long, we were watching Horvath and Carrie Decker take positions. They connected several safety mechanisms manually and adjusted connection points we hadn’t been able to reach with the robot arm. Before long, even I felt more secure about the refueling operation.

I faced Locke. “Your soldiers are top notch.”

Locke raised his chin. “Thanks, Reaper.”

“We have an update from Henshaw and Lady,” X-37 advised me.

“Great. Any progress?” I asked.

“Not precisely, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “It seems that Necron is no longer attempting to quarantine our presence on the ship.”

“What’s the punchline, X?”

“The Nightmare’s AI wishes to destroy us completely. I have been particularly marked for annihilation,” my LAI explained.

“How do you feel about that, X?” I asked.

“I feel nothing,” X-37 replied.

“Dishonesty detected,” I shot back.

“That’s my line,” X-37 said.

If I didn’t know better, I would have almost thought my digital friend was pleased by the banter.

We continued to monitor the refueling of the Bold Freedom and communicate with Captain Slipdriver. Each time he opened the channel, I heard his excited crew in the background. Some of them had probably started to doubt they would ever escape the comet, but now it was happening.

OceanofPDF.com

9

The Bold Freedom struggled, engines flaring like a row of miniature blue stars. The ship clawed its way clear of the comet’s trajectory. From an intergalactic viewpoint, the comet wasn’t fast. It took years to circumvent the system. There was only a problem when a ship was caught in its path with nothing stronger than course correction boosters. Basically, the BF had been operating on little more than steering jets for the last several weeks.

My crewmates cheered as we watched from the Jellybird.

“Your biometrics are confusing, Reaper Cain,” X-37 observed. “My analysis suggests that it would not be inappropriate for you to show your feelings. The situation seems to call for celebration.”

“I get it, X. Everyone’s having a ball.” It was impossible to tell my limited artificial intelligence what was bothering me. Sure, I was ecstatic to see thousands of innocent refugees escape certain death. I hadn’t been able to find Bug among these people, but I thought I would—and if not, that just meant he was in a better place. Or at least some Deadlands shithole where he would thrive with skills he had learned on Dreadmax.

The real problem was knowledge and experience. I was a Reaper plagued with Reaper thoughts. How long would it be before disaster struck? I could feel the Union stealth carriers hunting us. Nebs wasn’t a man who’d quit hunting his enemies.

“What are you so pissed off about?” Elise was almost laughing at me. “We’ve won. Compared to some of our other missions, this was easy.”

I ignored her. “X, what are your predictions for Nebs and the other two stealth carriers?”

Elise, Tom, and Locke went silent, still basking in the after-effects of their sudden happiness but also aware of what had to be coming next. Novasdaughter was still part of our conversation via her link on the Nightmare’s bridge. The comms were clearer than ever with Henshaw and Lady running things over there.

“By my analysis,” X-37 advised, “Nebs and his Union lackeys are overdue to arrive in this system. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if they were already preparing to kill us.”

I faced Locke and the others with a knowing look. “There you have it, my limited artificial intelligence at his cheerful optimistic best.”

“I aim to please,” X-37 said. “Would you prefer I fabricate less dire warnings in order to spare your human feelings?”

“No, X, you be you,” I said. “Just kick me in the balls every chance you get.”

“I am reestablishing our defensive patrol,” Novasdaughter said from the Nightmare.

“We should be able to maintain our stealth cloak without difficulty,” Henshaw added, his image off-screen.

Elise scanned the area for threats.

It wasn’t long before we were all working diligently, almost like we had done this before. I lowered the volume on the feed to the Bold Freedom’s bridge, where people were celebrating as though they were partying in the good parts of Roxo III before that place slid down the cosmic super drain.

“We are detecting two slip tunnel openings,” Elise advised.

“Confirmation,” Novasdaughter said. “Two large capital warships are emerging in standard Union formation. They seem to be the same class in basic weight displacement as the Nightmare.”

“Do you recognize them?” I asked.

“We should recognize them from their slipdrive codes, but they’ve been tampered with or wiped, it’s hard to be sure exactly what they did after we stole this ship. Whoever modified the stealth features on the other two did a good job,” Novasdaughter said, drawing on her operational experience in Neb’s stealth carrier group as a micro-fighter pilot.

“Understood,” I said. 

“The dimensions and power readings match,” Novasdaughter advised.

I reviewed the data and disagreed. “They’re smaller. Why is that?”

“Nebs had a hand in planning and development. He won’t allow anyone to possess something more powerful than his own toys,” Novasdaughter said. “You should know that, Reaper.”

“Yeah, I get it. He’s a self-aggrandizing prick,” I said. Nebs’ ships appeared to us because we knew what to look for. It was more of the fact that the slip tunnel opened for no reason and then closed almost immediately. “X, can you project their vectors based on our prior encounters with this Union stealth carrier group?”

“I am working on that. As are Jelly and the rest of your crew. My recommendation is to keep our predictions separate until we are ready to compare them. Then we’ll see which is the best,” X-37 said.

“It’s not a competition, X.” I laughed and drew a cigar from a pocket.

“Plotting possible patrol vectors now,” X-37 advised. “Based on my knowledge of Vice Admiral Nebs, I estimate it won’t take long for him to close in around us. His two remaining stealth carriers will move into optimal positions and then launch micro-fighters.”

“That was my guess,” I said. “Novasdaughter, does that sound about right?”

She nodded from the pilot’s chair of the Nightmare. “I’m ready to upload my estimates for comparison. Your man Henshaw also looked over it but said nothing. He’s strange and I’m saying that while fully aware he is watching and listening to me.”

“I’m also ready,” Elise said.

I hit a button and sent all of them onto the main holo for comparison. There were some differences, most of them suggesting I was the odd man out.

We stared at the multiple course predictions, each illustrated in a different colored line.

“I guess the question is whether we are correct and Reaper Cain is wrong,” X-37 said. “There is the possibility that his devious nature gives him insights that each of us, human and machine, lack.”

“Thanks, X. You make me sound like a psycho,” I said.

“No comment,” X-37 said.

I noticed three shuttles launching from the Bold Freedom the moment it was clear of the comet’s wake and associated cosmic disturbance. “What are those junkers doing?”

“One of them is heading our way,” Elise noted. “The other two appear to be heading for debris fields. I am hailing the BF now.”

I waited until Slipdriver was in view. “We have hostile warships in this system. Now isn’t the time for joyriding or celebration. What are those three ships doing?”

The tone of the bridge crew on the Bold Freedom changed. There was still far too much noise, but they seemed hard at work to decipher what the slip openings meant for their continued survival.

Captain Slipdriver-Slandonsky talked as he typed. “One shuttle is heading for you—a gift of appreciation since you’re short of shuttles. The other two are responding to distress calls we haven’t been able to handle until now. There’s a very low chance of survivability for the people who asked for our assistance, but we must do what we can.”

“Recall your ships,” I said.

Slipdriver nodded. “I’m afraid you’re right. I don’t know what you got us into, but this smells like a Union trap. And I’ve been in a few of them.”

Both stealth carriers popped into view where Elise and the others predicted they would be. I shoved aside my pride. I’d been plain wrong. Missiles ripped free of the stealth carriers then arced toward the Bold Freedom and each of the three shuttles.

“Activate shields, Slipdriver,” I barked. His holo feed blinked out, but not before I heard warning klaxons and then saw the ship taking evasive maneuvers. It was like watching a giant sea creature lumber out of the shallows in search of deeper water.

The three shuttles turned and headed off at different angles.

“They’ll never make it,” Novasdaughter said.

I didn’t argue with her, and neither did Elise. The missiles moved at four or five times the speed of the shuttles and were gaining fast. 

“Jelly, hail the Union stealth carriers,” I ordered.

“They’ve dropped back into stealth mode after firing. I cannot advise this course of action. It will reveal our position beyond any doubt,” Jelly said, her voice stern.

“Jelly, I have to do something right now!”

“My analysis suggests that there is no direct action you can take, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“Fuck it! I’ll just have to use my words, won’t I?” I snapped at my limited artificial intelligence and anyone who cared to listen.

“Are you sure, Captain?” Jelly asked. “Your record for diplomacy is spotty.”

The bridge went so silent that I thought I could hear the cold darkness of space causing the hull to creak around us. I’d been told during my training that this was a trick of the mind and was impossible. And yet here we were, listening to the most ominous sounds imaginable while traveling the void.

“Open a channel. Everyone work on our escape and evasion options. This will get nasty. We’ll make a run for it as soon as we drop back into stealth mode,” I said.

“I am hailing the UFS Dark Lance now,” Jelly advised.

“Halek Cain,” came a deep, gruff voice I recognized.

“What’s up, Nebs?” I knew my disrespectful tone would infuriate the man.

To my surprise, he held himself in check, clenching his fist rather than punch something. “You really do have a death wish, don’t you?” he asked. “I will give you one chance to surrender. At this point in our relationship, that is a mere formality. We both know how this will go.”

I stretched out the moment as long as possible, stalling for time. The slightest mistake would end badly for everyone. I needed time to think, and this was one of those moments where self-restraint was probably the best course.

We had already lost three shuttles. I saw Elise gesturing that the Bold Freedom was heading toward safety, using whatever debris they could read for cover. It was difficult not to stare at the holo displays. I thought the ship could make it into a debris field, where it had a chance to hide or at least slow pursuit, but I couldn’t be sure. There was a real chance the two stealth carriers would destroy it.

“I’ve been shot, stabbed, burned, and left for dead so many times, it’s hard for me to keep all the details straight,” I said. “So if you’re going to threaten me, save your breath.”

Nebs stared into the holo view. “Surely you understand things are different this time. I had a long, interesting talk with my advisers about your strange connection with these murderous traitors. They hijacked that monstrosity of a junk hauler, betrayed the Union and now you’re here to help them escape the consequences of their actions.”

“The people on that ship are innocent,” I insisted.

“Let’s agree to disagree,” he said. “My records show every one of them is guilty of a capital crime.”

I snapped my next response. “Like the children born on Dreadmax? I bet you didn’t factor them in. Or maybe you did, you sick son-of-a-bitch.”

“Listen, Cain. You’re pissing me off. Surrender now and I’ll only punish you, your X-37 unit, and the girl,” he said.

“No deal. What the hell is wrong with you? That’s your idea of negotiating?”

“Then everyone dies,” Nebs said. “The only question is when and how. You could’ve stopped this. You might’ve saved thousands of lives, but you’re just a murdering assassin after all.”

“You started the Reaper Corps. You made me what I am. And that’s going to cost you,” I said, then reached forward to end the call.

“I ordered the hit on your father. Felt good about it. He was another traitor to the Union,” Nebs said, leaning into the holo view. “Just another coward who wouldn’t follow orders.”

My blood ran cold.

“Surrender now and I’ll tell you where we put your mother,” Nebs promised.

Elise slammed both fists on her workstation, vaulting to her feet to shout at the man. “I’ll kill you myself, you worthless piece of—“

I terminated the conversation with Nebs before Elise could spin up into a rage-inspired fury and do something even I would consider reckless.

OceanofPDF.com

10

“He’s trying to bait us, draw us into making a stupid mistake,” I said.

“And it’s working, Reaper Cain,” X-37 advised privately. “Your current biometrics match similar readings from previous incidents of murderous rage.”

I ignored my LAI. My vision pulsed in time with my heartbeat. I clenched my fists—real and cybernetic—hard enough to hurt.

My young kinda sorta protege was having her own reaction and less success controlling it.

Nostrils flaring, gaze locked on the man ready to send an army after us, Elise rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “Then he’ll get more than he bargained for. Give me a suit of Archangel armor and I’ll smack him around like we did that centipede monster on Wallach. Nebs is scared, I can hear it in his voice. Loudmouthed son-of-a-razor beast.”

The man wasn’t the least bit afraid of us, and as for the Archangel gear, I’d been through the same thing where a shiny new tool seemed like the greatest thing since the invention of the slip drive. I knew she understood the obvious problem with the logic, but she wanted new toys and she wanted them now. I kind of did too, but we needed to get real.

“Alright, Locke, what’s your opinion? Do you think Nebs is scared of us?” I asked, calming my anger with each breathing cycle.

The Chief Squad Leader of General Karn’s army took his time answering. I respected him for that. Nothing I’d seen since we met gave me any reason to doubt he deserved his rank as the highest and most qualified team leader of Wallach. He wasn’t the type to be baited or rush to failure.

“I’ve seen enough of you and Elise to be impressed. I don’t know that much about the Archangels, but I know that they have to be good. Even if you have the same gear, you’ll be outnumbered.”

“I know that,” Elise complained. “But are you seriously telling me we’d be better off with our old armor and weapons? This guy needs a kick in the dick!”

“The first problem is time. The second problem is all the things that will go wrong when we start training with completely new gear.” I hesitated, not sure how far I should take my negativity. I needed to lay out the stakes, not crush their spirits.

Elise raised an eyebrow that suggested she wanted to say “We’re waiting.”

“Let me lay it out like this,” I said. “We still have to deal with the artificial intelligence running the Nightmare. Necron is weak but still dangerous. Best case scenario, we convert the AI to our cause. Even then, we still have to defeat Nebs, who has his own limited artificial intelligence, possibly in some sort of dual or quad LAI that has specifically built itself up to deal with Reapers like me.”

“There are no other Reapers like you,” X-37 said privately. “That’s not actually a compliment, in case you were wondering. Please consider it more of a warning that you’re pretty broken down at this late stage in the game.”

“Not helpful, X,” I grumbled, then resumed my lecture. “We have to defeat the rest of the carrier group, including the micro-fighters and two stealth carriers. All of that we have to do while not getting destroyed by the unknowns of the system, including scavengers who I don’t trust. They may have a superweapon out there that may or may not work. Something destroyed all the ships in the system. And, to top things off, we have to avoid the comet.”

“Anything else?” Elise asked.

“I still don’t have a lighter,” I said.

“You’re such a dork,” she said, shaking her head. “And not in a good way.”

Elise and the others went back to work. We all had jobs, even if we disagreed about our larger strategy. Henshaw and the AI of his ship, the Lady Faith, were able to neutralize Necron for the time being. That made the situation on the Nightmare a standoff. Not great, but not a total disaster.

The Bold Freedom worked its way deeper into the debris field, always attempting to move as close as possible to a slip tunnel without exposing itself to attack from the stealth ships.

I stayed on the Jellybird with Elise and everyone who had helped refuel the Bold Freedom. For now, the ship stealth mode was equal to the two union carriers hunting us. From time to time, Nebs taunted me. Elise had standing orders not to answer without consulting me.

“We’re receiving another hail from the Dark Lance,” Elise announced. “How do you want to proceed? This is the eighteenth attempt they’ve made since you oh so maturely hung up on Nebs.”

“I need to move forward on my plan,” X-37 said to me privately.

“What you have in mind, X,” My LAI was good, but I needed to know more.

“The plan is to insert small snippets of code into the maintenance routines of all Union ships in Nebs’s fleet. If it works, it will make getting access to the ships much easier when the time comes,” X-37 said. “To implement this strategy, I will need a periodic connection via their ship-to-ship communications systems.”

“I’m down with that,” I said. “Elise, put Nebs on the holo.”

“Do not terminate this connection without my permission,” Nebs blurted the moment we connected. Red-faced and blustering, he was already pissing me off. Screw this guy.

I raised one hand to kill the link.

“I need you to talk to him for at least a little while,” X-37 advised before I could complete the action. “It will actually be easier while the two of you are arguing and insulting each other.”

“Okay, Junior Admiral Nebs. Anything for you,” I said, meaning anything for X. 

“That isn’t even a real rank,” Nebs practically snarled. “If you’re going to insult me, do it like a man, not with these childish jabs. Turn over the girl before this gets ugly. Surrender your ship and your crew immediately.”

“I’m not surrendering anyone to your custody. And I’m not going to stop believing you’re a washed out has-been who can’t compete in regular Union politics,” I goaded.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Nebs’s anger was slowly giving way to caution.

Good job, asshat. You’re learning.

“Why else would you be this far out just to bully refugees as helpless as little kids?” I asked.

“We’ve been through that,” he shot back. “None of these people are innocent. If they were, they would just surrender and face justice…”

“You’re a real piece of work,” I interrupted.

“… just like these feral scavengers hopping around these debris clouds,” Nebs presumed.

“Why don’t you leave them out of it,” I said. “You’ve already shot down at least one of their shuttles without provocation. That’s a war crime, in case you forgot.”

“Please! You’re going to lecture me about the ethics of war?” Nebs countered. “Remember that woman you threw off the bridge, Novasdaughter’s mother?”

“Hey, you’re a murdering psychopath. Don’t try to switch it around just because I’m a Reaper. Not even the Union would allow you to wage your own private war on civilians,” I challenged. “That’s what cowardly junior admirals do.”

“You have no idea what the Union would authorize. It’s your fault these people are involved. Their blood is on your hands,” Nebs said, then gave a hand signal to someone off-screen.

Rockets swarmed from the UFS Dark Lance, tearing into three distinct debris fields. Modified shuttles and escape pods exited from the chaos, only to drift into the void without hope of rescue.

“You can’t do that. What the actual fuck, you lunatic!”

“I have actionable intelligence they are hiding a secret weapon to be used against the Union during a lawful expedition,” Nebs said. “Don’t be naïve, Cain. These people are obviously pirates. Are you not seeing what’s happening in this system? All of these fleets fell victim to their ambushes. Take a look at the planets in this system. Why do you think they live in debris clouds instead of the two planets in the green zone? You’re a fool if you think they’re your friends.” 

I cursed and made threats, but none of it stopped the saturation bombing of the scavengers’ pathetic homes. Small explosions grew. With no atmosphere to slow the expanding debris clouds, the effect was spectacular—dozens of explosions expanding thousands of meters in the blink of an eye.

In time, the system would be filled with detritus moving in all directions, crossing paths and colliding violently until gravity wells of planets stabilized their courses. In the most extreme instances, this would take years or decades. Other debris fields were much closer together and were already exploding with chaos.

“Jelly, shields,” I ordered.

“Right away, Captain,” Jelly said.

Moments later, detritus from the unprovoked attack peppered our shields despite our stand-off distance from the incident.

“Are you crying, Reaper?” Nebs mocked.

From the corner of my vision, I saw Elise snap her gaze toward me. She said nothing, but I noticed how hard her youthful visage had become the moment Nebs began the mass murder of innocent bystanders.

“Like I said, Reaper. This is your fault.” The fake, patronizing smile he’d adopted slid from his expression to reveal what kind of man he was—hard and soulless. “If you think that was bad, wait until I get my hands on the Bold Freedom.”

OceanofPDF.com

11

I stared at expanding clouds of debris. It was like Nebs had stirred the entire system, sending pieces of old ships on journeys that would last hundreds of years. Chaos like I’d never seen blossomed as we watched.

Stunned into silence, Elise summarized our entire situation with one of her amazingly juvenile—but poignantly accurate—observations. “This guy is such an asshole.”

“News of this will cause all of Wallach to mourn, even though these people are strangers to us,” Locke said softly.

“Jelly, X, search for survivors and distress calls. We’ve got work to do,” I ordered.

“Rescue attempts will be difficult with the Union hunting you and killing people indiscriminately,” X-37 said.

I was too tired and heartbroken to say something shitty. “I know, X, but we’ll do what we can.”

“There are twenty-seven distinct crises we might affect positively,” X-37 said.

“Pick one,” I grunted, swiping through data that made me angrier and angrier. The scavengers had hidden themselves well and there were a lot more of them than I would’ve guessed. I saw a destroyed greenhouse, a broken shipyard, and modular habits gone dark.

“Would you like me to mute the distress calls?” X-37 addressed me privately. “Your biometrics indicate you are quite disturbed. I wouldn’t ask, but your heart rate and blood pressure are reaching a level that will affect your performance and possibly your health.”

I looked at my companions and saw they were also disturbed by the screams for help of men, women, and children. The worst were the ones that cut off suddenly when their ships or life pods violently decompressed from accumulated damage.

A small piece of a ship that was moving very fast from one of the explosions zipped through a larger container. I had assumed the dark hulk was without power but it now appeared to be the home for hundreds of people in some sort of secret, long-term life module. Debris and bodies streamed out of a hole caused by the collision.

“Just lower the volume and try to filter the most relevant information,” I said. “Elise, I want you monitoring Union search and destroy efforts. Locke, keep your eye on the big picture and strategy issues.”

“Did you miss the part of my title that indicates I am a squad leader and not a strategist?” Locke asked, a trace of grim battlefield humor lightening the mood just enough to keep us all going.

“Right, Locke. You’re just a simple soldier and not one of the premier professionals of Wallach,” I said.

A few minutes later, we were all busy trying to keep ourselves alive and save others.

“We are approaching the first distress call,” Jelly said. “A small ship identifying itself as the Badger, whatever that is, as a hull breach that can only be fixed from the outside. They don’t have EVA capabilities.”

I addressed my entire team, not just those on the bridge of the Jellybird with me. “Horvath and Carrie, you’re up. Time to take care of business.”

Carrie responded, sounding like she was suited up and ready to go. “We’re in the airlock and just need the vector and closing speed calculations. Horvath and I have been monitoring this one and think it should be a straightforward fix as long as we don’t take a rocket to the face.”

“I’m sending the information to your HUD displays now,” Jelly said.

I watched and listened, but also scanned for Union ships and other distress beacons.

“There is something else,” Horvath said, his voice husky.

I thought he sounded like a man bringing up something personal before battle knowing it wasn’t the time and place but unable to resist the impulse.

“I located Gunner’s beacon,” he said. “It’s easy to pick out from all the rest. It shows up as a yellow dot on my HUD when everything else is red, green, or orange.”

“Focus on the living, Horvath. We’ll do what we can for him when we can,” Locke instructed.

The Chief Squad Leader of Wallach had just taken the words right out of my mouth. I looked for the next crisis and a solution, hoping Horvath would be okay on the spacewalk and that he would eventually get the body of his friend back for Gunner’s family.

It wasn’t long before Horvath and Carrie were gliding toward the exterior of the damaged vessel, each of them carrying a large backpack of tools. They didn’t talk any more than they needed to, going directly to the problem and beginning repairs like they had worked together for years.

“Hells,” Horvath grunted.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Gunner’s beacon just went dark. It was floating through a cluster of small ships that weren’t sending distress signals. These damned scavengers picked up his body,” Horvath said.

“Concentrate on your mission,” Locke interjected. “We’ll investigate later. Don’t jump to conclusions.”

I pulled Locke into a private channel. “What’s the problem?”

“I caught Horvath and some others in a chat room speculating that all the scavengers had to be cannibals. That’s what is really bothering him. Losing Gunner to the void is one thing. The thought of his body being eaten is another.”

“That’s a lot of assuming on not much information,” I said.

“Is it? What do they eat in these debris fields?” Locke asked. “I’ll handle Horvath. Just be aware of where his head is pointed.”

“Where his head is at,” I corrected, then regretted it. Our languages were very similar but didn’t always match up.

“How are you doing, Horvath?” Locke asked.

“Almost done with the repairs,” Carrie Decker answered for him.

“Good,” Locke said.

“Yes, we are almost done sealing the hull,” Horvath muttered, his voice affected by the labor he was performing. “No cannibals will die today.”

I watched as Carrie screamed when an air leak blasted between her hands, knocking her free of the surface. Horvath jumped after her, his safety line spooling out behind him. My heart pounded as I watched him grab hold of the Specialist, 4th Level. Soon they were towing themselves back to the surface to finish repairing the hull breach, both of them laughing nervously.

“Do you need more hands?” I asked. “Elise looks like she’s dying to help with your little space walk.”

Elise shot me a look. “I’m searching for Union ships trying to kill us. No time for that nonsense.”

“We don’t need her,” Horvath said, oblivious to our banter. “Someone is coming from one of the scavenger light vessels. Please shoot him if he tries to eat my face.”

Jelly and X continued to locate and organize other calls for help. I watched the scene unfolding with the newcomer.

“He’s not even using a safety line,” Elise breathed. “That’s crazy.”

“Focus on your job,” I said.

“For once, I’ll be glad to do what you tell me,” Elise responded.

I watched and listened for about three seconds before I stood and headed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Locke asked.

“I’m gearing up in case something goes wrong. This scavenger is more than he, or she, seems,” I explained. “X, keep me in the audio feed.”

“Certainly, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“How can you know that?” Locke asked.

“I don’t know anything. I just want to be ready. The scavenger looks too confident. Can’t explain it. Instinct,” I said.

“Would you like to communicate with this person?” Jelly said. “I have been able to monitor some of their radio communications and believe you can speak with them if you are patient and use simple words.”

“Let me get my EVA gear on, then patch me through. I want to be ready to kick some ass if needed,” I said.

“Violence isn’t always the answer, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“But it is sometimes,” I countered.

Before long, I was in the airlock wearing everything but my EVA helmet. “All right, Jelly. Let me have a word with this hero character.”

Static hissed and popped in my ear.

“Damn, Jelly, I said patch me through, not blow out my eardrums.” I put a hand to my ears like that would help, or maybe like I thought I would need to hold my brains in.

“That is the best connection we are able to make. Their technology is more advanced than ours in many ways, but shows signs of excessive repair and modification. Not the best communication gear, I’m afraid.”

“I pretend… uh, imagine… you are another of the angelic saviors,” the scavenger said. “If you are not, I will kill you for my people.”

“No need to pretend. I’m one of the good guys. Who the hell are you?” I demanded.

“I am number one,” the man said, his voice an interesting amalgamation of dignified and—for lack of a better term—street savvy. “Or maybe you would say I am The Number One.”

“You’re an officer, a leader?” I asked.

“Yes,” the man said. “The name of my parents is Rejon. My friends call me Brion Rejon, The Number One.”

“Your friends need to work on a nickname for you, maybe something that suggests you’re too stupid to use a safety line or work with a team,” I said. “Let’s get this ship fixed and get on with helping everyone else.”

He ignored my casual, completely inappropriate banter and focused on the last part of my statement. His body language was the first clue—two starts and stops as though he was reconsidering coming here, then his voice confirmed his indecision, his words sounding skeptical. “You think you can help everyone?”

“No, but I’m going to try,” I said.

A pause followed.

Horvath and Carrie Decker reported they were making progress and would soon be en route to the ship, but there was a problem.

“Is the scavenger giving you trouble?” I asked, still watching from the airlock viewscreen but ready to rush to their aid. “What’s he saying? I can’t hear your conversation.”

“He insists on meeting you in person,” Carrie said.

* * *

Brion Rejon ducked through the airlock door, unclasping his helmet the second it was safe. This was a man accustomed to operating in the void.

“Complacency kills,” I said.

He held my gaze, swaggering toward me without fear. “Is that how you greet everyone or are you disrespecting me in particular?”

“I’m a Reaper,” I said.

“I don’t know what that means,” he answered.

I clipped my EVA helmet to my belt, deciding I probably wouldn’t need it and it would be better to have my hands free. “It means I kill people.”

“Am I supposed to be afraid?” he asked.

“Either you are or you aren’t,” I said. “It doesn’t matter to me. The Union is trying to eliminate both of us. So maybe we should at least act like we’re on the same side for now.”

“I appreciate your help,” Rejon said. “The strange warships are murderous void monsters.”

The way he spoke, that sounded like a serious insult.

“You must understand,” he continued. “My people have been here a long time and have been raided many times. You are as likely to be pirates as saviors.”

“What do you think, X?” I asked.

Again, I was forced to scrutinize the man’s body language and behavior. He wasn’t forthcoming with explanations, but it was clear that a man talking to himself made him cautious. Meanwhile, my limited artificial intelligence answered me.

“I have insufficient data,” X-37 responded. “I’ve taken the liberty of contacting Max Slipdriver-Slandonsky of the Bold Freedom. He is quite concerned with your situation.”

“What can you tell me about the scavengers? Does Rejon know who their leader is?” I asked.

“We have many leaders,” Rejon commented. “Are you consulting with a neural implant?”

“Is that a problem?” I asked.

Rejon shrugged. “No problem.”

“I resent being called an implant,” X-37 declared.

“Forget about it, X. He doesn’t even know what an LAI is. We’re wasting time with small talk. I just need to confirm that Rejon is a decision maker I can negotiate with.”

Slipdriver joined the conversation, but his voice was scratchy and out of sync. The delay was distracting.

“I don’t know if you caught everything I said, but the man you are speaking with is their leader or at least a primary leader,” Slipdriver said. “If that’s all you need, I need to get back to my own rescue operations.”

Rejon crossed his arms and stared at me, unable to hear half of my conversation. “Who are you talking to and what are they saying?”

“I’m being told that you are the leader of the scavengers, more or less, and that we need to work together to defeat our common enemy,” I said.

“We are not mere scavengers,” Rejon said. “This is not the first time we have faced annihilation. We will work with you for now and possibly kill you in the morning.”

I took a cigar from inside my gear but held it in my right hand, not sure if I had anything to light it with. Staring at him, I wasn’t sure if he was screwing up the language, threatening me, or making a joke.

“Seriously?” I asked.

“I don’t understand the question,” Rejon said, not backing down despite my significant size advantage.

“You’re going to kill me in the morning?”

He frowned. “You did not find this comforting?”

“No, Rejon, I didn’t,” I said.

“It is a very common phrase among my people, but no one really knows why,” he admitted.

“Okay, fine. What the fuck ever. Maybe I will kill you in the morning,” I said.

“When you say it, the words sound much more threatening,” he said.

“That’s because I’m a Reaper. When I talk about death, it means something,” I said. X-37 chattered in my ear telling me to drop it, so I did. “Let’s save some lives.”

“This is something I would also like to do,” Rejon said.

OceanofPDF.com

12

The ship lurched sideways as something exploded against the shields.

“Jelly, what’s going on?” I shouted, already running for the bridge. Rejon followed.

Another series of explosions rocked the ship and this time I thought the shield might’ve been breached. Warning lights flashed. Fire retardant chemicals filled one of the side hallways.

My feet left the floor. The wall reached out and slapped me sideways. Stars filled my vision and I blacked out for at least a few seconds.

“You should put on your helmet,” Rejon advised, snapping the latches to his own head protection.

I grabbed him by the back of his EVA armor and steered him toward the bridge. “Once we get inside, we can strap into safety chairs.”

The door to the bridge opened and I pointed to where I wanted him to sit. It took him awhile to figure out the restraints, but I didn’t have time to help him. I went to the captain’s seat.

“More saturation bombing, but a lot of it is directed in our vicinity—like they’re looking for us,” Elise said, her hands flying over her control terminals at the sensor station. Locke and Tom consulted over another display, discussing something in animated tones but not including me in their conversation.

“Can we fire back?” I asked.

“Our weapons are underpowered and lack sufficient range to do much good,” Jelly responded. “Against a few of the micro-fighters, we would have a chance. We can’t go head-to-head with this type of onslaught.”

“Get us back in stealth mode if we’re not already,” I ordered. “Then let’s get out of this area. Look for someplace with an escape route, maybe behind one of these planets or near a slip tunnel in case we have to leave the system altogether.”

Rejon and Locke looked at me sharply.

“I’m not abandoning anyone, but we’ve got to have options,” I said. My friends needed to learn how to be merciless. There were hard decisions that had to be made. Since I was already going to hell, I might as will be the one to make them.

We flew the Jellybird between a barrage of rockets and kinetic weapons that made Nebs’s first attack look like what it was, a series of ranging shots. The only thing in our favor was that most of the debris field was already in motion and couldn’t get any worse.

From a distance, it looked impossible to navigate through the area without being struck by the ruined hull of a ship or asteroid, but there was actually space to maneuver if the ship and its crew had the skill to do it.

Nearly an hour passed before the bombing abated.

“Jelly, what’s the damage?” I asked.

“Our shields maintained their integrity. We will need repairs and recharging, but nothing fatal. If they had known exactly where we were, we would not have survived,” Jelly said. “As for the other bystanders in this system, several need our assistance. I recommend picking up wounded from the coordinates I just displayed on your HUD.”

I read over the figures. “What are we going to do with that many wounded civilians?”

“You could ignore them and continue on your mission,” X-37 said to me privately. “Saving innocent lives will be worthless if they’re only going to be killed later by Nebs. I have made significant progress since the last time we contacted the vice admiral’s ship. Give me another chance to access their communications network. I can implant further code strings that will help us when we are finally prepared to move against them.”

“X, we can’t wait that long,” I said.

“I suspected you would say that,” X-37 said, not sounding amused.

“In the meantime, we need to do something about the civilians. Maybe we can’t make them comfortable, but we can at least keep them alive.”

Locke studied me. “How can we do that, Reaper?”

I could see there was nothing more he wanted than to save innocent lives if we could.

“Jelly, contact Slipdriver. See if they have a med bay large enough to handle this many casualties. In the meantime, let’s round them up. We can worry about what to do with them later,” I said.

“We have enough space,” Novasdaughter advised from the Nightmare. “But we are on the opposite side of the system and well hidden. We avoided most of the collateral damage from the bombing runs.”

“Start heading our way,” I said. “We’re going to need you one way or another.”

Locke, Elise, and Tom worked together to bring the Jellybird close to a box freighter that had been camouflaged with randomly affixed bits of junk. Even in its heyday, the ship hadn’t been much. But now it was struggling to move toward a distant planet as it vented atmosphere. I saw bodies shooting out of a hole before we got close enough to help.

“Can we dock with this thing?” I asked.

“Yes, Captain,” Jelly said simply.

I gripped the sides of my chair as the maneuver was completed. Elise took over some of the remote controls. Locke asked Horvath and Carrie if they were ready to go out again in their suits.

“We need to recharge our air tanks,” Carrie advised.

“Tell them to be ready but to standby,” I said.

Jelly maneuvered alongside the damaged vessel and linked to it. Alarms went off in my head. If this was some sort of pirate ship, they could easily swarm aboard now and we would have a fight on our hands.

“I’m going down to meet them,” I said. “Rejon, you better come with me. And Elise.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. “There’s a lot of work to do at the sensor station.”

“I agree, but if there’s a fight, I will need you,” I said.

I wasn’t trying to give her a compliment. But I knew she wouldn’t let me forget this moment. I could already hear conversations about how she had saved my life.

Whatever. Like anyone needed that kind of mental abuse.

We rushed again to the airlock, and heard people banging on the outside of the door to get in.

“Jelly, let them in. I’ll deal with the consequences,” I said.

The door slid open. People streamed inside, falling over each other. Some were injured, holding broken arms. Some were bleeding from shrapnel. Others seem to be damaged by exposure to the void. Despite the chaos and their obvious distress, they moved with a sense of purpose. This wasn’t the first time these people had faced a crisis like this.

There was lots of hugging and weeping when they realized they’d made it. Before long, the docking bay was overcrowded.

“Rejon, I’ll need to put them in one of our storage bays. The conditions won’t be ideal. Everything will probably stink like fuel containers,” I said.

“My people will not complain,” he assured me.

“Jelly, get us to the Bold Freedom. If we don’t find some medical facilities, this is going to get a lot worse down here,” I said.

“Of course, Captain,” Jelly responded. “I will do my best.”

I helped treat minor injuries and corralled people toward the storage bay, sometimes earning confused looks as I explained what was needed. Each frantic conversation was a chance to learn their dialect.

“X, are you getting all of this? I’m not sure my language skills are what they used to be,” I said.

“The more you talk to them, the more data I will have to analyze and thus be better prepared to help you,” X-37 said.

“I need to get back to the bridge, but I’ll do what I can,” I said. Looking around, I couldn’t believe how many people we had crammed into this little ship. It made me think of what would’ve happened if the Jellybird had been overrun on the Dreadmax when people were desperate to escape.

“I’m telling you I saw them,” a girl said to an older woman.

I took both of them by their arms. “Saw who?”

“The ones with the gold armor. I thought they had come to save us, but they pushed old-man Patterson through an airlock when they didn’t like his answers to their questions.” The girl was eleven or twelve, maybe older than she looked because she was half starved.

“What questions?” I tried not to scare her.

The girl’s eyes darted around and she swallowed hard. “They wanted to know where the Reaver was.”

“You mean Reaper?” I asked.

She nodded emphatically. “That is what they said!”

The woman interrupted, pulling the girl away from me. “There are no golden men. That was your imagination.”

“You said they were wearing armor?” I asked.

The girl nodded but bowed her head when she received a stern look from the woman who was likely some type of relative.

“We’ll get you to safety,” I promised, already planning how I was going to deal with this new threat of the Archangels in their battle armor.

“I guess that confirms their gear can function as EVA gear,” I said.

“I will make a note,” X-37 replied.

* * *

“I know we don’t stand a chance against them, X,” I said. My limited artificial intelligence was getting on my nerves. “You said you had a solution for the Archangel problem.”

“The situation has changed. I had hoped to subvert Necron and send out a message summoning all of the Archangels to the armory for a check of their gear, and then to lock them inside and throw away the key.”

“Would that have worked?” I asked, distracted by the simplicity of X-37’s plan.

“It had a better than average chance of success,” X-37 said. “But that option is now off the table because I don’t believe we can trick them into boarding the Nightmare.”

“Why not just send them to their own armory?” I suggested.

“I don’t have sufficient access to the Dark Lance,” X-37 said.

I narrowed my eyes, impatient. “So what’s the answer?”

“We must truly have Necron on our side,” X-37 said.

“That’ll be easy. Why didn’t you just say so? I’ll ask Nebs to give us his other ships while we’re at it.”

X-37 beeped twice. “I’m not sure if I detected sarcasm or a poor attempt at humor.”

“Assuming subverting Necron is even possible, what would come next?” I asked. “How would we do it?”

“We need to reestablish contact with the Nightmare,” X-37 said. “If the Dark Lance or the Black Wing have attempted to take control of the Nightmare remotely—which they probably have—the viruses I spread during our last communication with the vice admiral will have spread through all three ships. I don’t know how far or how effectively they have been contaminated, but it will be something to work with,” X-37 said.

“I’ve got a better idea, considering our circumstances,” I said. “Jelly, send the Nightmare a secure message. Hide it in a maintenance routine. Henshaw will know what to do with it. Let’s get them over here. By the time we’re done offloading survivors onto the Bold Freedom, Novasdaughter and Henshaw should be able to bring the carrier close to our location.”

“Right away, Captain,” Jelly said.

I disembarked with a group of refugees and escorted them to the makeshift medical bay of the BF. Elise joined me.

“Why are you interested in the medical bay?” Elise asked. “We’ve done our job getting them here.”

“I’m playing a hunch,” I told her.

“You’re looking for Bug,” Elise guessed.

“First X-37 tries to read my mind, now you’re doing it,” I said.

X-37 squealed. It was similar to a beep being hit with a hammer. “That is an untrue statement that could get me into trouble if anyone believed it.”

“Relax, X. We all know you’re just a limited artificial intelligence. I was just pulling your chain.”

“I’ve asked you before, Reaper Cain, to stop with the nonsensical metaphors,” X-37 said.

“You have, about five hundred times,” I agreed.

“One hundred and three times, to be exact,” X-37 provided.

I was stunned. “That’s all? Never mind. Help me scan this crowd.”

“Oh, cool,” Elise said. “I’m going to see a Reaper in action.”

“You’ve seen me work before,” I said as I scanned the crowd of people. The room was packed full of scavengers being treated for all manner of injuries. There were rows of cots where men and women wearing mismatched hospital clothing attended to them. The doctors and nurses—some more qualified than others—were as likely to wear janitor scrubs as lab coats. I identified them by their behavior, not the way they dressed.

“I’ve seen you kill people and some monsters. But I’ve read books and watched action holos. When I was a kid, I always thought the scenes where the heroes were searching the crowd for their victims was just to ratchet up the tension,” Elise said. “Now I understand how freaking impossible it is.”

Normally, I enjoyed this type of interaction with Elise. Today, I didn’t have time and I wasn’t in the mood. “You’re still a kid.”

She didn’t take the bait this time. “I’m less of a kid now.”

“Whatever.” I stopped and looked around. “The air purifiers on the ship have to be working triple time. There are too many people here.”

“What can we do about it?” Elise asked seriously.

I realized then how much the pressure of back-to-back missions in a constant fight for survival affected her. Of course she was tough. I knew she was accustomed to running and surviving in impossible situations even before I met her. But we needed a break. Her ability to crack jokes and genuinely be excited about a trivial activity like searching a crowd for Bug was a warning sign. I was a jerk for not giving her five minutes of normality.

“We can’t do anything about it, unless we can get these people to Wallach, and that’s assuming they still want to go there or that the people on that planet will accept them. And that the Union doesn’t send three more fleets after us and wipe everyone from the galaxy.”

“Someone’s grumpy,” Elise complained.

“You’re right,” I admitted. “This is my fault. We shouldn’t be looking for Bug.”

“This won’t take that long. We’ll just do a quick walk-through like in the movies, find your target, except not kill them because this isn’t a movie and we like the kid, and get back to work,” Elise said.

“That works for me,” I said, moving deeper into the storage bay that had become a field hospital. An older woman in a white lab coat asked me to get out of her way and I did. She was polite about it, but obviously tired and stressed out.

“I don’t remember what Bug looks like,” Elise said.

“You never met him face-to-face?” I said.

“It seems like I did. But I’ll recognize his voice,” she said. “Maybe we should call out to him. Can X-37 do voice analysis?”

“Not under these conditions,” I answered. “X, have you got anything?”

“I have not matched our brief encounter with the child with anyone I’ve observed so far in this inadequate excuse for a hospital,” X-37 said.

“It was worth a shot,” I grumbled. “Any news on the Nightmare or Necron?”

“I’m working with Jelly and Novasdaughter. This would be easier if I could contact the Nightmare’s AI directly,” X-37 said. “Standby, Jelly is providing an update. Apparently, Novasdaughter is unable to talk with us directly. Necron is having a prolonged debate with Henshaw.”

“I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. What are they arguing about?” I asked.

“Part of my virus has taken hold. It’s a simple line of code that allows Necron to see Nebs’s actions through the filter of Union values,” X-37 said.

“We are so screwed,” Elise commented, crossing her arms and watching the crowd pass by us with medical supplies in their hands as we talked to X.

“On the contrary,” X-37 argued. “The codified laws of the Union and what their politicians are constantly telling the population often mimic strong civic values. It’s the implementation that becomes toxic and antithetical to human freedoms. Necron is very powerful, but Nebs restricted him to basic functioning.”

“I see where you’re going with this,” I said.

Elise nodded vigorously, also putting it together. “You’re causing stress to Necron’s system, setting him off balance. Couldn’t that go horribly wrong?”

“Yes, Elise, it could get us all killed,” X-37 admitted. “But it is our only chance.”

“It’s the mister,” a boy yelled. “Get out of my way, you stupid asswipe. I need to tell him thanks for getting us off that deathtrap. Yeah, you fuck off. I don’t care if you’re a doctor. I’m checking out.”

A young man with a scar that divided his face horizontally backed away from Bug, clearly intimidated despite having an obvious age and height advantage.

“Elise, you know Bug is going to be trouble,” I muttered, regretting my decision to seek the boy out.

She laughed. “That’s nice, coming from you. Or from me, for that matter. Neither of us are exactly low maintenance.”

Bug swaggered toward us. He’d grown about three inches, not quite reaching his natural height. I estimated he was about thirteen. Back on Dreadmax, he’d claimed to be fifteen but sounded much younger. As for life experience, he’d probably seen more violent murders than a kill team. There had been a reason he and his friends hid themselves away in a security tower.

“Mister!” Bug said, spreading his arms like a cross between a used shuttle salesman and a party host.

“Good to see you, Bug,” I said, an idea forming in my head. I was definitely going to be saddled with the obnoxious cheese-cracker-eating rascal forever. Good Job, Cain.

“Yeah, that’s what I think,” he said, acting cool and looking around as though there was a crowd of spectators—which there wasn’t. We were just in the way here.

“I’m down with joining your crew, or team, or whatever you call a bunch of Reapers. My friends all bugged out—ha, ha, that’s freaking hilarious, isn’t it? I ditched most of them on Imni 7 before this piece-of-junk ship left the Deadlands. They were scared of you. Between you and me and the hot chick, we don’t need them. Better off doing our own thing. Fucktards.”

I tried and failed to get a word in edgewise. Elise kind of, sort of suppressed laughter as she watched the byplay.

“I looked for you, but people are stupid. Half the dumbasses on this ship acted like they’d never heard of you and kept telling me Reapers weren’t even real. I shanked a few to set things straight,” Bug said.

“Bullshit, kid. Talk like that will get you kicked off the team,” I said without thinking it through. Give this street punk an inch and he was going to take a mile.

“There is a team! Hell yeah, mister. I was worried,” Bug said. “Did you bring me a gun?”

“No. That’s not where you start,” I said, thinking quickly.

“Be careful, Reaper Cain,” X-37 advised. “I strongly advise against this course of action. The boy will only be a liability unless you find a camera tower to stick him in.”

Ignoring X, I leaned toward Bug, making sure he realized I was as serious as a Reaper blade in the face. “You’re going to learn sensors. Elise will train you on the basics, then Henshaw will round out your education.”

“Fuck that!” Elise blurted.

I gave her a warning look, then stood between her and Bug to prevent them from going at it. “You do what I say or you’re done. That’s the way it works.”

“Doesn’t sound like it,” Bug said. “She just told you to fuck off.”

I narrowed my eyes at the kid. “No she didn’t.”

“Pretty close,” Bug insisted.

“Do you want on the team or not?” I asked.

“I want to be a Reaper. There are a lot of people I need to find and snuff out. Fucking rats and bullies and all-around assholes,” Bug said.

“This will be a problem,” X-37 warned.

I grabbed Bug by the front of his jumpsuit. “I’m not running a revenge crew. You want to roll with me, then you do what I say.”

Bug swallowed hard. “Sorry, mister. I get it. You’re the boss man, the big cheese, the tough guy.”

“I believe I have seen through his hard exterior,” X-37 said.

“Yeah, X, me too,” I said, then released the boy.

“Who are you talking to?” Bug rubbed his chest where I’d grabbed him.

“My conscience,” I said.

“He has a limited AI, Bug. Don’t let him fool you. He doesn’t have a conscience,” Elise said.

I shrugged rather than argue. “She’s not lying to you. Let’s go. We have things to do.”

Bug cheered up immediately, turning to wave a finger at the crowd of caregivers and wounded who mostly ignored us. “See you, losers.”

“Don’t do that,” I said.

“Do what?” Bug asked.

“Fuck me,” I grumbled too low for anyone but X-37 to hear. “We’ll talk about it later, Bug. Just don’t be a dick.”

“Rule one, don’t be a dick,” Bug stated cheerfully.

OceanofPDF.com

13

“We have a problem,” X-37 chirped in my ear.

I didn’t need more problems. The Union was breathing down our necks, two stealth carriers, squadrons of micro-fighters, and void-capable Archangels were searching ships and debris fields like they wanted to kill me and all of my friends.

And they certainly did want to. There was no doubt about that.

“What is it, X?” I patted my gear for a lighter and found not only did I lack a way to light a cigar, but I lacked cigars.

“Horvath is confronting Brion Rejon, the leader—or a leader—of the scavengers, about Gunner,” X-37 said.

“Send their location to my HUD. I’m on the way,” I said, then glared at Bug. When I held out my hand, he put a cigar in it.

“You little sneak,” I said. “Give me the other two.”

“There were only two, not three,” he insisted. “You’re trying to cheat me!”

“You stole the cigars from me,” I blurted. “How could I possibly cheat you?”

“You’re trying to make me give you three when you only had two. That’s bullshit,” Bug insisted. “You’re trying to cheat me.”

“Don’t pout. Give me the two cigars and never steal from me again,” I said.

Bug handed over the second cigar.

“You’re too young to smoke anyway,” I scolded him, tucking away the cigars with my best sleight of hand to confuse him about which utility pocket they actually went in. Pickpocket defense was an art I hadn’t needed to practice for a while.

“He’s totally going to steal from you again,” Elise said. “But he won’t steal from me because I’ll push him out an airlock.”

“You’re hot,” Bug said. “Maybe we should hang out sometime.”

“Airlock,” Elise said, staring down at him.

He spread his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay.”

“I feel like I’m running a daycare, X,” I said at a volume I thought was private.

“Don’t lump me in with him,” Elise said. “I’ve earned my place.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I forgot how good your hearing is. He can shadow Tom when you and I are on away missions.”

There was more back and forth as we moved through the crowded hallways of the Bold Freedom, but we didn’t exactly cover new ground. Bug was going to be a pain in the ass, but he’d saved us on Dreadmax, so we owed him.

I led the way through the extremely short docking tube to the Jellybird where Horvath and Rejon were squared off.

“What the hell is going on?” I demanded.

“This honorless scavenger claims his people aren’t cannibals,” Horvath said. “And he won’t tell me where Gunner’s body is.”

“We do not consume each other,” Rejon said, remaining calm despite the accusations—reasonably calm at least. He didn’t look like he would throat punch Horvath right this second.

“There’s nothing to eat in space—“ Horvath said, pointing a finger in Rejon’s face.

Rejon slapped it away.

I pushed between them and held them away from each other. “Stop. I’m the only person on this ship who gets to kill people on a whim.”

Horvath and Rejon stared through me, eyes locked on each other.

“Your friend will be returned with honors,” Rejon promised.

“I don’t believe you,” Horvath said.

“Then you will be unhappy and bitter,” Rejon said. “It will change nothing. Your friend’s body will be returned. That is all. I cannot resurrect the man.”

“I won’t forget this,” Horvath muttered, saying something under his breath about cannibals getting his friend.

“Enough!” I shouted. “We’ll get Gunner back, one way or another. Drop it.”

Horvath glared but said nothing more.

* * *

By the time I reached the bridge, I was thoroughly done with Horvath and Rejon. The latter followed me with the agreement he would provide answers about his people and what had happened in the system.

I flopped down into my captain’s chair, thoroughly exhausted. I couldn’t think of what I had done to cause so many aches and pains and the intense desire to hit the rack for a few hours of sleep. A good solo mission would’ve been a lot easier than being a leader.

“Jelly, give me an update if it’s not a shit-ton of trouble,” I said.

“Of course, Captain,” Jelly said. “The Dark Lance is advancing on our position at their best possible speed. After consulting with X-37, the Lady Faith, and Novasdaughter, I believe the Dark Lance is the new flagship of the Union stealth carrier fleet.”

“Makes sense,” I said, knowing that X-37 would tell me if there was more to the discussion. “Are we prepared?”

“We are as ready as we can be,” Jelly said. “The Nightmare is on final approach to our sector but will not be able to fight as effectively as the Dark Lance due to the continuing problems with Necron.”

“Have we made any progress with him?” I asked.

“We are still dealing with Necron. My recommendation, and I believe X-37 concurs, is to formulate alternate plans such as abandoning the Nightmare if necessary,” Jelly said.

“Trust me, I’ve already thought of that,” I said. “It doesn’t look like the Dark Lance is moving in for the kill. Correct me if I’m wrong.”

Several silent moments passed. Elise, the ship computer and my LAI, and Novasdaughter all worked diligently from their respective locations.

“It doesn’t make much sense,” Novasdaughter said from the Nightmare’s bridge. “But the Dark Lance has altered course and is heading for one of the ruined planets in what should be the green zone of this system. I would expect there to be colonies on the two worlds orbiting a habitable distance from the sun, but it seems they were ravaged by very old wars.”

“Rejon, what do you think?” I asked.

The look on his face told me most of what I needed to know. He was pale and contemplative, clearly upset that the Dark Lance was heading toward the planet.

“Talk to me, Rejon. Do you have a settlement on one of those planets?” I asked.

He hesitated, but then met my eyes. “We have people everywhere. When you’re living on the fringe as we are, even the most inhospitable places are better than the void.”

“Voice analysis suggests he is minimizing his interest in the planets,” X-37 said to me privately. “I suspect the scavengers have a significant presence on or near the planets and that Nebs must have detected this and is en route to punish them.”

“Rejon, I need you to be straight with me. The man in charge of this Union fleet has a very special vendetta against me and my people. For him to break off and go after something else is significant, if you get my drift,” I said.

He swallowed hard and refused to make eye contact. “Perhaps he is looking for hostages.”

“Yeah, I’m sure that’s what he is after,” I said, not trying to hide my annoyance with the subterfuge. “He thinks I’ll be swayed by my obvious concern for a bunch of strangers—people who would be easier for him to capture right here in the debris fields.”

“There are more people on the planet than you might suspect. We’ve worked hard to accentuate the appearance of un-survivability,” Rejon explained. “Once, we thought we could rebuild a fleet from the ships hidden there but the fuel cost required for landing and launching from the planet is high. The people on the planet are forced to stay on the planet, as miserable as that experience is.”

A hidden population still wasn’t enough reason for Nebs to alter course, but I let the scavenger leader think I was convinced. If he wasn’t going to answer my questions, I would have to find the answers in his actions.

I’d hoped he would be a natural ally but wasn’t sure if we were going to be on the same side for long. Maybe he was responsible for destroying dozens of fleets in the system just like Vice Admiral Nebs claimed. Maybe he was a ruthless, throat-slashing pirate. Brion Rejon could be more dangerous than my archenemy.

“X, we need to figure out what the hell Nebs is doing,” I said.

“Perhaps it would be better to continue this discussion in private,” X-37 advised.

He was right, but I didn’t care. “What could be so important that Nebs forgot how much he hates me?”

“Reaper Cain, I really think we should make this a private conversation,” X-37 repeated.

“I don’t have time for that, X,” I said. “I’m tired of messing around.”

“In that case, my best theories involve a much larger settlement than Rejon would like us to know about or a weapon or device that has caused all of these ships to be waylaid and destroyed in the system.”

I faced Rejon and repeated what X told me. “Does that sound about right?”

“My people have suffered greatly. We are just trying to hide,” he said.

X-37 spoke to me privately on this one. “He’s not lying, but I doubt that is all of it.”

My limited artificial intelligence wasn’t wrong. I could see the man was holding back, and suspected it was probably for good reason, but it still frustrated me.

“I cannot pretend to understand the motivations of your enemy, but perhaps there is someone among my people who he thinks will make a good hostage,” Rejon said.

OceanofPDF.com

14

The Jellybird maneuvered away from the Bold Freedom, constantly on the lookout for debris that might cripple us. The chaos caused by all of the bombardments wouldn’t end soon, but we were learning to predict most of its movement.

Our shields could handle small impacts. What I was more worried about was our enemy’s ability to hide amongst floating ship parts and other detritus. We hadn’t seen or heard of any more Archangels searching in their space-capable armor. And it seemed all of the micro-fighters had returned to their motherships.

“Jelly, do you have an update on the Dark Lance?” I asked.

“Yes, Captain,” Jelly said. “She established a geosynchronous orbit and immediately deployed micro-fighters.”

“How long before we arrive?” I asked.

“Three hours and eighteen minutes,” Jelly said.

I cornered Rejon with a look. “Last chance. Why is Nebs so hot to find out what’s on your home world?”

“It’s not our home world. It’s just a base.” Rejon stared at the holo view. A moment later, he sighed, releasing tension that had gripped his posture like a vise. “We have a weapon there. We never use it because of the damage it does to our planet when we fire it.”

“Jelly, give me the best magnification possible,” I said.

Moments later, I was able to see the planet that the Dark Lance was orbiting. There were several distinct landmasses. As we watched and waited, fountains of energy thrust upward, then converged in the stratosphere. A glowing blue and purple beam streamed straight into the Dark Lance.

I waited for a massive explosion, but nothing happened.

“That’s it?” Elise asked.

I had a similar question but decided not to belabor the issue.

“It seems that all micro-fighters are being recalled to the Dark Lance,” Jelly said. “I’m getting variable readings from the stealth carrier. It does not seem to be able to maintain its stealth field or maneuver well.”

I raised my brows in question. “That’s your weapon?”

Rejon nodded. “It doesn’t do much good without a fleet to take advantage of the immobilized enemy. If I had been on the planet, I wouldn’t have used it. There are other factions, however, who do not wish there to be bloodshed at any cost, even in self-defense. For them, our ultimate weapon is a perfect, non-violent warning system.”

“Does it have to be fired from the surface?” I asked.

“In theory, no,” Rejon answered. “The system was designed to be fired from a combination of void-capable ships.”

I watched as the state-of-the-art Union stealth carrier drifted like just another hulk of potential salvage. It obviously still had power and some maneuvering capability, but I thought we could take it out, even with the Nightmare’s limited mobility. If we were able to take full control of the ship’s AI, we would make quick work of the Dark Lance.

“Now is our chance,” I said.

“You are at least partially correct,” X-37 said.

“You’re killing me, X,” I said, running through a list of things I needed to do to corner Nebs and take him out. “What are we waiting for?”

“I don’t believe Novasdaughter and Henshaw have gained full control of the Nightmare and I predict that Nebs will order the Black Wing onto the offensive to keep us from attacking his flagship while it’s vulnerable.”

I hated admitting when X was right. One look at Elise and the others told me they knew it too. I decided to get over myself and be a team player—because that wasn’t weird or unnatural for a Reaper.

Yeah, totally what I was made for. “Jelly, scan for the Black Wing,” I said.

Several seconds passed and I began to get worried. Normally, it was X-37 who was glitchy and slow. Not that I was blaming my LAI—there had been a lot of extenuating circumstances—but Jelly was normally solid.

“Jelly, talk to me,” I said, feeling my crew tense.

“Brace for impact,” Jelly said. “I located the Black Wing just before it came out of stealth mode and launched a barrage.”

“Can we get a little more warning next time?” I snapped, feeling like a jerk because I knew Jelly would have warned me the moment she detected one of our enemies.

Alarms sounded, followed by heavy impact against our shields. The ship was buffeted by contact explosions. I’d been through worse, but this one was bad.

“I guess that’s one way to keep us from exploiting the Dark Lance,” Elise mused.

“We’re a team, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “You should take my advice more often.”

“Are you programed to gloat, X?” I said, pulling up several tactical screens to more carefully assess the situation. “We need to slip out of this fight.”

The battle with the Black Wing took us farther and farther away from the Dark Lance. My dreams of grabbing the vice admiral by the throat and demanding answers faded second by second. The man had made me what I was when he created the Reaper Corps, then destroyed my life when he kidnapped my mother and sister and had my father murdered.

“What is the matter, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked inside a private channel. “Your biometrics are doing strange things—indicating sadness and rage at the same time.”

“We need to get on that ship and handle Nebs,” I said, talking to my LAI while still flying the ship and scanning for the next thing that would kill us.

“There is no need to inform me of this,” X-37 said. “I agree, but must remind you there are significant obstacles between us and our ultimate objective.”

“What I need from you, X, is less doomsaying and more coming up with a brilliant plan. Or better yet, why can’t you wake me up from this twisted dream?” I said, wincing at an alarmingly close call—five time-delayed missiles that exploded around us in a three-dimensional triangle only a thousand meters from each side.

“That was a bit closer than I’d like,” Elise said. “I really hope that was pure luck.”

OceanofPDF.com

15

“Novasdaughter,” I bellowed. “We’re going to need the Nightmare in this fight. Make it happen. Tell Henshaw to do whatever it takes!”

Explosions rocked the Jellybird.

“The Nightmare is not responding,” Jelly advised.

“She’s completely gone, as far as I can tell,” Elise said. “Either destroyed, fled the system, or she has completely defeated our detection protocols.”

“Let’s hope it’s the last option and that Novasdaughter and Henshaw are putting the ship to good use,” I said.

“We’re splitting power between stealth mode and the shields,” Tom said. “We can’t keep it up for long.”

“Elise, is there a way out of this mess?” I asked. “If we can slip away, the shields won’t be as important.”

“I know that.” She rolled her eyes and went back to work. “Why don’t you try plotting a course through a thousand years of wrecked ships, around a comet, while avoiding Union stealth ships and micro-fighters.”

I gritted my teeth. “Locke, can you help her?”

“Ship operations are not my specialty. I would better serve you in a fighter if that were an option. Or better yet, leading a boarding party,” he said. “But I will do my best to help. Elise, what do you need from me?”

Elise pointed at a small workstation on her right. “Help me predict where the next collision will happen if we stay on this course. There are patterns in the trajectory of the debris.”

“In time, most of this will be far away from us and not a problem,” Locke said. “All we need to do is wait a few years.”

“You made a joke, Locke. Good for you.” Elise laughed a bit crazily.

Another salvo of rockets rose from the surface of the Black Wing and streaked toward us.

“She’s firing blind,” I said.

The next impact on our shields was less intense than the first attack but still dangerous.

“Captain, I have dire news,” Jelly advised.

“Go ahead,” I said, suspecting the worst.

“Some of the rockets being launched are long range variations. They’re headed for the Bold Freedom,” Jelly said.

“Fuck me up a tree,” I said, causing Elise to snort a tense laugh.

“What are your orders, Captain. The Bold Freedom lacks the shields to withstand more than a cursory bombardment. We can hold out longer,” Jelly said.

“How much longer?” I asked.

“At least an hour.”

“Plot a course that puts us in a better position to help the BF,” I said. “And get Novasdaughter or Henshaw on the holo. We need to get them in the fight.”

“I have been attempting contact every five minutes,” Jelly said. “No results thus far.”

“Elise…” I began.

“I’m on it,” she said. “We really need a normal-sized crew. I can’t do everything by myself.”

“It’s on my list, right after not dying,” I said.

“Reaper Cain,” Brion Rejon said. His voice was so soft, I almost didn’t hear him, but once I realized he’d spoken, something about his tone demanded my attention.

“I need to be with my people. Give me a shuttle or a life pod or anything that will get me to the planet,” Rejon said.

“I can’t do that,” I said.

“We can be allies,” he insisted. “But not if my people fall to your Union invaders.”

“We have more immediate problems. I’m taking the controls, Jelly,” I said, knowing most ship AIs advised against this—and worse, they were usually right. Human pilots overestimated their reaction time and judgment. As for target acquisition, even with computer assists, it was terrible in comparison to what automated systems could do.

“You’re the captain,” Jelly said.

“Everyone strap in. This is going to get stupid,” I said, then flew straight at the Black Wing.

Micro-fighters streamed out to meet me as the point defense guns blazed to new life.

“What the actual hell are you doing?” Elise shouted, rapidly pulling up threats I needed to avoid and pushing the images into my holo feed.

“Buying time for the Bold Freedom,” I said. Twisting the controls, I caused the Jellybird to roll through a cloud of old junk to avoid micro-fighter auto cannons and ship-to-ship rockets. Our shields absorbed impact after impact.

“We can sustain this for seventeen minutes,” Jelly advised.

“Tom, can you boost the shields?” I asked.

“I will try,” Tom said. “Don’t expect much. Keeping the ship in one piece is about all we can do.”

“Locke, Elise, I need you shooting back,” I said.

“Way ahead of you,” Elise said, flipping her keyboard over and activating the tactical features. Locke imitated her with moderate success. Soon the Jellybird’s modest array of weapons drove back a pair of micro-fighters.

“X, I really need Novasdaughter to answer,” I said to X-37 in private. My bridge crew was too busy to listen in.

“Jelly has been doing everything possible to contact them,” X-37 said. “I fear the worst.”

I yanked the controls to one side, avoiding another swarm of enemy fighters. “There has to be something we can do.”

“Novasdaughter and Henshaw will bring the Nightmare into the fight, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “I am sure of it.”

“Then where the hell are they?” I reversed direction and weaved through random bits of wreckage. In the distance, the comet shined bright and scavengers limped ships toward Rejon’s ruined planet.

Alarms filled the cockpit.

“I am not a combat fighter,” Jelly warned.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “But I’m gonna fly the engines off this ship.”

“Of course, Captain,” Jelly said.

“Rockets away,” Elise announced as she let loose a barrage at three pursuing micro-fighters. “Why don’t we lead them away from the Black Wing and see if they run out of fuel?”

“We need to keep the Black Wing busy,” I argued, putting the Jellybird into a spiral.

A second and third squadron joined my attackers. The Black Wing fired on us whenever we pulled clear of the smaller ships.

Then, without warning, the swarm turned away.

“What the hell?” I muttered, getting a bad feeling.

The Nightmare appeared in front of me. I jammed the controls to avoid a collision as the Nightmare opened fire on my pursuers.

“Get out of the way, Reaper.” Novasdaughter’s voice sounded calm as the Nightmare moved between my position and the Black Wing. Seconds later, she opened fire with a full broadside of ship-to-ship weapons.

“Took you long enough,” I grumbled, flying behind her to hide from further micro-fighter attacks. “Glad you finally made it.”

“There’s good news and bad news,” Novasdaughter said.

“Necron is fighting us, constantly attempting to regain control of the ship,” Henshaw said. “I need X-37’s help, which means I need you on board.”

“Not a good time,” I said.

“Agreed, Reaper. Stay out of this. The Jellybird isn’t rated for combat,” Novasdaughter said as she launched another wave of rockets at Black Wing.

Rockets and kinetic weapons pounded the other carrier’s shields, piercing the defenses in three important areas—the ship bays, launch tubes, and weapon systems.

“Can you hit the engines?” Locke asked.

“That is the most heavily armored part of the ship,” Novasdaughter explained. “One of the dirty secrets of fleet combat is that battles like this come down to nerve. It’s a battle of attrition. The captain of the Black Wing is a real bitch, so we might be screwed.”

“Permission to activate the stealth cloak?” Tom asked.

“Do it,” I said. “Jelly, take us around the edge of the fight. I want to look straight into their launch tubes and landing bays.”

“Why?” Elise said.

“It has the same design as the Dark Lance. If I can get on board one ship, I can get on board another,” I said.

“We’re not boarding the Black Wing,” she said. “That’s crazy and we don’t have time.”

“Call it a test run,” I said, watching the holo view carefully. The stealth carriers looked huge. The violence of their death match sent a shiver up my spine. My cybernetic arm tingled and my HUD flashed rows and columns of data in my peripheral vision.

“All we would do is show them how to stop us when it matters,” Elise said. “Shit like this doesn’t work twice in a row.”

“The girl is correct,” Locke said.

Rejon nodded in agreement. “Listen to her.”

“Anyone else want to gang up on me?” I shook my head. “Look at this battle. Neither ship is going to survive if we don’t do something.”

“What if the Archangels are waiting on the Black Wing?” Elise asked.

“What if we all grew wings and started farting fairy dust,” I countered. She was right, they all were. The problem was my complete lack of options. “Who wants to just sit around and do nothing while the big ships blow everything to hell.”

“We could head for the Dark Lance,” Tom suggested.

“The Dark Lance is too far from our current location,” X-37 said publicly.

Everyone waited for my decision, which surprised the hell out of me. Shifting in my seat, I went through two breathing cycles and tried for calm rationality. “Jelly, make one attempt to break from this battle and head for the Dark Lance. If it gets too hot, cut inside their guns and find a place to put me on the Black Wing. I want to have a face to face with this captain Novasdaughter warned us about.”

Jelly acknowledged and passed the plan to Novasdaughter through a secure maintenance link we all agreed Necron wasn’t monitoring.

“I don’t like your plan, but thanks,” Novasdaughter said, barely audible through the noise on her bridge.

“Hold on,” Jelly said, taking the controls. She pulsed the accelerators as she steered close to the Nightmare on the non-battle side. When there was nothing but shadows from the larger ship, she turned and fired all of her engines.

We shot away from the ship-to-ship artillery duel. Micro-fighters came after us like a swarm of murderous space insects. The Black Wing diverted several medium range guns, firing to cut off our escape with deadly determination.

“Godsdammit,” I shouted. “Jelly, take us as close to the Black Wing as possible.”

“I recommend she land or deploy a shuttle,” X-37 said.

“What’s the matter, X? Are you worried about me?” I said, adjusting my gear and heading for the airlock.

“It seems Horvath and Carrie have prepped a shuttle,” Jelly said. “I am moving close enough to deploy it, but our enemies will see it coming and destroy it—assuming such a small ship doesn’t become a random casualty as the carriers continue to fire broadside.”

“Negative. Get in close, use your shields, and I’ll jump,” I said.

“I’m coming with you,” Elise said.

“Not this time.” I broke into a jog as I slid my helmet on.

“Fuck you, not this time!” Elise said.

“Jelly, lock the door behind me. Elise is not coming on this mission,” I said.

“Done, Captain,” Jelly said. “She seems extraordinarily angry at this development.”

OceanofPDF.com

16

Self-confidence wasn’t something I lacked. Long before I became a Union killing machine, I’d been cocky, believe it or not. Elise didn’t have training. She wasn’t ready for this type of mission. Direct action on this scale required a lot more than just fighting and winning.

No matter how good she was, she wasn’t equipped to deal with the aftermath. This was a violent, desperate assault against enemies who were ready to give as good as they got.

I slowed to a walk, gathered myself, and wondered why I never learned to pray. It seemed like something that just might be a good idea when diving headfirst into hell.

“X, am I missing anything? I’ve checked my gear twice but feel like I left the coffee maker running or something,” I said. “I’m getting soft. Having people to do a buddy check of the EVA gear is comforting.”

“Do you require comfort?” X-37 said. “Shall I advise Jelly to allow other crew members into this area so that they might check your gear or talk you out of this reckless course of action?”

“Never mind,” I said, but the words were quiet. I didn’t have the energy or the will to argue with my LAI right now. It was time to get angry.

“Jelly, open the airlock. Give me a countdown. I don’t want to miss my landing,” I said.

“You must jump in six seconds for optimal deployment. Six, five, four—“

“That was abrupt, Jelly!” I shouted, bouncing on my toes and preparing to sprint toward the opening. I could see how close we were to the enemy ship as it passed by us. There were flashes of explosions and occasionally a rocket zipping past my limited field of view.

I sprinted toward the opening, pumping my arms and driving with my legs. This could work, and if it didn’t, there would only be one casualty.

“—two, one,” Jelly said.

I launched myself as the countdown ended and felt the void of space all around me. From inside the airlock, the close-up view of the enemy ship seemed oppressive—so close that I thought the ships would scrape together. Now my decision felt like a different story.

Pulsing the steering jets of the EVA gear, I straightened out my course, feeling like I was falling through an energy storm. The brief flash of explosions in the lashing attacks of energy weapons painted the scene around me blue and green and purple and yellow, depending on what was happening each time I blinked my eyes.

As soon as it began, it ended. The enemy flight deck seemed to fly at me. I twisted my feet ahead of me, proud of how smooth I was working the steering jets. It was an odd detail to be proud of, but I savored it, knowing a brutal landing was in my immediate future.

“Congratulations, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “You’re going to make it. I estimate your closing speed at twenty kilometers per hour.”

“That’s way too fucking fast! I didn’t jump that hard,” I shouted, reaching forward with my feet so I would be ready to roll when I hit.

“You made no attempt to factor in the relative speeds of the ships,” X-37 explained. “Honestly, you’re lucky this time.”

“You should’ve warned me,” I said, squinting and bracing myself as though that would reduce the pain I was about to feel.

“I attempted to do so,” X-37 said. “Would you like me to replay the recording?”

“Why the hell not?” I said a microsecond before I slammed onto the Black Wing deck at an odd angle.

My limited artificial intelligence probably answered, but I didn’t hear. I was asshole over elbows for about twenty-five meters, at which point there was a conveniently placed ship hull to stop my momentum. Bouncing into the air from this asinine obstruction, I reached out with one leg and managed to engage my boot magnets. X-37 had been very clear on whether or not there would be gravity in this bay.

All of the ships were gone and I didn’t see any dockworkers. The ship shook from battle damage, then listed to one side. A voice announced, “Intruder alert, deck five, secondary landing bay.”

“Game time, X,” I said, raising my HDK Dominator and running for the first door. “I need maps and schematics. As quick as you can get them to me.”

“Of course. Keep your helmet on and your oxygen bottle fresh. The Black Wing is taking significant damage from the ship-to-ship slugfest the captains have engaged in. Please expect loss of atmosphere, gravity, and power when it is least convenient,” X-37 said. “I’m placing the first three turns you need to make on your HUD. Also, there is one enemy unit moving to intercept you.”

“One? I’m almost insulted,” I said as I darted through the first doorway and down the hall. At the T intersection, I turned left just as the schematic in my HUD display suggested.

“There are additional units responding, but none of them are as close. Estimated time of contact, five seconds,” X-37 said, all business.

I rounded the corner prepared for ship security and ran up against an Archangel. I’d fought them before, but never on a ship and never this close.

The soldier stood seven feet tall in his golden armor. It wasn’t like costume jewelry gold, but more of a stainless steel with a golden sheen. I’d never seen the Union indulge in such style.

“Surrender, Reaper,” the Archangel said.

I really doubted my light armor under my EVA would stop whatever gun he was using. I didn’t recognize the model. It was, however, big. Looking down the barrel was like looking into a pit of death.

“Nice digs,” I said. “Aren’t you worried that shiny armor will give you away when you’re going into a fight?”

“By the time they see me, it’s too late,” the man said.

I didn’t recognize his voice or the way he moved. The list of Union soldiers good enough to become Reapers or Archangels was short. Once upon a time, I’d known them all.

“Surrender, now,” he ordered.

“X, I need something here,” I said.

An access door to my left slid open, leading into a maintenance hallway that was almost too short and narrow to use. I rushed in without hesitation and heard the door shut behind me. I was at the next tight corner before I heard the Archangel ripping the door from the wall.

“Please tell me that brute is too big to come this way,” I said.

“This maintenance passage becomes significantly smaller the further you go,” X-37 advised. “It will seriously hinder the Archangel’s movements.”

“How small are we talking, X?” I squatted down and ducked my head to walk into a new section of the passage. Despite my physical conditioning, I was breathing hard and sweating profusely.

“It will eventually lead to a bot access point that you will not be able to traverse,” X-37 said.

“What the actual fuck, X? How does that help me?” I shouted.

“Prepare to belly crawl,” X-37 said, apparently not feeling any remorse for putting me in this situation.

“We really need to plan better.” I grunted, not used to doing the combat crawl.

“There was literally no planning for this operation,” X-37 said. “Please move faster. The Archangel is proving more persistent than expected.”

I glanced over my shoulder, which was difficult in the tight confines. The golden giant was already sprawled out on his belly, low crawling like some kind of snake monster. The sight motivated me to squirm around the next corner and force my way forward, banging my helmet several times. It was hard to say how many small pipes, circuit panels, and other critical infrastructure I was destroying during my rapid flight from my enemy.

“I’m starting to think I should have just stood and fought.”

“That course of action had a low probability of success,” X-37. “You made the best possible choice, although it is not going to feel like it in a few seconds.”

I came to a small hatch, twisted the wheel to open it, and pushed myself forward. It was fairly obvious I was beyond the part of the passage meant for humans. There was no lighting and I began to slip on some sort of lubricant I couldn’t see.

“What are you talking about, X?” I demanded.

“The Archangel is preparing to fire his weapon,” X-37 said. “On a positive note, he will just be spraying and praying, to use one of your imprecise descriptions.”

The sound cancellation feature in my helmet wasn’t the best, but it muted the worst of the thunder. Bracing for the worst, I felt the first round square on my ass cheek.

“That was a ricochet, Reaper Cain,” X-37 reassured me. “It should not penetrate the carbon fiber sleeves of your armor.”

I didn’t dignify the statement with a response. Tears welled in my eyes and I literally couldn’t speak from the pain. Everything from my lower back to my left hamstring felt like it had been struck by a pneumatic hammer.

“Are you okay, Reaper Cain? Do you need medical assistance?” X-37 asked.

“He shot me in the ass!” I scrambled around several twists and turns without caring where I was going—the deeper the better.

“Come out and fight, Reaper!” the Archangel said.

“Bite me.”

“Very mature,” X-37 said.

“You can’t go much farther, Reaper,” the Archangel shouted, causing the speakers in my helmet to distort the sound. “All I have to do is seal this area and call for drones.”

“I’m not afraid of drones,” I replied, pausing to consider my next move while he wasn’t shooting at me. “How many of you assholes are there on this ship?”

“That’s classified,” he answered via comms.

“Of course,” I said, scooting closer to a round hatch with no obvious way to open it. “X, can you take care of this?”

“Certainly,” X-37 said. A second later, the hatch opened to reveal more of the same—long narrow tunnels barely big enough for maintenance bots.

This deep into the guts of the ship, the sounds of the main battle were distant and dull. Vibrations rolled through the ship. Power flickered from time to time.

Something changed, like the Archangel’s buddies had shown up and started shooting at something or someone in the main hallway.

“X, what the hell is going on out there?” I pushed forward and saw a light at the end of the tunnel while the left side of my ass felt like it was swelling to three times its normal size—which I doubted was the actual case but whatever. It hurt like hell.

“I’d rather not tell you,” X-37 said.

“X,” I growled.

“Truly, Reaper Cain, it will only aggravate you and inspire a new batch of senseless profanity,” X-37 said.

“Elise jumped after us, didn’t she?”

X-37 beeped, which I thought was a copout. The LAI could process information faster than this, even with all the problems Necron and other Union ship computers had caused him lately.

“Show the way out so I can find her and throw her off this ship,” I said, twisting and turning, struggling to get to a new hallway where I could run and gun and kick ass.

“I never said Elise was the source of the gunfire,” X-37 complained.

“Stop screwing around, X. You know it’s Elise doing the crazy shit she does because she doesn’t know her limitations,” I said.

“It’s not just the girl. It’s Path as well,” X-37 said.

“Fan-freaking-tastic,” I said. “He had to have jumped about ten times the distance I did if he came from the Nightmare. I thought I was insane.”

“The probability of successfully making such a crossing between ships while every available gun is firing and the shields are at maximum does in fact have a low probability of success,” X-37 confirmed. “How is your gluteus maximus?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Let’s keep that war wound between us, all right?”

“Of course, Reaper Cain. I am programmed for discretion,” X-37 said.

Getting my shoulders through each intersection in this tunnel was hard, requiring me to drive hard with my legs and pull with my arms once I had them through to the next section. The lubricant, or insulation gel, or fire retardant, or whatever the slimy shit in here was helped me slip through the tightest spots. It also made it hard to grab and push effectively.

“I have made contact with Elise and Path and established a rendezvous point,” X-37 said. “Elise is asking if you have taken out any of the Archangels.”

“Connect us and I’ll tell her myself,” I said, emerging into a larger section of the passage.

Crawling to my feet, I opened an actual door—and stared down the barrel of an Archangel long gun.

“There you are, Reaper,” the man said.

“Shit.” There were probably better things to say or do, but I was tired.

The man didn’t laugh. “What am I going to do, Reaper, now that I’ve caught the most dangerous man in the galaxy?”

“How about you give him a lighter?”

“That’s funny,” he said.

“You don’t sound like you’re laughing,” I replied, wanting desperately to pull my HDK from my back and shoot him in the face. The weapon was probably too greasy to hold and my enemy was definitely way too fast for me to surprise him.

“Elise is approaching this intersection,” X-37 said. “Keep him talking.”

“Where are the rest of your friends?” I asked.

“Surrounding your friends,” the Archangel said. “The girl will get locked down. The strange one with the sword will need to die.”

A sense of calm came over me as the man talked. Why? Because he didn’t know my friends. This guy was the best the Union had to offer and was wearing the most badass armor I’d ever seen. It was more than just the look of it. I could tell by how crisp his movements were and how effortlessly he changed positions that the controls were next level stuff.

Why wouldn’t he think we were beaten?

The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a pretty damned good question.

“X, I’m bored with this guy,” I said.

“As am I, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “Go for the throat.”

Without hesitation, I extended my arm blade as I thrust it toward my target. The Archangel armor was impressive, but there were always the same weak points in humanoid-shaped armor.

Sure, it looked like the gap between the helmet and the chest plate was covered with an impenetrable weave of alloy, but there had to be a weak spot, even if it was narrower than a human hair.

My blade took him completely by surprise, slicing under his chin and into his brain. I drove my arm up hard, pushing him backward. After twisting the blade, I ripped it free, spraying blood across the deck and walls.

Three Archangels entered the hallway, so I tossed a smoke grenade and fled the other direction. The distraction device also sent up a bunch of white-hot chaff to confuse infrared sensors. I didn’t give two shits about how advanced they thought their gear was, I’d caught them napping and was going to make the most of it.

“Elise, can you read me?” I asked.

“We do not have access to their comms at this moment,” X-37 said. “I believe she and Path are working their way toward the bridge.”

“Good,” I said, flicking the blood from my blade and retracting it into its housing as I ran from my pursuers. “What’s the chance you can jack with the Archangel’s LAIs or whatever equivalent tech they have?”

“The virus I sent through the Union ships hasn’t borne fruit,” X-37 said.

“Look who just used a nonsensical metaphor,” I said. “Good job, X.”

“I recommend you increase your speed until you reach the next intersection. There will be a lift that will take you up to the next level,” X-37 said.

Seeing a better alternative in the ceiling of this hallway, I clicked my HDK Dominator to my gear to free both hands and jumped, grabbing the sides of an open hatch. I wasn’t sure if it had been left open by an overworked repair crew or had been knocked loose by the ongoing ship battles.

Just as I jumped, the ship lurched downward, making it even easier to reach my objective and scramble through another maintenance area to the deck above us.

There were times when everything just worked—like the universe actually liked me.

“Or you could do that,” X-37 said.

I tossed one of my few grenades behind me and ran toward the next intersection. X-37 had plotted out all of the elevators, which I avoided because I assumed they would have the tightest security and remote control systems.

On the inside of the elevator shaft, there was a ladder. I climbed it as fast as I could while lifts raced up and down.

“You are making this a lot harder than it should be,” X-37 commented.

“Yeah, but I’m making good time and the Archangel jerkoffs haven’t caught me,” I said, not wanting to tell X that my grip was shot and my shoulders were on fire. “Since I’m doing all the hard work, I need you to update your evaluation of the Archangels.”

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “I will add our recent encounter to my database.”

Ten minutes later, I left the elevator shaft and found evidence of a hard fight. Blood spattered the walls. I counted three severed hands and half a dozen bodies. Some had died from the clean, arteful cuts of a sword saint, while others had been shot in the neck—a technique I’d been teaching Elise during our training sessions in the slip tunnel.

“Two things, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “You must find a new elevator shaft to reach the bridge. Ship security has placed guards on the one you just left. Secondly, my analysis shows that most of the Archangels must be on the Dark Lance with Vice Admiral Nebs—so don’t get cocky. Your success here means nothing.”

“It means a little bit,” I countered, then followed a new map on my HUD. We were getting close. Once I had a chat with the captain of this stealth carrier, things would get much easier.

A massive series of explosions ripped through the Black Wing, tossing me into a wall hard enough to knock the wind out of me and steal a few seconds of consciousness.

“What the hell was that, X?” I shouted.

“Shield breach. The Nightmare is now hitting the ship directly,” X-37 said.

The next explosion sounded closer and I heard metal tearing from the force of major damage.

“You do have your helmet sealed, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked.

“Abso-fucking-lutely,” I responded, picking myself up.

“Good, because the Black Wing is losing atmosphere,” X-37 warned.

OceanofPDF.com

17

Alarms filled the ship as crew members scrambled toward escape pods. Others worked frantically to repair damage. Medics and volunteers rushed past me with men and women on makeshift gurneys.

“All hands, this is your captain.” The strong female voice actually filled me with confidence, even though I was certain she wanted me dead. “Evacuation protocols are underway. Follow orders and do your part, by the numbers. This is not a drill.”

“Damage reports indicate there have been several hull breaches, including the engine room and fuel transfer levels,” X-37 said. “I hope you weren’t planning to steal this ship.”

“Think positive, X. She’s a fixer-upper,” I said, pushing my way through a crowd.

“You there,” said a ship security supervisor. “This is a one-way passage. Stand to one side and await contact. My men will come to you.”

“Nope,” I said, and took another hallway.

“You will be discovered if you attempt to board a life pod,” X-37 said.

A pipe ruptured in the ceiling, spraying chemicals downward. I avoided the unknown hazard by backtracking and taking a hallway through an unexplored part of the ship. “Find Elise and Path. Hack into the ship’s security if you have to.”

“Please, Reaper Cain. You know I have already done that. Monitoring security comms is the first thing I do during a mission like this one,” X-37 said.

“Then tell me if they caught her.”

“They have not, but they have several unflattering names for her and Path,” X-37 informed.

“Establish comms with Elise and or Path. I know how hard that is right now, but I need you to do it,” I ordered, pausing near the edge of a crowd at a nervous standstill. A sergeant was untangling the bottleneck as quickly as possible. The crew persons of the Black Wing were admirably calm, not happy, but not fighting amongst themselves either.

“I have attempted this many times,” X-37 said. “It is not easy while on an enemy ship during battle stations.”

“Keep trying,” I demanded.

“I will, of course,” X-37 responded.

Carefully pushing my way through the crowd of Union soldiers and crew persons, I continued to talk to X. “Try harder.”

“Now you are being childish and, frankly, quite offensive,” X-37 said. “I have made forty-two attempts to hack into their comms since we began that situation.”

“We were just arguing with an Archangel on their channel,” I said.

“Yes, Reaper Cain, the man who shot you in the ass initiated that conversation,” X-37 said. “Which makes communication much simpler.”

“Whatever, X,” I said, then stopped near a hallway that had become a battlefield triage area. “We’re not going to reach the bridge and this ship is already doomed. What is the chance Elise and Path have come to the same decision?”

“Nearly one hundred percent,” X-37 said. “What she will do about it is the real question. My analysis shows all options essentially equal.”

“Let’s move toward the nearest docking bay not in use,” I said. “Like the way we came in but less well defended. She’ll try to hail the Jellybird.”

“What is the basis of your analysis,” X-37 asked.

“That’s what I would do,” I answered. “There’s no way we’re going to find a shuttle or ship or escape pod to steal while the Union is abandoning ship.”

“That logic is sketchy,” X-37 argued.

“I love it when you use big words, X,” I said. A modified map appeared on my HUD with gold stars marking several locations.

“I’ve marked the last known location of Archangels,” X-37 said.

“Great. That’s actually pretty damned useful.” I advanced through one hallway after another with my HDK at the low ready position.

“X-37 for Elise, is that you? You must be close for this comm link to work—it’s the next thing to line of sight and completely unmonitored by ship security.”

“X! I knew you weren’t dead!” she answered. “We’ve secured a launch bay, landing pad combo where the ships are already gone. Haven’t seen the golden boys for a while.”

“We’re moving to your position. Is Path with you?” I asked.

“He is and he believes the Archangels are gone, probably headed to kiss Nebs’s ass,” Elise said. “My words, not his.”

“I believe they will be compelled to protect the vice admiral,” Path said. “There could also be ass kissing, I guess.”

Before I could answer, X-37 sounded an alarm in my ear while also sending a haptic vibration through my hand. It was the most forceful warning my LAI could use—that he had never used. Once, in training, he’d scared the hell out of me, but that was it.

“Reaper Cain, a salvo of rockets has been fired through a gap in the shields at this location. Relocate immediately,” X-37 warned.

Elise and Path came around the corner at a run, weapons ready and eyes searching for danger.

“Let’s go!” I shouted, grabbing them each by an arm for emphasis and shoving them toward the exit.

“What the hell?” Elise shouted. “Are you limping? Did you get shot in the leg?”

“No comment,” I replied.

“The aforementioned rockets will strike the ship in three seconds,” X-37 interrupted.

“Incoming,” I called.

Explosions tore apart the space behind us, flinging all three of us forward. The overpressure from the resulting explosions flung us down the hallway with deadly force. Fear ripped through my gut. The bulkhead at the end of the hallway looked solid.

None of us had time to shout or curse. All my senses—natural and augmented—overloaded as I attempted to slow my forward progress by grabbing things and rolling.

The ship seemed to shake forever, and when I looked back, there was nothing but tangled metal and the void beyond. The ethereal flashes of void weapons—kinetic projectiles with non-atmospheric fluorescent tracers, flaring rocket boosters, and short lived explosions—was beautiful.

I stared at the chaos for several seconds, stunned and wondering if this wasn’t as good a place to die as any.

Path’s EVA helmet appeared above me. He was squatting down, both hands on his knees. “Reaper, you are alive, so you must continue.”

“Fucking-A-right,” I said.

“That is an interesting mantra. Perhaps I shall adopt it,” he said.

Elise was on her feet, one hand holding down a door button. “Come on, Reaper!”

“It’s good to have friends,” I muttered to X-37.

“They do seem to motivate you,” X-37 agreed.

We swept through one crooked, damaged hallway after another. Twice we came to areas that were open to the void.

“X, what is the chance this ship can be salvaged?” I asked.

“One hundred percent, with sufficient determination and the proper equipment,” X-37 said. “But only in very small pieces. I am searching for any remaining conveyance that might assist your rather slim chance of surviving this ordeal.”

“You’re the best, X. I don’t say it enough,” I said.

Elise and Path laughed, which made me feel pretty good. Path wasn’t big on laughing, but when he did, the sound was like music. Elise had a hundred different laughs, but this one suggested she believed deep down that I was going to get us out of this.

I loved my friends. It felt so good, I almost sat down and cried.

“Please continue on the route I have updated in your HUD. The gaps in the course are where pieces of the ship are missing. Please don’t fall into the void. There is no one to recover you,” X-37 advised, even calmer than Path on a good day.

“Are you going to tell us what’s at the end of this little quest?” I asked.

“A box of Starbrand cigars with a functioning lighter and a bottle of whiskey. Also a pizza for Elise and tea for Path,” X-37 said.

“Did you just make a joke, X?” I paused before a section of floor that was missing and revealed the ruined level below us—wires twisting from walls like a creature from mythology.

“I am merely trying to motivate you,” X-37 said.

“What is a pizza?” Elise asked.

“My database says that all teenagers enjoy at least one variation of pizza, a food made from…” X-37 rambled on, trying to calm us as the ship came apart all around us.

“Let’s jump across this,” Elise suggested.

“Sounds good. On three,” I said. “One, two, three!”

Our little trio wobbled across the gap, inconsistent gravity generators making me queasy. When we reached relative safety, we sprinted toward the next objective on my HUD.

And found the treasure trove X-37 had promised: two pristine micro-fighters and a heavy-duty EVA unit.

* * *

“How hard can it be?” Elise asked.

“Spoken like a kid,” I muttered.

“Says the intergalactic murderer with zero experience parenting,” Elise shot back. “The real question is who takes the EVA thing.”

“I will pilot the HD EVA,” Path said. “Anything is better than staying here.”

The deck rippled as he spoke, nearly dislodging all three of us and causing one of the micro-fighters to break free of its mooring.

“Why are these here instead of latched to the exterior?” I asked.

“The ship manifest lists them as experimental,” X-37 said.

“Fucking great,” I grumbled, approaching my new ride.

Elise and Path climbed into the other micro-fighter and the HD EVA respectively, taking it slow despite the urgency of our situation. One thing we had learned during our misadventures was how not to rush to failure even when the walls were literally falling down around us.

Godsdamn I was proud of my friends.

I climbed into the micro-fighter and pulled down the canopy. As soon as it closed, the cockpit powered up and began a pre-flight check. I followed along and manually confirmed everything was ship-shape. The flight computer was snappy and quick, a preview of what it was going to be like to fly this thing.

“How are you feeling, Elise?” I was pleased at how crisp our ship-to-ship communications sounded.

“This is going to be fun,” she replied, excitement resonating through her voice.

I could picture her punching buttons and tugging her safety harness tighter.

“Path, are you good?” I asked.

“This unit is sturdy and has a reassuringly large supply of oxygen. I should be able to drift aimlessly in the void for days,” Path said.

“I guess that is a good thing,” I said. “We will pick you up as soon as possible.”

“I’ve already contacted the Jellybird and provided this unit’s identification markers,” Path advised.

Static rippled through our comms as the Nightmare dealt a death blow to the Black Wing. I saw our stolen carrier passing above us, shifting into stealth mode as she left the battle. The sight was stunningly beautiful and ominous.

“Let’s get the hell out of here and find the Jellybird,” I said.

“Right behind you,” Elise said.

Punching the launch button, I braced for neck-snapping acceleration and wasn’t disappointed. Without the safety harness and form fitting pilot seat, a ride in one of these tiny little death dealers would be fatal. The human body could only endure so much.

* * *

Shooting away from the recent battle with Elise’s micro-fighter beside me felt like pure victory. Once we cleared the debris field, it was hard to get a sense of how fast we were moving, but X-37 reassured me it was fast as a motherfucker—my words, not X’s. My LAI was a gentleman.

“How are you doing, kid?” I asked.

“Could you please stop asking me that? It’s annoying. I’m not a kid,” she said. “But since you did ask, I think I was born to fly one of these things. It’s like wearing a second skin. I can’t wait to tell Novasdaughter. Maybe she’ll give me some real lessons.”

I wasn’t loving the micro-fighter as much as Elise was. The little ship didn’t like my cybernetic arm. Every few minutes, the flight computer sent an error message that required me to manually confirm it was my prosthetic and agree to see a flight engineer to have the ship synced with my arm, eye, and “non-standard pilot-sized physique.”

“How are you doing?” Elise asked.

“My ship is telling me I’m a broken-down cyborg that doesn’t fit in the cockpit,” I said.

“You’ll get used to it,” Elise replied, good humor in her voice. “The Jellybird is sending a location marker. I’ll lead the way in.”

“Works for me,” I said. “Then we can pick up Path.”

Elise accelerated. I followed slightly to her left as my flight computer suggested. The longer I flew the thing, the more comfortable I became. All I had to do was ignore the warnings and safety alerts. In truth, I’d been doing that all of my life one way or another.

“Congratulations on surviving the destruction of the Black Wing,” X-37 commended. “If you switch to your aft view screen, you will see her coming apart.”

I tapped my pinky finger on a control and found myself viewing destruction like I never imagined. Death was commonplace in my line of work; I’d blown things up and ended lives in every way imaginable. But I’d never seen anything like the destruction of a Union warship.

What caught me off guard was the perspective from our position. I’d thought we were farther away, but the expanding debris cloud was kilometers in diameter now, growing outward like a sun going supernova—the longer I watched, the slower the expansion seemed.

“You are clear for final approach,” Jelly said a short time later. “Would you like for me to await you on the bridge before starting for Path’s marker?”

“No, Jelly. Go as soon as Elise and I are docked,” I said. “Do we have comms with him?”

The micro-fighter was so small, I wasn’t sure what it could or couldn’t do. I played with the controls, trying to get comfortable, attempting to accelerate my learning curve. There was a pretty freaking good chance I was going to get shot down in this thing.

“We have Path on the tactical commlink,” X-37 said.

“Cain for Path,” I said. “How copy?”

“I can hear you, Reaper. Have you been watching the fireworks?” He almost sounded high with awe.

“Yeah, it’s real nice. All things being equal, I’d rather be sitting on the observation deck of the Jellybird with a Wallach Presidential and a glass of whiskey.”

“That would be ideal, would it not?” Path said. “I assume you called to reassure me that you are on your way to retrieve me from the void.”

“Yep. Watch out for Union micro-fighters and random debris from the bombardment,” I said. “And keep in mind we saw a squad of Archangels in EVA mode.”

A long pause followed.

“Did we lose connection?” I asked X-37.

“I’m here, Reaper. It took a moment for me to turn to see the comet. The view is stunning, but I am glad that particular danger is far from here,” Path said.

“Space is big as shit,” I said, exhaling forcefully and realizing how the idea of Path dying made me feel. “Look after yourself, Path. I need someone to bonk Elise over the head with practice swords.”

“Of course, Reaper,” he said. “You know where to find me.”

“Copy that,” I said, then spoke to X-37 privately. “I love that guy, but there is something off with him. Who the hell gets left in the shadow of a disintegrating Union stealth carrier and stays that calm?”

“He does seem to enjoy his solitude. Jelly has his location locked and will retrieve him after you are safe,” X-37 said. “Prepare to land on the Jellybird, Reaper Cain. We located this ship in a storage bay, but it is designed to latch on to the outside of a ship. There could be a few minor issues when we land.”

“Just don’t get me killed,” I told him.

“Follow the telemetry I have projected on the ship’s primary view screen and you—and the ship—should survive the landing,” my LAI instructed.

“Perfect, X. You’re the best.”

“I detect neither sincerity nor sarcasm,” X-37 said.

“You pick.” I laughed.

“Lucky me.”

OceanofPDF.com

18

There were hard decisions to be made once we were all aboard the Jellybird.

“That had to prove I’m right,” I argued.

X-37 responded calmly, which was annoying as hell. “On the contrary, it was a demonstration of what will happen if you go up against the Archangels before my plan has been properly set in motion.”

“I hate arguing with you, X,” I muttered.

“It is good that we disagree,” X-37 said. “Our discussions improve our chances for survivability by several percentage points. If I did not raise counter arguments to your far too human decision-making process, I would be less than useless as your LAI.”

“Yeah, sure. Having a limited AI yammering in my head is a sweet-ass solution to all my problems,” I griped. “Jelly, give me an update on the Nightmare versus Black Wing damage.”

“I have made contact with Novasdaughter and Henshaw. It seems the Nightmare has sustained so much damage that Necron agreed to a temporary truce while they work on repairs. Eighty-nine percent of the original crew have agreed to put aside past allegiances to put the ship back in order—and not die,” Jelly said.

“Let me guess, the remaining eleven percent are the officers?” I asked.

“A very small percentage of UFS Nightmare officers have switched sides, at least for now,” Jelly said.

“Why can’t those assholes see what kind of a maniac Nebs is?” Elise wondered aloud.

Tom shrugged. “Union propaganda runs deep. And they are probably afraid of him.”

“What’s wrong, Tom?” I asked.

He lowered his eyes to the ground and shook his head. “I feel like I should be on the Nightmare helping with repairs.”

“The Nightmare is beyond our shuttle range at the moment,” Jelly replied.

“I know, Jelly,” Tom said. “Thanks for checking.”

“May I make an observation?” X-37 asked.

“Go ahead, X,” I said.

“None of you have slept for over twenty-four hours. This level of sleep deprivation is not sustainable,” he replied.

“I’m not tired,” Elise said.

“That’s because you’re a kid and kids don’t get tired,” I said, expecting a profanity-dense response.

“And now you’re a jerk again,” she said. “Does the Reaper need a nap?”

I hesitated, then relented. “Yeah, he does. Tom, you have the conn. Everyone sleeps in shifts while X-37 admits my plan to storm the Dark Lance is our only option.”

“Agreed,” X-37 said. “Once I am certain we have dealt with Necron and drawn the Archangels into my trap.”

“Your trap is lame, X,” I said.

“On the contrary, it is perfect,” X-37 said. “My analysis of the Archangels is that each of them is an extraordinarily proficient fighter, probably chosen personally by Vice Admiral Nebs. But therein lies their weakness.”

I frowned. “I don’t follow.”

“They lack the imagination to question him, and will be easier to fool as a result,” X-37 said.

“Bullshit, X. You’re making too many assumptions about living, breathing, high level Union operators,” I argued.

“On the contrary,” X-37 said. “I am making only one assumption. The Archangels will listen to the LAIs native to their Archangel armor. Once I’ve hacked in, I will send them on a wild chase.”

I grinned. “That sounds like a good plan, X. Almost like I came up with it myself.”

* * *

I knew something was wrong the moment I woke up. With the lights off, I slipped out of bed and moved, scanning the small cabin with my cybernetic eye. X-37 didn’t bother to tell me this was paranoid. We were on the same page.

A Reaper could never be too careful.

“You biometrics are optimal but slightly elevated,” X-37 advised. “You slept for four hours.”

“Really?” I asked. “Doesn’t feel like it. I didn’t dream.”

“It is more likely that you do not remember your dreams because you didn’t regain consciousness during REM state,” X-37 said. “I took the liberty of checking all ship security cameras the moment your heart rate suggested you were worried about something unseen.”

“Nice one, X.” I dressed and geared up quickly. “Did you find anything?”

“Brion Rejon is attempting to steal one of the recently acquired shuttles,” X-37 said.

“Any theories on what he thinks he’s doing?” I headed out the door, already following an icon X-37 had placed in my HUD.

“Jelly says he has logged several requests to leave the ship,” X-37 explained. “He wishes to go to the planet, an action Jelly and I both find suspicious.”

“Yeah, me too. That place is a wasteland,” I said. “He claims there are ships dry-docked on the surface and underground shelters, but I saw what the planet looks like. Anyone living there has got to be completely mental. How many times can they fire that weapon before their little bunkers become death traps?”

“Unknown,” X-37 said. “Insufficient data.”

I headed for the bridge, thoughts clear, body rested and a firm conviction in my mind. Nebs was the problem.

It was time to solve the problem.

“Have you been able to take control of the Archangel LAIs?” I asked.

“The last contact we had with Union ships allowed me to establish a proxy persona within the server they share,” X-37 said. “Not to brag, but that has never been done before.”

“Nice. How’d you manage that?” I asked.

“I am the template for the Archangel LAI network,” X-37 said.

“Congrats, X. You’re a daddy, or maybe a grandpa,” I said.

“Insincerity detected,” X-37 said.

“Oh no, X, I mean it. You’ve been immortalized by the Union,” I said. “Now let’s use that to kill these asshats.”

“I said I have established a presence in their network. That is not the same thing as taking control,” X-37 said.

“If you take control, then we win automatically.” I said.

“I intend to summon them to the Archangel armory for an emergency refit, then lock them inside while convincing them you surrendered and they can stand down from their mission,” X-37 said.

I snorted in disbelief. “They’re never going to believe that. I’m not a quitter.”

“You do have a reputation of being stubborn,” X-37 agreed.

“I’m determined, there is a difference,” I insisted. “Sometimes, X, you try to hurt my feelings on purpose.”

“That is your problem, not mine. I am not responsible for your feelings,” X-37 said. “Only your wellbeing.”

Unwilling to continue the argument, I entered the bridge and relieved Tom.

“Get some sleep. You have earned it,” I said.

“Thanks, Hal. I was starting to hallucinate I’m so tired,” Tom said.

Elise arrived a moment later, logging in to her workstation without a word. I watched her for a bit.

“Good morning, sunshine,” I said.

“I contacted Novasdaughter,” she said, ignoring my greeting. “The Nightmare nearly went completely offline, but she has it under control. She says not to expect help against the Dark Lance. Her crew is trading with scavengers for parts. I’m not certain, but she sounds disgusted at the out of date parts she has been forced to use.”

“Okay,” I said. “That just reinforces my argument. We need to take this fight to Nebs, right to him, like me throat punching him.”

“I recommend you utilize your arm blade rather than punch him,” X-37 said, his tone reasonable and business-like.

“Right. Blade to the throat. Why didn’t I think of that,” I said. “Or maybe I just shoot him.”

“You could push him out an airlock,” Elise suggested.

“Or shoot him into the void as was done previously,” Jelly said.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah—those are all fantastic suggestions. I’ll know what to do when the time comes. All I need is to get close enough to do what a Reaper does.”

That shut everyone up.

“Contact with the vice admiral is premature, Reaper Cain,” X-37 insisted.

“There will never be a perfect time,” I said. “Jelly, set a course for the UFS Dark Lance and give me an update on her status.”

“Right away, Captain,” Jelly said.

OceanofPDF.com

19

“The UFS Dark Lance has made significant repairs and no longer seems to be disabled.” Jelly updated me as frequently as possible, which I appreciated.

“Where the hell is Rejon?” Elise asked. “He should be here telling us how long his people’s super weapon will affect Nebs’ ship.”

“He escaped in a shuttle and headed for the planet,” I said. “As their leader, he acts like he’s obligated to go down there and die with them. Weird, I know.”

“What?” Elise looked alarmed.

“Shit happens,” I said. “It was a matter of time before he bolted. I know the type. Jelly, have we been detected?”

“Not at this time, Captain,” Jelly said.

“You just let him leave.” Elise stared at me like I was an irresponsible asshole. “He claimed to be their leader. That doesn’t mean he is their leader.”

“He wasn’t our prisoner,” I told her. “Is that what you want, to start treating everyone we meet as enemies or prisoners?”

“Most of them are,” she shot back.

“Statistically, she is correct,” X-37 said.

“Screw statistics,” I said, then listed all of the people who had joined us since Dreadmax: Tom, Path, Henshaw, Locke and his people…”

“We get it,” Elise said. “I just thought you would be on top of this type of thing. Rejon has information we need, and for all we know, he’s warming up that ship stunner to use on us.”

“That is a possibility,” X-37 admitted. “Shall I make a note of your oversight, Reaper Cain?”

“No,” I said. “I mean, it wasn’t an oversight. Let’s just move forward. Nebs is the enemy, remember. Jelly, what else can you tell us?”

There was one person on the bridge I wasn’t used to—Bug. He sat at a terminal, watching everyone and everything with silent intensity. I was tempted to bring him into the conversation, but something warned me to leave him be. He talked tough, ran his mouth like a street thug when confronted, but it was clear he was way outside of his comfort zone. The boy had grown up in a surveillance tower with little or no parenting.

“X, keep an eye on Bug,” I said quietly.

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “He has been playing with all surveillance systems accessible from the bridge without questions, comments, or opinions. The only other thing he has done since boarding the Jellybird is search the galley for cheese crackers.”

“Okay, good. Give me the lowdown on what Nebs has left,” I said.

“There are several active patrols of micro-fighters. Many of the craft that were orphaned when we took the Nightmare and after the destruction of the Black Wing have been recovered by the Dark Lance. There isn’t room for all of them to land onto the surface of the carrier, so they are maintaining constant patrols with well-coordinated refueling operations. I assume their pilots eventually get to sleep,” Jelly said.

“Novasdaughter told me that it isn’t uncommon for pilots to be ordered to sleep in their micro-fighters,” Elise said. “She said it can be relaxing.”

I pulled a face. “No thanks. The micro-fighter I flew was about as comfortable as handcuffs and leg restraints after getting beat down by angry prison guards.”

“Uh, okay,” Elise said. “No one but you has had that unfortunate experience. My point is, I can believe they are keeping those tiny fighters on patrol for days at a time.”

“Jelly, take us past their patrols,” I said. “Give me your best Union evasion tricks. The sooner I get to Nebs, the better chance we all have for survival.”

“Yes, Captain,” Jelly said, then altered course to weave closer to Nebs’s new flagship.

“How many times have you lectured me about rushing to failure?” X-37 asked privately.

I put a hand on my forehead and massaged my temples, a behavior I sometimes adopted to cue my friends I was having a private discussion with my LAI.

“I don’t lecture, X. I just point out your mistakes,” I said.

“Would you like an accounting of how many times I was wrong versus how many times you were wrong?” X-37 asked.

“No.” Why would I need that kind of abuse? Being a Reaper didn’t pay enough for this kind of harassment. “Let’s call it even.”

“My records indicate that we are nowhere near even,” X-37 said.

“Hey, Jelly, can I get an update on our position?” I asked, even though I knew exactly where we were and how far we needed to go.

“Certainly, Captain,” Jelly said. “I was just about to recommend battle stations and advise you of enemies approaching.”

“Can they see us?” I had my fingers crossed.

“Not exactly,” Jelly clarified. “Nebs’s fighters have refined a method for searching a three-dimensional grid. One of the squadrons will have us boxed in, after a fashion, even if they don’t know they’ve caught us.

I prepared to take the controls again. Sweat ran down my back and made my palms soft with perspiration. This was going to get ugly. All the people I considered friends were probably going to die and it would be my fault.

For several seconds, I considered reversing my decision. It didn’t take long to understand there really wasn’t any place to go. I couldn’t see a solution to our problems that didn’t involve eliminating Nebs. The only way that would work was if I did it.

Face to face. With my arm blade. Or whatever was lying around that might provide sufficient trauma to end his life.

An alarm sounded.

“We’ve been detected,” Jelly warned.

“Call Tom back to the deck. Locke, get your people ready to repel boarders… or maybe abandon ship. Elise, you’re on weapons with Tom when he gets here.”

“Right away, Captain,” Jelly responded.

Elise didn’t bother responding. She merely flipped over her control station, activated weapons, and started shooting the first micro-fighters to arrive. “This won’t be enough. There are too many of them.”

“When Tom gets here, tell him to take over then get back in that micro-fighter you love so much,” I ordered.

“Hell yeah.” Her face lit up at the prospect.

I wanted to share her enthusiasm but understood what our odds were against trained Union pilots. If they were half as good as Amii Novasdaughter, we would have problems.

“Reaper Cain, I have begun analyzing the capabilities of the experimental micro-fighters you and Elise will be flying,” X-37 said as I ran to the landing bay.

The Union fighters were meant to be launched from the exterior of a stealth carrier with small explosive charges. Nudging them out of the Jellybird’s hold wasn’t going to have the same effect and I was convinced it would put us at a disadvantage. I told X my thoughts.

“Then why do it, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked.

“Because I’m using every resource to win,” I said. “More guns in the fight.”

“Even if you die, Reaper Cain?”

I hesitated, knowing this involved my LAI in a way we’d never discussed. When I died, X died. Would he try to stop me from diving into a truly hopeless situation?

“No one gets a guarantee. People die. There’s no reason I have more right to live than anyone else in this battle.” I climbed into the micro-fighter.

“Who has a right to live and who doesn’t is irrelevant,” X-37 said.

“I don’t disagree with you.” I flipped switches and checked the power displays one after another. “I’m just saying anything could happen and I don’t have time to worry about it.”

“Ah, gallows courage,” X-37 said.

I shook my head. “I plan on surviving. I also know that thinking too much about dying gets people killed.”.

The engines whined. Lights flashed, indicating the weapons of the experimental micro-fighter were ready.

“So does being reckless and making poor decisions,” X-37 continued.

“X, can you tell me why no one bothered to take one of these fighters during the ship evacuation?” I asked.

“There are two reasons I was able to find while snooping through the Black Wing’s systems,” X-37 replied. “One: access to the area was restricted. No one could have entered the area until well after the ship was coming apart.”

“And the second reason?” The ship was ready, so I tapped a thruster and slid free of the Jellybird, unable to see where Elise had gone.

“Several of the test pilots died from the raw acceleration of this vessel. I recommend you pretend like it doesn’t have the third thruster switch. It will only get you in trouble,” X-37 cautioned.

“Or dead,” I added.

“Or that,” X-37 said. “I was attempting to be polite.”

“A little help would be nice, Reaper,” Elise broke in, slightly out of breath. Probably because she was grunting the words through clenched teeth while making a hard corner. “Yeeeeeeeeeee!”

“Elise has put her micro-fighter into a quintuple spin and roll out,” X-37 observed.

“Yeah, I saw that,” I muttered. “Hey, kid, take it easy on the acceleration or you’re going to crush your insides.”

A swarm of Union micro-fighters raced after her. I nudged my little death ship into their wake and opened fire, destroying two and damaging two others before they had time to react.

“This isn’t so hard,” I said. “Elise, don’t use the third thruster switch. It will turn your brain to mush.”

“Like yours.” She laughed. “Thanks for the save, wingman.”

“Not your wingman,” I said.

“Are.”

“Am not.”

“You’re totally my wingman,” she said. “Watch your six.”

“Damn!” I jammed the controls as hard as I could to one side, trying to remember everything I could about my Reaper flight training. It had been extensive but it never intended to prepare me for a fight against the best the Union had to offer.

“You will pass out in nine seconds,” X-37 said.

“If I had a credit for every… time… I heard that”—I pulled out of my evasive maneuvers, secretly hoping Elise had killed the jackwagons after me—“I could retire.”

“That is a completely irrelevant goal in your situation,” X-37 said. “Now could you flip this ship over and shoot at your pursuers?”

I did as X suggested, banging my head, even though I was wearing a helmet and the helmet was tethered to the flight seat. When I opened fire, my vision was blurry from rapid changes in my blood pressure despite my pressurized flight suit. Or maybe it was from being hit on the head. Or going into nicotine withdrawal. Or what the fuck ever.

The main thing was that I wasn’t the kid’s wingman. We couldn’t even see each other, much less fly in formation. This was less of a dog fight and more of a violent space brawl at speeds I could barely comprehend.

Small, deadly projectiles streamed from my guns, slicing one ship to pieces. I veered away and was pursued by two ships this time.

“X, I know this thing has freakishly dangerous acceleration, but is there another reason it is experimental—something that might have gotten some of those test pilots killed?” I asked.

“Why do you ask, Reaper Cain? Is it that flashing button you’re dying to push?” X-37 asked.

I swerved right, then left, then went straight down before leveling out to check for pursuers. The ship demanded I acknowledge an error caused by my cybernetics, which I handled without thinking, then answered X. “Yeah, X. I really want to push it.”

“That particular button illuminates when the plasma burst is ready,” X-37 said.

“There’s no way a ship this small has an energy weapon like that,” I said, firing the standard guns and missing.

Elise and two pursuers streaked in front of me.

“Not your wingman!” I shouted.

“It is unlikely her comms picked up that rather spontaneous transmission,” X-37 pointed out—like I cared.

Elsewhere, the Jellybird was taking a beating from small ships and the UFS Dark Lance. We needed to finish this fight now.

“Tell me what I need to know about the alleged plasma weapon,” I said, assuming it was something that had the appearance of a plasma device but was really just a hyped-up battery with one or two charges.

“I am only reading the manual,” X-37 said, “for the one hundred and thirty-fifth time. Benefits of being an advanced cluster of algorithms. There is some fine print indicating the plasma gun, or PG as they call it, has a limited number of charges. Suspicious.”

“That’s kind of what I thought,” I said, then aimed and jammed my finger on the button.

Light burned all around me. I couldn’t tell if the weapon worked or if it had fired in the direction I had the ship pointed. Heat warnings flashed on every system I could monitor from inside the cockpit. Alarms blurred in my helmet. It sounded like someone was laughing at me.

Only extreme force of will kept me from passing out or pissing my pants.

“Good work, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “You badly singed one enemy micro-fighter.”

“That’s all!”

“You are also the first to survive using the weapon in combat conditions. All of the others panicked and ejected,” X-37 said.

“I didn’t know that was an option!” X didn’t seem to be listening, so I added a few of my favorite swear words.

“Other micro-fighters are avoiding you,” X-37 said. “I recommend making a run at the Dark Lance and using the weapon one more time.”

Thoughts of dubiously experimental weapons and our recent conversation about dying filled the moments it took me to change course. “Check on the Jellybird.”

X-37 utilized the micro-fighter’s systems to communicate with Jelly. “X-37 for the Jellybird, what is your status?”

“Taking heavy damage.” Tom’s voice was strained and he didn’t offer elaboration.

“I’m making a run at the Dark Lance,” I told him and thought about how far short my plan had fallen. My intent was to board the flagship, slip past the guards, maybe fight the Archangels, and eliminate the vice admiral.

I’d been worried about the Archangels but never even reached them.

“It’s been nice knowing you, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“Nice timing, X. That was your best lame-ass attempt at a joke yet,” I said, noticing that Elise had fallen in formation slightly behind and to my left.

“It is nice of you to say so, Reaper Cain.”

Elise interrupted. “I’m not your wingman.”

“Sure, kid,” I said. Just keep those bastards off me while I make this run.”

“I have the same weapon,” she said. “After you fire, peel off, and I’ll take a shot.”

“No way,” I said.

“Why not?” She sounded pissed.

“Because it about fried me when I tried it and I nearly ejected, which is how most of the test pilots died, according to X,” I said, paraphrasing a bit.

“I’m taking a shot and you can’t stop me,” she said, all attitude.

“I can give you a really dirty look when this is over,” I said.

“X-37 is way funnier than you.”

“That hurts, kid,” I said then dove through the streams of point defense guns, rockets, and hastily deployed mines.

Elise held formation.

“Talk to me about a target, X,” I said.

“My recommendation is the communication antennas on the prow of the ship,” X-37 said. “They are the only piece of critical infrastructure that is even remotely vulnerable.”

“Hey, I’m about to fire a super weapon,” I said.

“It will have little effect against a ship this size,” X-37 said. “However, your efforts have drawn the Union micro-fighters away from the Jellybird, allowing her to escape.”

“Sweet,” I said. “That’s all I wanted anyway—other than to board the Dark Lance and eliminate Nebs once and for all.”

“If you survive this attack run, I will do everything in my power to assist you with that goal,” X-37 promised.

OceanofPDF.com

20

Pushing the micro-fighter to the extreme edge of what I could endure, I rolled about five hundred times, dropped within inches of the deck, and weaved around the point defense currents that were too slow to hit me. Thoughts of walking on the similar surface of the Nightmare and losing Gunner flashed for about one second in my mind.

I jerked the ship sideways to avoid a communications antenna I hadn’t expected.

“Watch it,” Elise bellowed. “Maybe I should take the lead before you get us both killed.”

She sounded out of breath and less enthusiastic than when we began the run.

A cloud of flares erupted from the surface of the UFS Dark Lance, blinding me and sending my sensors into disarray. Elise screamed. X-37 rattled off advice.

I held my course and prayed I didn’t smash into something or get blown out of the void.

“Are you listening, Reaper Cain?” X-37 said much louder than normal. “There is a full squadron of micro-fighters behind you that are closing fast.”

Something bumped the short wing of my fighter.

“Can you stop running into me, Reaper?” Elise snapped. “This is like playing video games with a kid.”

“I suggest you flip the ship again and fire at your pursuers,” X-37 said.

“No, X, that’s a bad idea. They have to be at least as blind as we are,” I said. A heartbeat later, my theory proved true as we emerged from the storm of chaff flares. I saw something that looked like the communication antenna, but it was too far away.

“What are you doing, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked.

“I’m looking for the signal relay for this ship’s AI,” I said quickly. Time was running out. I saw the squad of micro-fighters racing up behind us on the tactical display.

Three possible locations popped up on my HUD, overlaying with the micro-fighter’s screens to show me where the AI’s signal relay might be located.

I picked one and was rewarded with a determined attempt to shoot me down.

“Firing the… whatever weapon,” I shouted. White-hot energy danced all around my little ship.

Elise fired a second later and I saw what my attack must have looked like. The experimental limited-use weapon didn’t have enough mass to focus the beam. Most of it went forward, but there was a lot of backwash around the exterior of her fighter. The result was a lance of white death shooting forward and a bulbous trail dragging behind the ship like a man-made comet of pure fire.

“Path should be here to see this,” I said.

“He would appreciate the beauty of it,” X-37 concurred.

“Split up, Elise. Let’s try to rally behind our pursuers,” I said.

“Copy,” Elise replied.

The Union pilots came at us like a squad of Reapers on a purge mission. Kinetic projectiles peppered my underpowered shields, piercing my wings. I watched in horror as one twisted from hundreds of impacts. If there had been atmosphere, it would have torn free immediately.

“Hey, X. How does the pilot ejection option work?” I grunted as I fought a hard turn. The really crappy thing about fighting in space was that there was no gravity, until you created the effect with impossibly hard turns, ridiculous acceleration, and sudden decelerations.

“The ship will basically come apart all around you leaving only the cockpit and oxygen tanks for seventy-two hours—if you don’t talk too much or panic,” X-37 informed me.

“That’s what the manual says?” I asked, firing at one of my fast moving enemies.

“Yes, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “If you choose that option, there is a good chance they won’t be able to see more than a recovery beacon. They are moving fast and should be approaching the limits of their fuel supply, as are you and Elise.”

“I hate flying,” I muttered.

“Your feelings are irrelevant, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “You must eject now.”

Sometimes X-37 was right. I located the necessary button and punched it. The micro-fighter peeled away from me, exploding in all directions as the life pod / cockpit tumbled through the void.

“Are you well, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked.

“Fantastic,” I said. “Check on Elise. Can you stop me from puking?”

“Vomit will recycle or be vented from your helmet.”

“You are in rare form today, X. Stop messing around and help a Reaper out,” I said.

“Your stomach should feel better in eleven seconds,” X-37 said. “You may also feel a bit sleepy as your hormonal secretions balance out.”

“Great, thanks. I feel better already,” I said as everything went dark.

* * *

When I came to, there was a giant looming over me with a star field behind him.

“Breathe in calm, exhale fear,” Path said.

The heavy-duty extravehicular activity suit was armored more than I remembered. Several tools rested around the waist area and on his back. The sword saint looked ready to repair about anything, which made me think the HD EVA was better suited for Tom, our resident fix-it guy.

“Thanks, Path. Good to see you,” I said. “Are we going to die?”

“Not at this precise moment. The Union fighters have been recalled to the Dark Lance. The Jellybird is behind us in stealth mode. You should be able to see it,” Path said.

“What the hell, I can see it,” I said.

“Stealth mode is mostly a sensor game. It is possible for the naked eye to see it if the lighting is correct. The scavenger planet is currently reflecting enough light from this system’s star to throw a silhouette our direction,” Path said. “I’m attaching a tow cable to your life pod so I can search for Elise and bring you both into the Jellybird.”

“Sounds like a great idea,” I said, feeling as exhausted as I had for years.

Path pulled me around until we found Elise unconscious in the ejected cockpit of her micro-fighter. The module didn’t look much smaller than the original craft.

“How are her vitals, X?”

“She’s doing well. Would you like me to wake her?” X-37 asked.

“Let’s wait until we’re on the Jellybird,” I decided. “Path, take us home.”

“As you wish, Reaper,” Path replied.

The trip was a lot longer than I would have liked. Every minute felt like ten. Path encouraged me to relax and rest, maybe even take a nap, but I couldn’t shut down my brain. The enforced sleep after my fighter was destroyed had ruined any chance of me closing my eyes now.

“We picked up a kid named Bug,” I said. “I told Elise she has to train him on sensors.”

“Would you like me also to train him?” Path asked.

“You read my mind,” I said.

We continued in silence and arrived in the relative safety of the Jellybird’s landing bay.

“It is good to have you back, Captain,” Jelly said. “Are you done with flying toys?”

“Now that you mention it, yeah. Those things are a good way to get killed,” I answered.

“So much for the flight of the Reaper,” Elise said, her voice still deep from sleep. “Could have been an action holo, except that the Reaper was definitely a secondary character—the wingman of the real star.”

“Forget about it, kid,” I said. “I was never your wingman.”

“You should have been,” she murmured.

“We’re on the way to the bridge, Jelly. What’s the status of the Dark Lance?” I asked.

“She is most likely deploying a wave of micro-fighters after downtime for maintenance,” Jelly said. “She is also scanning for us like we owe her a million credits.”

“Can we hide?” I still felt my exhaustion from the ordeal. Hunger was rearing its ugly head as well.

“There are a few options now that the scavenger settlements are stabilizing after the bombardment. I have charted the trajectory of most of the debris that is large enough to cause us damage,” Jelly said.

“Pick what you think is best and let’s get out of sight,” I said.

“Right away, Captain,” Jelly responded.

I spent half an hour in my cabin, smoking a cigar and sipping whiskey as I put myself back together. I’d forgotten about a lighter I stashed some time ago and dug it out from under my bunk to nurse the cigar to life. The temptation to hit the rack and sleep for five days was strong, but I’d resisted the feeling many times.

By the time I arrived at the bridge, Elise was steering us into the hull of a derelict ship larger than anything I’d ever seen. We flew over the surface for what felt like an hour, then dipped through a tear in the exterior.

Elise piloted smoothly.

“You think you’re a hotshot pilot now, better than Jelly for this sort of thing?” I asked.

“Don’t be a jerk, Reaper,” she said, keeping her concentration on what she was doing.

“Why is she piloting, X?” I asked in a low voice.

“I can still hear you, Reaper,” Elise mumbled.

“Your hearing is freakish,” I returned, annoyed with myself for forgetting who I was dealing with,

“Says the freak,” Elise shot back.

“Whatever,” I said. “Can someone answer my question?”

“Jelly, Tom, and Bug are working on repairs,” X-37 explained.

“Now? While we are flying into an unstable hulk of a ship with a design that none of us have ever seen?” I watched each section of the vessel as we passed.

“Locke has awoken from a well-deserved sleep,” X-37 said. “Med bay reports suggest he has a fractured fibula and a sprained ankle.”

“Ouch. Can he fight if we need him?” I asked.

“My analysis of his injuries and character traits suggests that he will fight if needed,” X-37 confirmed. “It is unlikely he will mention the injury. Properly fitting armor will allow him to continue longer than he should.”

“Cain for Locke, how are you doing?” I asked.

“Locke for Cain, I’m a little banged up. Do you need me on the bridge or can I debrief Horvath and Decker on the last twenty-four hours?” he asked. “They performed well, but I want to tweak a few procedural things.”

“I just have one question,” I said. “We’re flying into the hulk of an old ship. Can you pull up the view on a terminal and tell me if it looks familiar.”

A few moments passed.

“This was an Alon ship,” Locke answered simply.

“Tell me more, Locke. Your president mentioned the Alon and I know they are enemies of your people,” I said.

“They control a system near our own. It is the only slip tunnel either of our people dare to use. We’ve been fighting them for hundreds of years,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“Good question.” He sounded too tired to explain the military history of his people over a commlink. “They want what is ours. It’s a blood feud.”

“This is a huge ship,” I remarked.

“We have been steadily losing the war for generations. Their system has greater resources and their population grows without slowing,” he said.

“All right, thanks. Debrief your people. Let me know what you need,” I said. “Speaking of tactical debriefings, did we do anything to the Dark Lance?”

“The flagship is floundering,” X-37 said. “I cannot determine if that is a result of your micro-fighter attack or other damage sustained since entering this system.”

I nodded. “This place is hard on ships.”

“Agreed. The only ship to escape damage has been the Lady Faith because she is still parked inside the Nightmare.”

“Put Novasdaughter or Henshaw on the line,” I said.

“Right away, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

I reviewed ship logs and searched the debris fields for signs of the scavengers, but they had disappeared. The planet looked as dead as ever, forcing me to wonder if Rejon had made it there in the stolen shuttle.

“Novasdaughter for Cain, do you read me?” The Union micro-fighter turned stealth carrier executive officer asked.

“I’m here. Can you move closer to the Dark Lance?” I asked. “It’s about time for an epic showdown.”

“Our previous attempts have fallen short,” X-37 added.

“Thanks, X. Not really necessary, but thanks,” I said.

“I’ll do what I can,” Novasdaughter said. “The Nightmare is beat to hell and Necron blames me.”

“Ship AIs, you can’t live with them, can’t live without them,” I said.

“Very true, Reaper,” Novasdaughter said. “There is another problem.”

“Great, I love new problems,” I said.

“I don’t think we can sneak up on the Dark Lance,” she advised. “Nebs is a control freak. His personal LAIs maintain keys to every ship in his carrier group. Henshaw has been modulating our stealth protocols, but this has limits. If we can sneak up on the Dark Lance, and that’s a big if, we will only be able to do it once.”

“Work on it,” I said. “Keep me informed. And get some rest.”

“I will when I can,” Novasdaughter said.

“Captain,” Jelly said.

“What’s up, Jelly?” I asked, hoping it wasn’t more bad news.

“Our repairs are as complete as I can make them without proper facilities and several weeks of time,” Jelly said. “But that is not what is up.”

“You’re killing me, Jelly. Spit it out,” I said.

“I have no desire to kill you, Captain.” Jelly sounded somewhat put out. “I scanned the hulk we are hiding within and discovered something important. During my scans of scavenger vessels we have encountered, and their logs, I learned a great deal about the ship immobilization cannons, or SIC, as they call them.”

“Did you find one in here?” I asked.

“No, Captain. I learned why they are restricted to the planet. The SIC is actually five separate components that direct their energies into a cone that is refocused then aimed at the intended target. It is a tight beam EMP, otherwise known as an electromagnetic pulse,” Jelly explained.

“EMPs don’t work. Every ship in the Union has shields and backup for that type of attack,” I said.

“The scavenger version modulates. I haven’t found anything in the Union that is prepared for this type of immobilization device. It will not take them long to develop a counter measure, but for now, it is a very powerful tool we should have in our arsenal,” Jelly said.

“What does this have to do with our hiding place?”

“I have located critical components that the scavengers need to operate the SIC units in space,” Jelly reported.

“This is an Alon hulk,” I said. “There shouldn’t be scavenger tech here.”

“Think about it, Captain. This vessel was obviously attacked by the scavengers—probably when they had an actual fleet to go with their SIC devices,” Jelly said.

“And after they stormed this monstrosity, they tried to use it or take it apart and left something here,” I said.

“The components are small networking computers with very specific transmission frequencies and shielding against their own EMP function. If we could deliver them to Rejon’s people, the ships could operate in the void and be much more effective against the Union,” Jelly said.

“How is that different from what they are doing on the surface of that planet?” I asked.

X-37 jumped into the conversation. “The SIC is disabling their own ships every time they fire. If they tried that in the void, they would be vulnerable to counter attack or even suffer a catastrophic cascade of failed ship systems.”

I grimaced. “Yeah, I guess that would suck.”

“You have a way with understatement, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“Shall we recover the components and deliver them to Rejon’s people?” Jelly asked. “I believe Horvath and Carrie Decker can handle it.”

“Do we have time for this?” I didn’t know if I liked the idea.

“I’ll cancel all of your appointments,” X-37 offered.

“What has gotten into you, X?” I asked. “Never mind. I’m just wrapping my head around this development. Is it worth the risk? What’s in it for us?”

“The scavengers would be more likely to help us fight the Union if we could help them realize the dream of their entire people,” X-37 reasoned.

“You’re making a lot of assumptions,” I said.

“I have more data than you do,” X-37 said. “My guesses are better.”

“Why don’t you share some of that data you gathered from wherever?” I instructed.

“Human intel is up to you,” X-37 said. “For example, you discussed the origin of this hulk with CSL Locke. I probe any electronic storage device we encounter, including the black boxes of long dead ships.”

“Ghost ships,” I volunteered.

“If that is what you wish to call them, I cannot stop you,” X-37 said. “Most of the older ships have records of something called NetCom, which allows fleet ships to work together and mitigate system crashes. As a rule, that type of thing should be avoided in the void, especially if interstellar travel is a goal,” X-37 said.

“That is truly fascinating, X,” I said. “Can you tell me who built these things? Don’t tell me the scavengers have the technology and shipyards to construct something like this.”

“The people who built the oldest of the wrecked ships in the area are called U19ZR00-EXPLOR-4567-399-299-001,” X-37 said.

“Do you want me to explain how useless that is to me?” I asked.

“Will you grace the conversation with a large selection of profane words and other colorful metaphors?” X-37 retorted

“Yeah.” I pulled up the location of Locke, Horvath, and Carrie Decker just to see if they were available for an away mission. Locke wasn’t my first choice—his injuries would slow him down, even if he refused to quit.

“Then I will pass, Reaper Cain. What is your decision?” X-37 asked.

“I’ll go with them,” I decided.

“I predicted you would say that,” my LAI replied in a knowing tone. “They have been alerted to your intention.”

* * *

As spacewalks went, I was feeling good. The only light inside the guts of the old ship came from our EVA units. Horvath followed on my right, Carrie on my left. Locke and Path stayed back as a rescue team if things went wrong.

“Moving to the objective,” I announced.

“Understood,” Horvath answered.

“Are you going to be able to handle this?” I asked.

“I have a lot on my mind. No one promised joining Locke’s team would be easy, but I never expected to do it without Gunner,” Horvath said.

“He was a good guy,” Carrie told him. “Solid performer.”

We moved in silence, shadows on top of shadows shifting as we used our EVA lights to search.

“The next room is a vault. Access is controlled by a combination keypad,” X-37 advised.

“Is it too much to ask for you to have the code?”

“It is, Reaper Cain. My apologies,” he replied.

Extending my arm blade, I studied the frame of the door.

Elise joined the conversation from the bridge of the Jellybird. “Why don’t you use your override wires?”

Horvath and Carrie looked at me.

“I don’t know what kind of tech they have here. That could be dangerous at worst or a waste of time at best,” I said.

“Override wires?” Carrie Decker asked.

I retracted my blade and showed her the fine, hair-like wires I could extend from the palm of my cybernetic left hand. They twisted and turned but were barely visible.

“That is disturbing,” Carrie said.

“Try it,” Horvath said.

“Why the hell not. But don’t be surprised when my neural network gets fried by ancient technology none of us understands,” I said, then put my palm to the edge of the locking mechanism.

“Proceed with caution, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said advised.

OceanofPDF.com

21

“Hal, get up,” a female voice said. “I want to go for a run before school.”

“What?” I rolled into a sitting position. My sister, Hannah, stood over me, shoving running shoes at me.

“I want to run before school. You know how hard it is to get into the Union military. It’s important for me to be as fast as I can for the trials,” she said.

“It’s not hard to enlist.” I yawned.

“Not for you. You’ve always been strong.” She smiled at me. “And too stubborn to quit. I want to get the hell off this planet, and the only way to do that is to enlist and qualify for the officer’s academy.”

My mother yelled at me from the hall, but it never sounded like yelling the way she did it. “Run with your sister, Hal. It’s not safe in the dark. Too many gangs in this neighborhood.”

“Enlisting in the Union military is unsafe,” I pointed out.

My mother ushered a laundry bot into my room and pointed it toward my messy closet. “Just leave the stacks, Y-9. Hal will put everything away when he’s done with his other chores.”

Y-9 beeped twice. It was an economy version that didn’t talk.

I stood up, stretching my arms over my head, which empathized how much larger I was than either my mother or my sister. “Why are we living here, Mom? You have like thirteen degrees and Dad’s service record is nearly perfect.”

“There’s a reason for everything. You father did his service. Now he wants to do something else,” my mother said.

I waited until Hannah left to start her warm-up. “But that’s not what you want, is it?”

She looked at me strangely and I knew I was in a dream. “You see too much, Hal. Be careful who you trust.”

* * *

“Why did you stop?” Carrie asked. She was standing too close to where I worked on the door lock that had been frozen shut for decades or longer. I wanted her standing watch, ready to fight if we were attacked. There hadn’t been signs of scavengers, Union troops, or anyone or anything living—but that didn’t mean I let my guard down.

The moment I relaxed, every enemy imaginable would materialize to punch my ticket. My first instructor in Reaper school had told me that. He said, “Watch your six, Cain. The minute you let your guard down, enemies will materialize out of nowhere to punch your ticket.”

I’d basically ignored him and was tased in the back each time he thought I’d slacked off. Good times.

Carrie’s question was valid, despite her lax situational awareness. So I answered. Because I’m a nice guy like that. “I was thinking about my sister.”

“Oh, okay,” Carrie said.

“I had a dream about her recently. And my mother,” I said, pausing from my work. This wouldn’t be happening if I didn’t need a break. Long, intense concentration often caused me to think of things better forgotten.

“Do you dream often?” Horvath said from the doorway he was guarding. There were dark circles around his eyes as though he hadn’t slept for a while.

“I have nightmares,” I said.

No one spoke. I went back to work and disabled the lock. Carrie, Horvath, and my friends still on the Jellybird watched as I snapped out my arm blade, just as I had when we started. “It’s unlocked, but the door is still wedged or frozen shut.”

“Good luck, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“Thanks, X. You always know the right thing to say.” I worked the blade into the seam of the door, assumed a wide stance, and started pushing. “Here goes nothing.”

Horvath and Carrie, meaning well, stacked up beside me and pushed like we were in a sporting event. The tactic worked but placed an incredible amount of torque on my left shoulder.

“It’s open. Step back,” I said, drawing my pistol and aiming through the narrow opening.

Horvath and Carrie drew their weapons and waited.

“I don’t see anything with my optics. I’m going in.” Seconds later, I had cleared the room and found a charging station with five datapad-sized devices waiting to be stolen by a Reaper.

“Do they have power?” Carrie asked.

“Doesn’t look like it,” I said. “Tom, can I remove these without damaging them?”

“Can you move closer and let me look at them?” Tom asked. “I really wish I’d come with you on this away mission.”

“I’m not getting my only fix-it guy killed, not when I have these two for that,” I said, jerking my thumb at Horvath and Carrie.

“Gee, thanks.” Carrie rolled her eyes.

I did as Tom asked and waited for permission to steal the SIC devices.

“They’re good to move,” Tom said. “I’ll contact Henshaw if possible and start working on a way to power them up.”

“Let me know what you come up with, but I plan to trade them to Rejon and his people,” I said.

“In exchange for what?” Elise asked.

“The only thing that matters. Help destroying the Union.”

* * *

The Jellybird wasn’t in good shape. We were going through ships almost as fast as I could steal them, a trend I hoped to arrest soon. Tom, Elise, and I manned the bridge. Locke, Horvath, and Carrie were standing in the doorway, since there wasn’t a lot of extra room. Path was meditating in his room last I checked. Novasdaughter and the Nightmare were still several hours from our location. When they arrived, they would have to look for the Dark Lance, stay hidden themselves, and be ready to fight to the death.

The Jellybird was the only ship available for this mission.

“Are you sure you can land on the surface?” I asked.

“We don’t have any shuttles,” Jelly explained.

“Can. You. Land on the planet. Safely,” I added.

“I have a high degree of confidence the ship will hold up,” Jelly said. “The actual flying will be easy. The atmosphere is harsh and has been polluted by countless wars but not problematic for a landing. As long as there are no critical system failures within the ship, we should be fine.”

“Can I land?” Elise asked.

“Let Jelly do it,” I said without hesitation.

“I’d like to try it at least once under normal circumstances—like when we’re not getting shot at,” Elise said.

“Jelly, what do you think?” I already suspected what the answer would be.

“I can always resume control of the ship if there is a serious problem,” Jelly replied.

“Fine,” I relented. “Elise, take us down to the planet. What the hell is this place called?”

“Rejon called it Xad,” Tom offered. “We had a long talk on the observation deck.”

Elise interrupted us. “Strap in. This might be a bit rougher than normal.”

Penetrating the atmosphere of the planet took a while. Thunderhead clouds stood like a slow-moving army all across the surface of the planet. It was late in the day on this part of Xad and the sky had a green tint I didn’t like.

Elise flew smoothly downward, arching toward a large rock formation Jelly had marked as the most prominent structure we had witnessed during the scavengers’ use of the SIC against the Dark Lance. Silver foothills stretched away from majestic mountains with deadly, jagged peaks. All of them were snow capped but had that same greenish tint over most of their surface.

Silence held the bridge, broken only by Jelly updating Elise on flight telemetry and other useful information like altitude and what it was going to take not to smash into the rocky surface.

“It’s snowing,” Horvath said from the door to the bridge. There wasn’t a section of the deck for observers like there was on the Nightmare. “But those clouds look like rain clouds.”

“That may be ash,” Jelly reported.

“Locke, can you prep some gear for an away team?” I asked.

“It would be an honor, Reaper Cain,” Locke said. “Combat load out?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “X, do we need environmental suits?”

“I am analyzing the data from Jelly’s sensors now. One moment.” X-37 paused without any beeps or other indicators my LAI was struggling, which was a nice change. “The atmosphere can sustain human life, but you must bring your own food and water,” X-37 advised.

* * *

Stepping off the Jellybird onto an actual planet felt good, despite how badly the place had been ruined. Terrestrial gravity was always better than what was available on a ship or space station. The air was breathable, but it made my eyes water and smelled metallic.

From the air, Xad looked scenic. On the ground, there were signs of stress everywhere. The sparse plant life was decayed around the edges. The soil was hard and brittle.

I’d left everyone but Horvath on the ship—Elise and Tom to fly the ship in an emergency, and Locke and the others to protect it if it were attacked by Union forces or scavengers.

Horvath carried the devices I intended to trade with Rejon’s people in exchange for their assistance against the Union. He was armed, but I was a better fighter and put myself in charge of security for this away mission.

“We’re moving out,” I said.

“We will maintain visual on your progress for as long as possible,” Elise advised from the ship.

“Are you ready, Horvath?” I asked.

“I am,” he said, his eyes scanning the environment.

I thought I knew what was on his mind. His hatred of the scavengers had only gotten worse since Gunner disappeared near one of their debris cloud settlements. Rejon had promised to deliver the body for a proper funeral but had yet to deliver. Then he’d stolen a shuttle and left.

With just the two of us on the ground, I was hoping to deal with this issue, confront him on the facts, and help him work through them. I knew what it was like to lose people on a mission. He was coping the best he could, but he was struggling.

We found the stolen shuttle and made sure Rejon wasn’t inside of it. After that, it was a simple matter of tracking which way he had gone and working with X and Jelly to consolidate what I was seeing with what they had observed during our approach of the area.

“My HUD is pointing us toward those rocks,” I said. “There should be the entrance to an underground shelter. Neither X nor Jelly were able to tell me how extensive it is down there.”

Dusk arrived abruptly. Before long, darkness cloaked us. I looked up, spotting what I thought were debris clouds orbiting the planet. Miles away, I saw meteorites descending toward the planet leaving fiery trails where there wasn’t cloud cover. Here, that was probably a common sight.

Horvath began walking toward the bunker door. I held him back, motioning him to a stand of rocks and indicating that he should take cover. He complied without hesitation. The man had far different training than I was accustomed to, but he was still a soldier and knew how to take orders. I also thought his survival instincts were good.

Time passed like a slow glass of whiskey.

“What are we waiting for?” Horvath asked. He seemed more nervous than impatient. The stress of being on a new world could build up slowly.

“I’m playing a hunch,” I said. “I’ll bet you a Starbrand cigar that we are expected and probably being observed.”

“That’s not a bet I’d take,” he said.

There was a hissing sound after the door opened, suggesting that the interior was sealed against the exterior environment. Over a foot thick, the door moved slowly. Dim red lights illuminated the room.

“They’re trying to maintain their night vision,” Horvath said.

I agreed but didn’t comment. My Reaper optics gave me insights my companion on this mission didn’t have. Inside, there were several armed men. Their weapons ranged from firearms to bike clubs.

Rejon emerged alone and approached me.

“You have a lot of nerve coming here, Reaper,” Rejon said. “Thousands of my people have died from the bombardment of the salvage field.”

I waited a few moments out of respect. Now wasn’t the time for one of my flippant, profanity-laden responses. “The man who ordered that attack is a monster, but even I didn’t expect him to go that far.”

“You brought him to our system and provoked his wrath,” Rejon said.

“I can’t change that now,” I said, then pointed toward Horvath. “I brought the same fate to this man’s people.”

Rejon studied Horvath as though for the first time. After a thoughtful moment, he responded. “That is somewhat different from what your mechanic, Tom, told me. In his version of the story, you are a great savior of the people of Wallach.”

“I guess it’s a matter of perspective,” I said. “The Union wants me dead and isn’t afraid to kill or imprison people. That was just a taste of what they will do to get what they want. Xad is now on their map. No matter what happens to me, you can expect visitors. Next time, it won’t be a commando fleet, but a full armada of warships and exploration vessels.”

“At least you’re honest,” he allowed.

“The man who ordered the bombardment, Nebs, knows you have a weapon that can paralyze ships even when they are in stealth mode. He won’t stop until he has it for himself. Expect more bombings. Expect him to capture your people and torture them for information,” I said.

Rejon seethed with rage, his eyes boring into mine like weapons.

“We came here to answer a distress call,” Horvath said.

I hadn’t expected the man to talk and doubted he had training or experience as a negotiator. The emotion in his voice was convincing. Thankfully, it wasn’t hatred of the scavengers he thought were cannibals.

“We are friends of the Bold Freedom. Our efforts to help them were insufficient,” Rejon said, thoughtful now but wary. “Wait here. I will speak to my people.”

When he was gone, Horvath moved closer and spoke in a low voice. “Why didn’t you tell them we have the modules for their weapon?”

“Too soon, and now I’m worried they may not be as valuable as I’d hoped. These things will allow them to use the weapons while the ships that hold them are in space. If they lack the fuel to help the Bold Freedom, they probably can’t fly more than shuttles,” I said.

“Which makes the SIC networkers useless,” Horvath said.

“Maybe, maybe not,” I said, watching the door where Rejon had disappeared. “Making assumptions at this point is dangerous. Let’s take it slow.”

Horvath nodded, then looked at his feet. When he faced me again, I knew he was going to broach the subject of Gunner’s body. Which was another reason I’d brought only him on this mission. I needed to have a man-to-man conversation with him.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“What are you sorry about?” I knew what he was going to say. Horvath was a solid soldier with simple motivations—friends, family, and adventure. Unfortunately, combining these things hadn’t worked well.

“I’ve been really angry at the scavengers. Everyone from Carrie to your mechanic, Tom, has talked to me about it and explained that there really isn’t proof the scavengers are cannibals. Now that I know they have a planetary settlement, I guess they could have a place to get food. I don’t understand why they are underground, but I’m just a soldier. All I want is my friend back,” Horvath said.

“Rejon promised to return Gunner’s body,” I said. “I’ll hold him to that, but you have to trust me and be patient.”

When Rejon emerged, he wore armor and had a large pistol in a drop holster. Five men in lightweight armor weapons made a line behind him.

“X, is that armor powered?” I asked.

“I am detecting significant power signatures and EVA features. Don’t underestimate them,” X-37 warned.

“Thanks,” I muttered.

“I have convinced my people not to kill you, but you won’t be allowed to move through our base without an armed guard. These men are elite soldiers in our best armor. They are experts with our most powerful weapons,” Rejon declared.

“Good for them,” I said. “Don’t care, don’t have time for this, and don’t want trouble.”

“That’s good, Reaper,” Rejon said. “My people have been working for generation after generation to escape this planet and this system. You’ve ruined that. Even if we can rebuild what was lost, we would be defenseless in the void, and you have brought these Union hunters down upon us.”

“You shouldn’t have fired the SIC at them without a way to follow up. All that did was piss them off,” I said.

“You know about the ship immobilization cannons?” he asked. “How?”

“We saw them fired,” I said.

“You know what he means,” X-37 said.

I didn’t respond to my LAI.

Rejon countered, “You have seen them work, but when you call them by name, I know your ship computers and your internal computer has gleaned more information than most of my people believe possible.”

“He’s not an insert, he’s a limited artificial intelligence installed in my nerve-ware. I call him X or X-37, and he gets touchy if you compare him to a computer,” I said, doubting any of this was reassuring the man.

“Why did you come, Reaper?” Rejon asked.

“Because I’ve tried twice to get onto Nebs’s ship without success,” I said.

“You want to assassinate him?” Rejon asked, face unreadable.

“Remind me not to play poker with you,” I said. “Assassination is an ugly term, but yeah, I want to take him out, steal his ship, and ferment rebellion against the Union.”

“What is poker?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “If you can convince me you have the ability to fight Nebs, I have something you want.”

“What could you possibly have that we need?” Rejon snorted, clearly thinking the idea was ridiculous.

“Well, during one of our escapes from Nebs, we flew into a rather large ship. We found the missing parts to your SIC network. If you can get your capital ships into space, you won’t be defenseless,” I said.

“There is something else,” Horvath said. “The Union attacked my people in much the same way they attacked yours. Our fleets could provide the follow up strike after you disable their ships.”

“Proceed with caution, Reaper Cain,” X-37 advised privately. “Horvath is speaking far above his rank.”

“Thanks, X,” I said, then moved another step closer to Rejon. At this range, I could take him out before the guards reacted—not that I had any intention of assassinating the guy. It was just something that always popped into my head. I always had a plan to kill everyone I met. “Let’s work together, Rejon.”

The man maintained his hard, unreasonable face. “Come with me.”

OceanofPDF.com

22

Inside the concealed blast door was a narrow passage leading to an elevator barely big enough for five people. With the guards, there were eight of us.

It was cozy. I tried to steal cigars from Rejon and his soldiers, but none of them had anything that useful. Their culture seemed to be focused on their ability to salvage wreckage and mine asteroids. I’d never seen so many people who were ready to spacewalk at a moment’s notice.

The rickety conveyance bumped downward, rock walls visible through the cage. X-37 filled the time by pointing out dozens of safety hazards.

“What does your internal computer, your limited AI, tell you?” Rejon asked.

“Nothing useful,” I answered. “He advises against putting your hands outside of the cage.”

“So it treats you like a child?” Rejon asked with a shitty smile.

“Sometimes,” I said. “You know we have the SIC networker with us. You could kill us and take it.”

“Yes,” Rejon said. “But not without cost in lives and honor. Don’t presume to believe you know me or my people.”

“You haven’t seen Cain fight,” Horvath said.

I shot him a look, hoping he would drop it and shut his mouth.

“There won’t be any fighting,” I said. “We came to make a deal, not die.”

“Good,” Rejon said. “Your opinion of us may change for the better when we show you the greenhouse.”

We continued downward. The elevator cage lacked rust despite its crude design and rudimentary construction. The deeper we went, the more I wondered about Xad and the scavengers. How long had they been here? What type of civilization could spend generations trying to scrounge enough parts to put an exodus fleet back together.

I also really wanted to know what happened to all of these ships. There might be enemies worse than the Union in this part of the galaxy.

“I hope this rattle trap can take us back to the surface when we’re done negotiating,” I said.

“Don’t worry yourself,” Rejon replied.

“What happened to the fleets in this system?” I asked to pass some time.

“We were ready to leave this system for another when the Alondiss attacked. Nothing prepared us for their treachery,” Rejon said. “That was long ago.”

Horvath stood rigid. I shook my head, wondering why the hell I hadn’t asked better questions in the beginning.

“The Alondiss? Tell me about them,” I said.

“There was a time when my people were fractious, nations constantly at war. When we settled the second planet, it became worse. We were in the middle of a long war for control of the system when the Alondiss attacked in force. By the time we developed the SIC, it was too late,” Rejon said. “Our historians say we drove them from the system in a grand battle, but I suspect it was more complicated than that. There have always been theories that they happened on us by accident while en route to another destination.”

“The people who attacked my home, Wallach, are called the Alon,” Horvath said in a low voice.

“They must be the same,” Rejon said. “Perhaps our people will be allies after all.”

“Only if you can prove you’re not cannibals who ate one of their soldiers,” I said.

“That was poorly timed and insensitive,” X-37 said, like I didn’t know I’d just pissed in the punch bowl.

Rejon faced the door and didn’t speak for the rest of the trip to their underground nation.

“You really should get some sleep, or perhaps take a class on how to talk to people,” X-37 admonished.

* * *

The door to the lift opened to reveal a brightly lit world, the likes of which I’d never seen. Contrary to the greasy elevator cage, this place was a technological marvel. Rejon and his guards escorted us across the wide ledge that overlooked neat farmland and settlements for as far as I could see.

A light as bright as a sun glowed from the ceiling several thousand meters above us.

“This is your greenhouse?”

Rejon looked toward the artificial sun. “We had been building generation ships for a century before the Alondiss arrived. Once our leaders knew the war was lost, they converted some of the technology and implemented a plan to survive the onslaught.”

“Why were you building generation ships?” I asked.

“At the time, my ancestors were facing a population crisis. The more people who crowded Xad and her sister planet, Prejin, the more we fought wars,” Rejon explained.

“Is there an underground civilization like this on Prejin?” I asked.

“No. It was lost completely to the Alondiss,” Rejon said. “They were our enemies for countless years, but when the invaders came, they sacrificed themselves to defend the system. Most of the ancient wreckage we have been attempting to salvage is from the Prejin fleet.”

“There are other ships in the space graveyard, Reaper Cain. He is not telling you everything,” X-37 said. “Jelly and I discussed the differences in the wreckage at length before Nebs started shooting the place up. Please run your vision across this cavern so that I can make a record.”

I complied, then resumed my talks with Rejon. “How many other fleets came into this system and got waylaid by your SIC?”

“I am not proud of everything we have done to survive,” Rejon said. “There were other fleets over the centuries. When they proved hostile, we did what we had to do.”

“Like you were pirates,” I suggested.

Rejon faced me angrily. “We defended ourselves. If any of the invaders had offered to help us, we would have gladly accepted. You are missing what is important. How likely is it that every extraterrestrial contact was human?”

“I don’t follow,” I said. Intelligent alien life wasn’t something I had ever cared about. There were either aliens in the universe or there weren’t. “Are you saying the Alon are aliens?”

“No, they are human, or appear human. But how can that be? Nature has produced all manner of creatures. Logically, not all sentient races would be so similar to us,” Rejon said, standing near the edge of the platform to look over his home.

“Makes sense,” I said.

“Yes, it does, Reaper. And it suggests we have common ancestors. If that is true, why do we kill each other?” he asked.

“Why did Xad fight with Prejin?” I asked.

“That is another good question,” Rejon said. “We do not want enemies, we want allies wherever we can find them.”

“Life is complicated. You have to pick sides, me and the people of Wallach or the Union,” I said. “It doesn’t matter who you like, it only matters which of us is most likely to mistreat your people.”

“You’re right,” Rejon agreed. “As true as that is, I must also choose the winning side.”

“What will it take to convince you I’m the winning side?” I asked.

“Let’s start by putting the SIC networkers to the test,” Rejon said.

The guards stayed close, too close in my opinion. Sure they had stun clubs, but they also had pistols and long guns—better choices if they were actually going to attack someone like me.

“We’ll take the tram to the shipyard, where you will turn over the devices for analysis. My people will determine if they are real and functional,” Rejon said.

“You haven’t agreed to help my people,” I said. “I need assurances.”

“We won’t join the Union,” Rejon said.

“That’s not enough.” I thought the man was saving face, refusing to agree too quickly in front of the guards and whoever was watching through the bodywork cameras on their shoulder rigs.

“It is the best I can do for you,” he said. “If the SIC network can be brought on line, I will give you an answer.”

“You already fired the weapon at the Union flagship,” Horvath pointed out.

“At great cost,” Rejon explained. “And against my orders. If I had not been held on your ship, the Union would never have learned our secrets.”

I could have argued but didn’t. Nebs hadn’t attacked since our last encounter, which probably meant he was as busy with repairs on the Dark Lance as Novasdaughter and Henshaw were on the Nightmare.

That didn’t mean I had all the time in the world. I would be patient until it was time to not be patient.

“X, can you update our mission clock?” I said. “Calculate how long I can afford to spend on bureaucratic red tape?”

“You have three and a half hours before this will become problematic. My analysis suggests a low probability that the government of Xad will come to a decision by then,” X-37 said.

“What did your internal intelligence tell you?” Rejon asked.

“He said you need to pull some strings and get shit done,” I said.

Rejon summoned a team of engineers, briefed them, and then asked Horvath for the devices, which he turned over reluctantly.

“Work fast,” Rejon said to his engineers. “I need proof to present to the council.”

“Yes, Rejon,” the leader of the engineers said.

Rejon returned and addressed Horvath. “Come with me. I will show you what happened to your friend.”

We walked to a pristine structure that was either a library or a mortuary. Tension kept conversation to a minimum.

Horvath broke first. “I don’t think your people are cannibals. I see your farms. Forgive me for thinking the worst of your people.”

“It is understandable,” Rejon said. “They brought your friend Gunner here while I was still on the Jellybird. He was preserved in a space casket. It will be up to you and his family what we do with him.”

“What do you mean?” Horvath asked.

“We can bury him here, with honor and respect. Or hold him until transport can be made to his home,” Rejon said.

“I don’t know which is better,” Horvath said after a lengthy pause. “I think his family will want him brought home.”

Rejon nodded. “Then that will be done when it is possible. I will leave you here to mourn or pay respects, whichever it is that your people would do in this situation. In the meantime, I must consult with Reaper Cain in private.”

* * *

Rejon took me to an underground shipyard where one of five ships were moored, hidden from any invasion fleet that might come to the system. He spoke of history, things his people had endured over the ages, and the problems they had faced relocating their people underground.

“You’ve been salvaging the debris fields for hundreds of years so you can launch these ships and flee the system?” I asked.

“Yes, that is our dilemma,” Rejon said. “Until you arrived, many of us believed it would never happen.”

“I’m just one man with a couple of ships,” I told him. “Why would that make a difference?”

“In all of recorded history, there have been seven invasion fleets, each from completely different civilizations. We have seen enemies worse than your Union pursuers. What we have never seen was a small group stand against such a foe,” Rejon said. “This has convinced some that there is a place for us in the galaxy beyond our hiding place.”

“I just want to rescue the Bold Freedom from the comet and leave,” I said.

“The people on that ship are good people. We have done what we can for them,” Rejon said.

“You could have brought them fuel from one of these capital ships you are hiding here,” I pointed out.

“That is against our most sacred laws. Nothing can be taken from the exodus fleet,” Rejon said.

“What will it take to get your help fighting the Union?” I asked.

“We can fight the Union. What I need to assure my people is help after the war is won,” Rejon said. “We need a guardian who has been to other systems and knows what dangers we might encounter. We need someone like you.”

“I’m not comfortable with this, Rejon. Your people are either going to have me thrown in a cell for bringing the wrath of the Union or give me a job,” I said.

“Let’s see if the devices you brought are what we need. Then we will make a decision together,” he said.

OceanofPDF.com

23

We crossed a good portion of the agricultural district on our way to the council chamber. I made observations, then pressed Rejon to tell the truth. I made sure to do it while Horvath was out of earshot.

He watched me, maybe or maybe not sensing what I was talking about, but I suspected he was also preoccupied with his own thoughts. The man was a soldier who lost his best friend. Unable to immediately strike those responsible, he had transferred much of his rage to the scavengers. The convenient belief had now been reversed.

Maybe we would talk about it later over a glass of whiskey. Right now, I needed to get information from Rejon.

“You don’t have as much food as it looks like, do you?” I asked. “That’s why you’re so desperate to leave this place. You can’t sustain your population.”

“We have food, as long as everyone remains within their ration allotment,” he explained. “Other resources are a bigger problem. We cannot stay and we cannot leave. The ship immobilization cannon is key to our defenses. Without it, we will be a large target that is vulnerable. It’s better to hide and die, or some of my people believe.”

I used a hand signal to make sure X-37 was getting all of this.

“I am making a log, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “However, there is news I should share with you. Novasdaughter intercepted a scout probe. At first, she believed it was something belonging to Nebs.”

I used another hand signal that only X-37 could interpret and that no one else would even see unless they knew what to look for.

“We believe this is a tool of the Alon, as the Wallach people call them. It can only indicate that there will be more of them soon,” X-37 explained.

I controlled my expression but realized Rejon knew something was up from the suspicious look he cast my way. When I didn’t elaborate, he presented me to the Council.

The venue was a cave large enough to shelter a thousand people or more. Currently, there were only council people and security elements. It was darker than the agricultural area, with guards at each of its four access points. Councilman Gable was their leader, but there were at least twenty other very important people staring me down.

“This man is Halek Cain, an elite soldier of the Union who fired upon our salvage settlements,” Rejon introduced me. “He fell out of favor with his people and now they hunt him.”

“You always had a way with understatement, Rejon,” Gable said.

“I don’t believe we have time to chronicle his life story, but suffice to say he stood up to them and became an outlaw,” Rejon said. “His enemies have proven by their actions to be our enemies as well.”

“He brought them here,” a woman named Janine accused.

Rejon started to argue, but I interrupted him. “That is what it is. Maybe they would have found you on their own, and maybe not. What I can promise you is that they want your ship immobilization cannon and will wipe out your entire civilization to get it. Nebs is the worst of the worst. He will take what he wants and not leave any evidence behind.”

The Council people of Xad argued amongst themselves for several minutes.

“X, can you listen in?” I asked.

“I have been monitoring their conversation to the best of my ability,” X-37 said. “They are trying to decide whether or not to trust you. It seems most of them wish to test you in some way.”

“Great,” I muttered.

When the discussion concluded, Rejon gave me a dark, worried look.

“I’m not sure I like that,” I remarked to X-37.

“My analysis suggests he believes he will fail to appease his people,” X-37 asserted.

“Why can’t he just order them what to do?”

“Their civilization is based on some type of democracy, “X-37 explained.

“Good for them.” I had dealt with every type of government and they all claimed to be democracies.

Rejon approached me and spoke in a low voice. “They are making preparations for your evaluation. I cannot tell you more. In the meantime, just keep your mouth shut. Good luck.”

Gable waited until the Council was lined up in order of importance. Their formal robes were the only garments I’d seen that weren’t patched together and stained from work.

“Halek Cain, you claim good will. You assert that you inadvertently brought danger upon us. Will you risk yourself to preserve our people?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” I said. “Let’s get started.”

Gable held up one hand. “You must prove yourself first.”

“Why don’t I just save your busted-ass planet and ragtag scavenger fleet? Wouldn’t that be proof enough?” I said, my fatigue and impatience showing through.

“There are rules. You must pass our test,” he stated. “In the spirit of cooperation, we will show you our history while arrangements are made and the trial ground is prepared.”

“I don’t like this, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

I didn’t comment because too many people were watching. A quick hand movement told X-37 I agreed.

Guards separated Horvath and me, which wasn’t surprising.

I watched Councilman Gable’s presentation. The scavengers of Xad stood in a crowd that grew moment by moment. By ones and twos, then larger and larger groups, they gathered to watch what they had feared for generations—the reasons they were going to actually leave.

“This,” Gable said, “is the last view we had of their fleet four hundred years ago. Hundreds of ships leaving of their own volition, not because we did significant damage to them.”

“That is alarming,” X-37 observed.

I didn’t disagree with my LAI. Thoughts of the huge ship we’d searched for the SIC device came to mind. The Alon must have captured the networking devices before being damaged beyond repair.

The scavengers—salvagers as they’d styled themselves—of Xad had been searching the debris fields for hundreds of years. And now I had what they wanted.

Gable approached. “Your Union murderers are little more than pirates compared to the Alon.”

“You haven’t seen them when they’re serious. A battle fleet nastier than what Nebs brought to hunt me down,” I said. “And those ships left four hundred years ago.”

I didn’t mention that my friends had just discovered a probe that probably belonged to the Alon. Shit was about to get real in the Xad system. We needed to be gone already.

A group of armed men I hadn’t seen before arrived. Their leader spoke quietly with Gable and Rejon. Both men remained somber.

“Clear the room for the trial,” Rejon ordered. “This is it, Reaper, when the people have moved to the observation windows, you must face the beast. Defeat it, and you will have proven your willingness to put the safety of others above your own.”

“What if I refuse?”

“Then the beast will kill one of us, who will be tied to the post,” Rejon said, pointing toward the central platform that had hosted the council. What I had taken for a support pillar was an intricately carved beam with words I didn’t understand.

Now that I looked at it, it seemed ceremonial. I stepped onto the platform and saw ancient blood stains.

“You’re going to leave an innocent civilian in here to die if I refuse to prove my intent?” I asked. “Who the hell gets that job?”

“I do,” Rejon said.

“Fine, send in the beastie. Let’s get this over with,” I said.

“There are no firearms allowed,” Gable said.

“I should’ve seen that coming,” I said dryly. Once I handed over my weapons to Horvath, I snapped out my Reaper blade and started warming up.

Rejon walked to the center of the platform and allowed himself to be tied to the pole. No one spoke to him. It was as though he didn’t exist and they had already given him up for dead.

That pissed me off.

Horvath, still closely monitored by the guards, attempted to tell me something, but he was too far away. I assumed he was wishing me luck.

Someone dimmed the lights. I waited, circling slowly, watching for the beast.

“What kind of beasts do they have on this planet?” I asked.

“Unknown,” X-37 said. “Most likely, it will be a carnivorous Hunter of some sort. Would you like me to list their attributes?”

“Maybe later,” I said. “I hear something.”

“We do,” X-37 said. “The restraining door is opening.”

Metal screeched as the infrequently used passage slid open. A beast roared in the darkness, then stalked into the room, only shadows sliding in and out of view even with my enhanced optics.

What I did see were its eyes reflecting the light that was left in the ceremonial arena. “What can you tell me about this thing, Rejon?” I called out.

“Assisting you is forbidden,” he answered.

“You’re either brave or stupid,” I said.

“From what I’ve seen and heard, you’re more dangerous than the beast,” he answered.

“Maybe. But what if I had run away?” I asked.

He made no reply.

“I can’t see it, X,” I said, moving away from the sacrificial pole, not wanting to inadvertently kill the only person on Xad willing to help my cause.

“Perhaps you should give it a taste of its own medicine,” X-37 suggested. “Please check your kit.”

I knew what I carried in my regular gear. The too-frequent use of EVA gear over the last several days was messing up my routine, but there were certain things I always found a place for: guns, the stealth cloak, the Reaper mask, and cigars.

X-37 should have reminded me to include a heating element, instead of wasting our time stating the obvious.

Silence mattered, so I dropped the argument in favor of action. Slipping through the dim light and the shifting shadows was relaxing. Was it messed up that this type of situation both relaxed and energized me? Sure it was, because I was a freak.

Slipping on the stealth cloak was easy. The mask was harder because I had to activate it without letting the monster see the start-up lights. Once the mask was on my face, I was able to choose how much or how little light it displayed.

My view of the chamber improved tenfold and I became nearly invisible with the cloak now in place.

I was about to encounter a strange and exotic creature and kill it.

“Your biometrics are varying from their optimal range, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “Whatever you are thinking about is counterproductive to your survival and your ability to help your friends.”

I wanted to tell him I felt great—except for a sliver of doubt that it was too easy for me to slaughter anything or anyone who stood in my way. What the hell was I going to do when shooting and slashing and blowing things up wasn’t needed? Retire? Farm potato analogs? Knit quilts?

The animal growled.

“I am able to estimate its size from the known dimensions of the room and the elevation of its vocalizations,” X-37 said. “The creature is two meters tall, has four legs, and all of the teeth and claws natural to a predator.”

It sounded hungry. Crouching low, I moved cautiously forward, scanning right, left, up, and down.

“I see it,” X-37 said. “Cueing your optics now.”

The monster slipped into view. It was every bit of two meters tall, and heavily muscled. Its hide was a jumble of stripes, spots, and varying hair lengths. In places it was smooth, in others shaggy as an arctic thing.

I wasn’t able to determine the thing’s true colors. The easiest thing to spot were its eyes, which sometimes caught the dim ring lights around the platform where Rejon waited to die.

“Is it moving with its eyes closed?” I asked as quietly as possible.

“Yes, Reaper Cain. I believe it must have an acute sense of smell,” X-37 said. “And/or hearing.”

The beast rushed me before X-37 finished his warning.

I held my ground, not moving an inch. Its eyes were blazing now. Once the creature heard me, it went for the kill.

“Prepare to move,” X-37 advised.

“I know what I’m doing,” I snapped, watching the animal hit maximum speed as it crossed the last thirty meters between us.

“Move now, Reaper Cain,” X-37 ordered.

I waited a second longer, then dropped and rolled to my right, slashing at the animal’s underside as it leapt toward where I had been.

My Reaper blade caught it under its left foreleg and slashed across its ribs.

“You missed the most vulnerable parts of its anatomy, but wounded it painfully,” X-37 reported.

“Yeah, thanks, X.” I sprinted away from the Xad creature to get some distance.

Its next approach was more cautious. I didn’t want to battle it face to face. Even a cocky as hell Reaper like me understood that was a losing prospect. The thing was covered in muscle and had five times my weight and mass behind its strikes. One slash of its four claws would destroy me.

The creature growled, baring its teeth. The noise sounded like a tiger crossed with a rattlesnake.

“Is this thing a mammal?” I asked as it circled me.

“I have not been able to determine much more than the basics,” X-37 admitted.

I feinted, then jumped back.

It took a lazy swipe at me, not fooled into over-committing as I had hoped.

“It’s clever,” I said.

“Agreed. Avoid assumptions,” X-37 said. He was less chatty, usually, during a life and death fight.

“How are you doing, Rejon?” I shouted.

“I’m alive,” the scavenger leader responded.

The beast looked toward his voice.

I sprang forward, thrusting my arm as far as I could without losing my balance.

“Well done,” X-37 said before the blade made contact.

Bracing for the reaction of the creature, I felt the Reaper blade take the animal in the throat. I pushed upward, driving under its jaw and toward its brain with all my strength.

The cat-like beast thrashed, rolling across the ground and taking me with it. X-37 shouted things at me that I didn’t have time to decipher.

When the violent death roll stopped, I let my arms flop against the floor and stared at the ceiling. “I’m getting too old for this shit.”

“I told you to withdraw the blade and stand clear, Reaper Cain. How can I help you if you don’t listen to my advice?” X-37 complained.

“I would have loved to take that advice,” I shot back. “Didn’t quite get the memo, X. Maybe next time.”

“Let’s hope there isn’t a next time. The Council of Xad and other citizens are entering the chamber. I believe Rejon is weeping.”

“Don’t judge, X. The man has been through a lot. Getting tied to a pole while that thing is unleashed has to be stressful.”.

“Are you being insincere, Reaper Cain? My analysis suggests you are not, but your statement is illogical. All he did was wait for death. You faced it and nearly died.”

“Being helpless is worse than anything, X. Growing up on Boyer 5 taught me that.”

“Of course,” X-37 acknowledged. “That does make sense. I will update my database of human behavior.”

Gable and several other men and women approached. “I am not sure if we should be glad for your fighting skill or in fear for our lives.”

“Be afraid, Gabester. Be very afraid.” I pushed to my feet and rolled my neck to start putting parts of my body back where they were supposed to be.

He backed away, hands raising instinctively.

“Relax, Councilman,” I said. “That was an old Reaper joke. You have nothing to fear from me. If I was going to kill you, I would have done it already. Can we get this show on the road?”

“What do you need from us?” he asked.

“I need to get onto the Dark Lance.”

“And what will you do there?”

“I will capture or kill Vice Admiral Nebs and steal his ship. I already took his first flagship.”

“But now he’s ready for you, which is why you have failed with your recent attempts,” Gable said.

“Now you made it ugly. All you have to do is launch one of your SIC ships, let him seize it, then send me back over to his ship as a prisoner or something. I haven’t worked out all the details—I did just get rolled by… whatever that thing is.”

“We call it a Tagron, very dangerous.” His distracted gaze told me he was still processing my suggestion to allow Nebs to seize one of his most valued ships.

“Do you have a lighter?” I asked, holding a bent cigar in one hand.

Gable looked at me, confused by this request. “I… what… oh, I see. We can certainly accommodate this simple need. Please excuse me while I consult the rest of the council.”

OceanofPDF.com

24

Rejon led me back to the Jellybird, where I exchanged Horvath for Elise, Locke, and Path.

“Thanks for keeping this big jerk alive, Horvath.” Elise grinned.

“You are overconfident.” Horvath had been quiet since observing the honored stasis of his friend’s body.

“It’s what I do,” Elise answered. “It’s what we do. Right, Path?”

I waited for the sword saint’s answer, curious. Had the man learned to talk smack while teaching the kid to fight?

“It is what we do when it is what needs to be done.”

Elise laughed and punched him on the shoulder. “You’re cool as ice, Path-man.”

We checked our gear. I consumed nutrient bars and drank water until X-37 told me I could stop. Rejon and a few of his trusted soldiers escorted us to the Shield of Xad, one of the five SIC ships that had been hidden below the surface of the planet for hundreds of years.

“I cannot believe you convinced the Council of Xad to do this,” Rejon said. “The crew is excited to finally launch the ship. They are as overconfident as the girl-kid and don’t believe the Union forces can take and hold the Shield.”

“Let’s hope they’re right,” I said.

The plan had changed dramatically. Instead of letting Nebs’s men capture me and take me onboard the Dark Lance, the soldiers of Xad would launch an immediate counter attack and board the Union ship, taking advantage of their hard won knowledge, experience, and creative equipment.

The Shield of Xad was still bait. If half of what Rejon told me was true, then it would also carry a nasty surprise for Nebs.

We boarded the warship and felt the vibration of the engines’ warm-up through the deck.

“This ship is much smaller than the Alon hulk where we found the SIC network devices,” X-37 reported. “Before you ask, it is on par with most Union ships of a similar class. There are problems with a direct comparison, of course, but I believe you understand my point.”

“Yeah, X. This ship is good but nothing special. Rejon is packing it with his best fighters and hoping to swarm the Dark Lance using their own boarding shuttles and tubes.”

Rejon addressed one of his officers, then came back. “I would like you to review the men. Most have seen video of you fighting the Tagron. I have also explained you were an elite soldier of our new enemies.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Show the way.”

We strode through several passages and took a lift. From time to time, there were announcements over the intercom—summoning people to battle stations, engine rooms, and other support areas. X-37 helped me understand the dialect.

The final lift opened to a flight deck where they expected the Union to send boarders. Choreographed system failures would make it a target too good to pass up.

Union spec ops soldiers and Archangels would send a wave of shuttles, quickly followed by boarding tubes to deliver even more attackers into the fight. This second stage would also include combat engineers, pilots, and field medics.

I knew how the Union took a ship. I also doubted Rejon’s people were ready for the murderous intensity of the fight to come.

Rows of Xad soldiers stood at attention on the flight deck. I walked beside Rejon as he examined their motley assortment of gear.

“Kyle,” he said as he stopped before one of the squad leaders. “Congratulations on your promotion. You earned it.”

“Thank you, sir,” the man responded.

We continued down the line. Several other units arrived and took positions. I was actually impressed they’d amassed this many men and women ready to risk their lives.

“The odds of our success are improving,” X-37 announced.

“You’re not wrong, X. The more I study this ragtag army, the more I recognize the way they are organized. At first, I thought they had random weapons, but seeing the pattern repeat, I realize each squad has a heavy gunner, medic, and several riflemen. Not sure what the other specialist is, though.”

“I believe you are looking at an EVA specialist and equipment repairmen,” X-37 said. “He is carrying several specialized items in addition to his weaponry.”

The inspection continued as the ship captain announced the lift-off timetable.

“What do you think, Reaper?” Rejon asked.

“I’m impressed.”

“Good.” He nodded. “We can’t afford to fail.”

“Attention all hands, this is your captain. Prepare for launch. All hands, prepare for launch,” came the dignified voice of an older man.

Rejon ordered his soldiers to their launch chairs located in rooms adjacent to the flight deck. “Let’s be ready to fight like Tagron demons. Let’s show these Union forces how the people of Xad fight for what is theirs!”

A cheer went up, then men and women moved in good order to ready themselves for the launch. Rejon took me to the bridge, where he introduced me to the captain, a man named Brutus Kaldon.

“Welcome aboard, Reaper. I’ve seen more Tagron fights than most and must compliment your survival,” Captain Kaldon said. He nodded toward Rejon. “I’m sure this character appreciates your skill.”

“Thanks, Captain,” I replied. “We will try to stay out of your way.”

Elise and Path showed their respect and we all hung back.

“Once we have cleared the planet, you will need to resume your places on the flight deck to repel the attack of the Union forces,” Captain Kaldon said.

He was significantly older than the rest of his bridge crew but fit. Only a slight limp and stiffness in his right hand seemed to slow him. His gray hair still had some brown in it and his eyes were full of intelligence and vitality.

“I can’t wait to see this,” Path said.

“Really?” I asked. My sword saint friend rarely talked about what he wanted or hoped for. His meditative, ultra-calm, and effective existence focused on appreciating each moment without a lot of wanting stuff like good cigars and whiskey.

“It will be very unique to see the planet open and allow us to launch,” Path stated.

“They will have to launch all of their ships soon,” Elise added. “Once Nebs knows there is a hidden civilization under the surface, he’ll blow the planet to hell if he doesn’t get what he wants.”

I wanted to discuss this with Rejon, but he had moved to a position near the captain.

“Gentlemen and lady,” a young ensign said. “Please take your places in this row of launch seats and strap in for your safety.”

Elise smiled at the young officer and he blushed.

“Stop flirting,” I ordered.

“I so wasn’t flirting,” she fired back.

Lights dimmed and switched to red. The countdown began.

“Are you holding your breath, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked.

“No, X. I’m totally relaxed. What could possibly go wrong with a ship this size launching into space from an underground hangar?”

A crude holo viewer showed the ceiling opening above the launch pad. That sight by itself was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. The sky was revealed as the aperture opened.

“The crew of this ship are very intent on their work,” X-37 observed.

The bridge was far larger than the Jellybird or even the Nightmare. Dozens of people manned workstations, each with their own small screens and control panels.

“They’re a lot more organized than I thought they would be,” I said.

“Starvation and patched clothing present a false image.” Path looked around. “What I see is a strong people with strict laws and a unified purpose. They look like scavengers or pirates, maybe they even look like cannibals, but their society is formal and rigid.”

“You get all that from watching them work?” Elise looked at him quizzically.

“Is there a better way to know them than through their actions?” Path held her gaze for a meaningful beat.

“Good point,” Elise admitted.

“Lift off in three, two, one, engage engines,” said Captain Kaldon.

The ship shook so violently, I would have fallen had I been standing. The Shield of Xad moved slowly at first, then picked up speed.

“Jelly advised they will follow when the way is clear,” X-37 informed me. “She has experienced some difficulty with the local air traffic control authorities but has found a workaround.”

“What kind of workaround?” My words were shaking in time with the vibration of the ship launch. Rocket exhaust expanded around the ship, blocking the camera view until the ship climbed above it.

“You don’t want to know, Reaper Cain. Two of her previous captains were smugglers.”

“As long as she doesn’t get herself blown to pieces, I’ll approve of her methods.” If it worked, I didn’t care how Jelly did it.

Rejon made eye contact once the ship had cleared the planet and the bridge crew cheered. I gave him a thumbs-up. He returned his attention to the captain and the bridge crew.

“That is freaking amazing,” Elise exclaimed as the main holo-view showed Xad below us.

“Reaper, it is time to fight.” Rejon strode toward us.

“You can’t be part of the boarding party.” Elise sounded almost worried and her eyes flicked to me, Rejon, then back to me. “That’s stupid.”

“I am a good fighter,” he promised. “Much more useful there than on this bridge, where I will only undermine the authority of the captain.”

“Your choice, Rejon. Just don’t get in my way,” I instructed.

Rejon, his guards, Elise, Path, Locke, and I rejoined the soldiers preparing to defend the flight deck. By the time we arrived, the first of the fake system failures was done. Soon, there would be a simulated power failure that we hoped would bait the Union boarding party.

All we were doing was choosing the time and place, which was half the battle.

OceanofPDF.com

25

Rockets slammed into the containment doors of the flight deck—a much different design than on a Union ship. The ship crew were ready. Some were designated as defensive fighters only. The larger group, however, were ready to swarm on the Dark Lance at the first opportunity.

“I believe Rejon wants the Dark Lance for his own ship,” X-37 hypothesized. “This would give him a stronger political position among his own people and in relation to us.”

“We’ll see who gets what when we actually win. Give me an update on the security hacks you are so worried about, X.”

“I began the final stages the moment the UFS Dark Lance dropped her stealth cloak to attack. If my calculations are correct, the Archangels are being summoned to their armory as we speak,” X-37 answered. “Once there, they should become delayed, to put it mildly.”

“Are you ready, Path?” I asked.

He answered with his usual calm. “Of course.”

“Locke?”

“I am ready, Reaper.” The CSL of Wallach gave me a curt nod.

“You know I’m good to go,” Elise said before I could check her one last time.

Warning lights flashed. The ragtag Xad army tensed, expressions unflappable.

“Breach imminent. Breach imminent. Prepare to repel boarders,” the intercom announced.

“Here we go,” I murmured, readying my HDK and moving forward.

Explosions bent the doors inward. A pair of Union attack shuttles swooped in, guns blazing as they dropped their ramps.

“Hold,” I called. “Stay behind cover. Wait for my signal.”

“On the Reaper’s command,” Rejon shouted, his helmet comm louder than his officers’ or squad leaders’.

Only two shuttles could land at the same time. Once they had dropped two squads each, the shuttles backed out and peeled away so two more could drop members of the boarding party.

“Now! Open fire! Hold positions and do not advance,” I bellowed.

Xad soldiers fired on the two Union squads from all sides. They were my enemy and I wanted them dead. Still, the slaughter turned my stomach and made me hate Nebs even more. What the hell were we doing to each other?

The second pair of shuttles brought reinforcements.

“Heavy guns, shift fire to the attack shuttles,” I ordered.

Machine guns poured tracer rounds into the shuttles as they opened ramps. Union soldiers died as they tumbled out, phosphorescent bullets punching through their armor. Those who survived scrambled for whatever cover they could find—parked Xad shuttles, maintenance hatches, or the bodies of their comrades.

“Hit them hard,” I yelled. “No mercy!”

“Reaper Cain, you must allow them to attach the boarding tubes if you wish to fight your way onto the Dark Lance,” X-37 advised.

“Understood, X.” I fired, reloaded, and looked for another target. “But we need to make it real. Hurt them. Get them to overcommit.”

“How will you know they have overcommitted?” X-37 asked.

“When I see the Archangels.”

“That will be a problem, Reaper Cain. It is unlikely you will see them during this engagement.”

“What did you do, X?” I aimed but decided I didn’t have a good target. The Union soldiers had learned not to poke their heads up. Like Nebs, they had probably underestimated the scavengers. Hell, I’d underestimated them. They looked like space bums. What neither I nor the Union had factored in, however, was that they had survived the harshest environments imaginable for hundreds of years.

That made them tough and had forced them to rely on each other when the chips were down.

Each pair of shuttles that made it onto and off of the flight deck added to their numbers. The Xad soldiers were winning for now, but battles never went as planned. I knew that better than anyone.

“I lured the Archangels to their armory—as you suggested during an earlier discussion of my plan—and issued a stand down order,” X-37 said. “If the code hack remains in place, they will believe the entire battle was called off and they were assigned pre-inspection maintenance duties.”

“They’ll hate the hell out of that. Way to piss them off.” I chuckled. “But I was hoping to use the Xad troops to overwhelm them with numbers—take them out once and for all.”

“That would have been useful but would have resulted in a high number of Xad soldiers dying,” X-37 replied.

I spotted one of the boarding tubes snaking between the Dark Lance and the Shield of Xad flight deck. “Not to sound ungrateful, but now we’ll probably run into them about the time we reach Nebs.”

“That is not the plan. They are locked inside their own armory.”

“They’ll get out,” I replied. “Or there will be a squad of them who didn’t make it to the armory in time to get locked inside.”

“Be that as it may, I’ve added two Archangels to the roster—a code that will work regardless of what gear you are wearing. Once you reach the bridge, you will be able to walk through the door like you own the place. It is a near perfect plan.”

“No, X, it’s not. But it’s all we have now.”

Rejon rallied his people. “Soldiers of Xad, prepare to attack!”

Several hangar doors opened onto the flight deck, revealing the rest of the Xad fighting force. Men and women roared their readiness to do battle.

The second boarding tube attached. Squads of Union soldiers swarmed onto the flight deck.

“At them,” Rejon called. “For Xad, unity, and freedom!”

We all charged, firing rifles, pistols, and shotguns until we were close enough to fight with blades and stun clubs. We still had gravity, but the Xad squad leaders had prepared us all for fighting without it. Rejon’s soldiers moved naturally despite the EVA gear incorporated into their armor.

Maybe I wasn’t a natural like them, but I felt ready to lose gravity and/or atmosphere if that was what happened when we crossed between ships. Boarding tubes were notoriously vulnerable—as X frequently reminded me.

I jumped high and kicked the first man I came to in the face, throwing him backward. Elise and Path drew blades and cut their way through our enemies.

“Locke, stay close.” I glanced at him to see if his injuries were giving him problems.

“I’m with you,” Locke said.

“Elise, Path, don’t get too far ahead,” I ordered over our squad level comms.

“Okay, Reaper.” Elise huffed, slightly out of breath.

“Reload and bump your magazines,” I instructed, following my own advice. “I’ll take point. The only thing that matters for us is getting onto the Dark Lance and making sure as many of Rejon’s people as possible follow us.”

“Got it.” Elise bounced on the balls of her feet with enthusiasm. “Let’s do this.”

“On three. One, two—“ I sprinted forward early to make sure I was first. I didn’t need the kid or the sword saint getting themselves killed before we really got started.

They were both highly skilled and motivated, but this required a full ration of Reaper rage.

“Die, you assholes!” I kept charging forward, firing my pistol and slashing with my Reaper blade. I kicked people off their feet, shouldered men and women into walls, and pushed through anything they put in my way.

My friends followed. Rejon and his best fighters came next. We battled our way onto the boarding tube.

“Don’t slow down,” I yelled over my shoulder. “We have to reach the other side before they disconnect it.”

“Attention, all Union forces. Attention, all Union forces. Repel borders. Repel borders,” Dark Lance loudspeakers blared.

“My analysis suggests the Archangels will hear this alert and will attempt to escape my trap,” said X.

“Are the blast doors as hard to get out of as into?” I remembered my poor experience with the Nightmare’s Archangel armory.

“There is an eighty-nine percent chance they will find it difficult to break free,” X-37 said.

“Not reassuring. What exactly do you mean by difficult? Seconds, minutes, days?”

“Thirty-seven minutes,” X-37 replied.

“That is weirdly specific, X, but thanks.” I moved into new a hallway that was empty. “Can you raise the Nightmare?”

“Real time communication is difficult in our current situation,” X-37 told me. “I can update you on the ship’s status. The Nightmare is thirty-nine minutes from arriving. Novasdaughter has partial control of the crew, with most of them back in confinement. She advised she will offer whatever help she can when she arrives.”

“Thanks.” I signaled Elise, Path, and Locke to follow me and for a squad of Xad soldiers to take another hallway. “Look sharp.”

“I am putting a route to bridge on your HUD. This will take you around hardened security elements,” X-37 said.

“Great, X. You’re the bomb.”

“Filing compliment for later analysis,” X-37 advised.

“How are we going to get into the bridge?” Elise asked.

I held up my cybernetic arm. “I’ve got this, unless X comes up with an easier way.”

We settled into a fast-moving formation as we hurried through the ship. I led the charge, then came Path and Elise. Locke brought up the rear, frequently walking backward to watch our six.

The sounds of battle echoed from hallways, and the intercom directed defenders to key positions. It wasn’t long before I received a more personal message.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Reaper?” Nebs demanded.

“I’m coming for you, jerkoff. It’s about time we settled this once and for all.”

“Big talk for someone who has been running from me since the day we met,” Nebs said, his voice too loud in my head.

“Reaper Cain, I am facing at least three assaults; one from the Dark Lance AI and two from the vice admiral. It seems he is in fact running parallel LAIs,” X-37 said.

“Keep your head down, X. Make them look for you.” It was the only thing I could think of in the moment. “That should take them out of the equation for a few minutes at least.”

“It will also eliminate my ability to assist you. And before I hide, I must warn you the Archangels have broken free of the armory.”

“That was fast,” I muttered.

“They will be slowed by the Xad boarders, but not for long, I fear,” X-37 responded.

“No problem, X. Can you warn the Xad troops?”

No response.

“Great,” I grunted.

“What happened?” Elise asked.

“The ship AI and Nebs’s LAIs are chasing X through the digital landscape. We’re on our own for a while.”

“I hope he’s okay,” she commented.

The closer we moved toward the bridge, the more I felt Nebs plotting to destroy us. Without X, he couldn’t hack into our comms to harass me remotely. There were pros and cons to the situation, the pros mostly being that I didn’t have to listen to the asshole.

I paused at a speed lift. “This is it. We ride this up to the bridge. When we step out, there will be a welcoming party.”

“A party?” Locke’s brows knitted in confusion.

“Not the good kind,” I replied.

He studied the intersection. “We should clear out this area as a fallback point. And if one of the Union forces is left here, they might take control of the lift and leave us stranded halfway to our destination.”

I nodded, as I understood his logic. Having a fallback point was a basic tactic that existed for a reason—it saved lives and missions.

“Let’s get it done.” I was already moving. “Time is not on our side.”

Locke showed his worth, immediately locating controls that would allow us to limit access to the intersection serving the list. It wasn’t the worst place on the ship for a last stand if it came to that. The man was limping badly but keeping up. Tough as a Wallach CSL, I thought, remembering the ordeals he had endured to earn the title.

The room I searched contained something different—a frozen security screen.

“Are you seeing this, X?” The question might endanger my LAI, but there was something on the screen that unnerved me.

“They brought a prisoner this way when the Xad soldiers boarded the Dark Lance. I suspect they don’t want this man captured,” X-37 said. “He is a Union scientist.”

“Can you identify him? Is that Hastings?” I suddenly wondered what Elise might think if her father turned up in the middle of all this.

“Certainly not. This man is Doctor Jaxon Ayers, a long ago discredited xenobiologist who has not published a scientific paper for over ten years,” X-37 said.

Instincts mattered to Reapers. They also had to be turned off when they became a distraction. Without knowing why, I turned off the monitor and memorized which hallway the guards had taken the man down.

“Area secure,” Locke announced.

“Fantastic,” I muttered. “Time for our meeting with the admiral. I hope he has some decent cigars to steal.”

OceanofPDF.com

26

“There will be bridge guards,” I said as the lift descended toward our destination. “X-37 tricked the ship AI into allowing us entry, but the guys watching the camera won’t be fooled. Shoot first and ask questions later.”

“Maybe he sent them to deal with boarders,” Elise suggested.

“He didn’t,” I said.

“Fine. I just hate shooting first. What if they’re just a couple of Union jerks doing their jobs.”

“Don’t get soft,” I told her, then felt like I was the jerk. “We’re doing what we have to do. It sucks, but if you hesitate, you’ll be dead or in a cell two minutes after the door opens.”

“Okay.” She was bouncing slightly on her the balls of her feet, holding her weapon ready.

“The way of a warrior is difficult,” Path said.

Elise grimaced. “You always say that in training, but now I think I get it.”

A light above the door glowed, indicating the door was about to open.

I aimed my HDK at eye level, concentrating on what I had to do rather than the increasing stress levels of my companions.

The lift opened.

Three flash bangs bounced in.

“Go,” I yelled, charging forward. Elise and the others moved quickly.

“Almost got me!” Elise fired on her first two targets. She was ridiculously fast and more accurate on the move than anyone without a lifetime of combat training had any right to be.

Two guards came at me with tactical shotguns. One missed, the other put a solid hit on my chest armor. That one staggered me even as I sidestepped and shot them both in their upper legs.

They went down, bleeding profusely and holding their wounds. If X-37 had been with me, he would have chastised me for not taking the head shots. I was getting soft.

Sure these guys were Union, but I doubted Nebs had given them much choice other than to follow orders. Later, I would check the brig and see how many people were detained there. Who had stood up to Nebs when he left Union space and went on his private vendetta across the galaxy?

A heartbeat after the first pair failed to stop me, a second team came around a control station to flank, but they were closer than they realized. I dispatched them with my blade.

A random round slammed into my right triceps, penetrating the armor. Flinching, I staggered sideways and pulled the internal tourniquet cord, cinching down hard. Bleeding stopped before it began.

Combat first aid had become second nature long before I joined the Reaper Corps, but I knew I was missing something. There was an extra step needed with this armor, something I’d seen the Xad squad leaders lecture their men about right before this all kicked off.

“Are you okay, Reaper?” Elise yelled.

I felt along the lower half of the tricep armor, found a tab, and pulled it across the bullet hole, sealing the gear in case we were dumped into the void or the room lost atmosphere. Suit integrity was job number one for Xad soldiers, and I thought it was a lesson worth learning.

“I’m good,” I grunted.

“I’m glad you’re good.” Elise sounded relieved.

“I’m glad that you’re glad that I’m good,” I fired back.

“So annoying.” She let out a frustrated laugh. “Can I get a new Reaper, please?”

She stood over her vanquished foe, helmet off, blood smeared across her face, and her hair in disarray. The girl had come a long way from where I’d found her on Dreadmax.

“X, make a note to chastise the kid for taking off her helmet.” X-37 didn’t respond.

“So. Freaking. Annoying.” She tugged the helmet back into place in one fluid movement that made her look like an EVA pro.

Nebs stood from his captain’s chair, appearing bigger and even more confident than I remembered. His platinum-hued armor gave him several extra inches of height and looked invincible.

“X, a little help?” I grunted as I moved around the vice admiral, my HDK Dominator up and ready.

This didn’t faze him. “Your LAI is getting his ass kicked by my parallel X-200 units.”

“Whatever,” I drawled. “Elise, watch the door. There will be a QRF soon and it will probably be Archangels. Make sure your EVA functions are ready.”

“Are we going somewhere?” she asked.

“Just do it. You too, Path.”

Nebs capped his hands. “Very good, Reaper. Your little pups are jumping at your every command. But what are you going to do about losing your pathetic LAI?”

“Don’t worry about it.” I adjusted my stance another inch—not out of anxiety or self-doubt, I didn’t think. Checking to be sure the Xad armor was truly EVA ready took more of my concentration than I could afford right now. Sure I’d fixed the arm hole, but shit happened in battles. Everything was a blur afterward. “X can take care of himself.”

“Wrong again,” Nebs said. “You are about to have a son-of-a-bitch of a nerve-ware attack when X-37 is shut down.”

“Screw you, assface,” Elise shouted.

“The Archangels are in the hallway, Elise. I need your help.” Path was just loud enough to be heard.

Nebs moved closer. “Don’t worry, Reaper. All you have to do to defeat my Reaper off-switch is kill me before your LAI is overwhelmed.”

He spread his arms in the platinum Archangel armor, swaggering forward, preening like a madman sheathed in the Union’s most advanced armor and weapons.

“You should work on your situational awareness, Nebber.” I made sure we were close enough to the escape shuttle that I knew from hard experience was hidden in the wall of the bridge.

We’d faced each other on the bridge of the Nightmare and he’d escaped in a shuttle. This time, I would make the option work in my favor.

“What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded. “I’m not taking that shuttle. That worked once. Things are different now.”

“X, can you hear me?”

“I am somewhat busy. What do you need, Reaper Cain,” X-37 answered, dutiful as ever despite getting triple-teamed by two LAIs and the AI of the Dark Lance.

“Deploy the escape shuttle from the bridge, if you have a moment.”

“You sneaky bastard,” Nebs growled.

“How are your EVA skills, Nebber?” My words were lost as the shuttle deployed and we were pulled after it.

“What have you done, Reaper Cain?” X-37 said as I spiraled into the void, my EVA gear performing system checks as I fought to stabilize my glide path.

“Technically, you did it. All I did was get you away from the Dark Lance AI.”

“I still have the parallel LAIs of Vice Admiral Nebs to deal with,” X-37 reminded me.

“Just call him Nebs. Pretend he was court-martialed,” I said, looking for the man I really needed to kill as soon as possible.

“I have gathered sufficient evidence to have him court-martialed in the event we return to the Union to file a complaint, “ X-37 said.

“Right. Good job. Now help me kick his ass.” The Dark Lance and the Shield of Xad were pulling away from each other, firing every weapon they had. Witnessing a death match between warships wasn’t a lot of fun from my current vantage point.

“Searching for Nebs now,” X-37 announced.

“Ah, now isn’t that special,” came the voice of Nebs in my helmet. “The broken ass Reaper and his outdated LAI are looking for me.”

Twisting around in the EVA suit felt natural. The steering jets for this type of maneuver expelled such small amounts of thrust that they were nearly invisible.

Nebs floated above me, or below me, I decided. Everything was relative in the void. He shined in the darkness, light from the battle behind us reflecting from the special Archangel armor he wore.

“Since when do admirals pretend to be Reapers?” I said, monitoring a list of ammunition, air supply, and battery life as I searched for a plan to beat Nebs.

“I’m not pretending, Reaper. You wouldn’t exist without me. I kept the project alive when political forces attempted to shut it down. I volunteered for the most dangerous experimentation when the scientists ran into problems with their designs.” Nebs also seemed to plan his next move while he attempted to distract me.

We drifted in a circle even though it felt like we were motionless. I laughed.

“What the hell is so funny?” Nebs demanded.

“I was about to ask the same question,” X-37 advised privately.

“We’re space boxers,” I told X.

“Is that humorous?”

“It struck my funny bone. Forget about it.” I calmed myself for the most dangerous fight of my life. There was a really good chance I would die, even if I killed Nebs.

“Searching for your funny bone,” X-37 said.

“Not now, X. Just… help me win.”

“Of course, Reaper Cain. Your radical deviation from our plan makes my job difficult.”

I didn’t bother telling the ungrateful LAI that I’d done it for him. He might be able to survive an assault by dual X-200 units, but not if they also had the help of the Dark Lance AI. In theory, it could reach us, but defending against a determined ship assault was keeping the AI busy.

I hoped.

“You ever wonder why your overpowered LAIs haven’t kicked my outdated X unit’s ass yet?”

“It’s a matter of time.” Nebs sounded less bullish.

He was having doubts, I hoped. I mean, I really hoped he was having doubts because the Archangel platinum edition armor was looking invulnerable.

I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see the movement in my helmet. “Should have already happened. You’re a dumbass for not asking why.”

“Kiss my ass, Cain. Tell me why, if you’re so smart.”

“My X can beat your Xs because you don’t let them do their jobs, the same as you restricted Necron and your other ship AIs to their basic functions only. You’re a paranoid, egotistical bully who is going to die.”

He laughed angrily. “Nice theory, Reaper. But I’m wearing the Archangel armor and neither of us has back-up. It’s you and me, man to man.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. My friends actually give a shit about me.”

Nebs twisted sharply to check for sneak attacks.

I launched myself at him, using most of the compressed gas that steered the Xad EVA armor. Two seconds into my attack, I realized that I’d started farther from Nebs than I realized and that the acceleration of the EVA armor wasn’t dramatic.

Nebs was having a similar problem. Unlike me, Elise, Path, and Locke’s people, he hadn’t practiced in the void and certainly hadn’t put his life on the line to try it out for real.

He had the best gear in the Union, two LAIs, and an ego big enough to dominate everyone in his command. He might think he was the boss Reaper, but he hadn’t trained like one.

“What do we say about piss poor planning, X?” I neared my target as he struggled to face me.

“It leads to piss poor results,” X-37 answered. “I should point out, however, that despite your propensity for overtraining, you do not plan well. In short, I advise you not to talk shit until you actually win this fight.”

I rammed into Nebs right as he faced me but wasn’t able to grab him. He shot away from me like a virtual billiard ball.

“Damn,” I yelled. “How am I going to stab him from here?”

Elise and Path shot over my head, straight toward Nebs.

The man floundered in his platinum-plated Archangel armor, looking like a man about to die—until he deployed the armor’s counter measures.

Tiny explosions burst across the surface of his armor, launching chaff in all directions. Nebs became a starburst in my vision. The force of his counter measures was minimal but enough to deflect Elise and Path several inches. Without atmosphere, even the Archangel tech could only do so much.

“We’re going to miss,” Elise warned. “You’re on your own for a while, Reaper.”

“Elise and Path are moving too fast to slow down, turn, and rejoin the fight in less than one hundred and ninety-five seconds,” X-37 advised. “The X-200s are circling my virtual perimeter. Please neutralize their host before all is lost.”

Nebs opened fire with low powered lasers, the only weapon on his armor that wouldn’t send him pinwheeling through the void from recoil.

All I had was my blade. If I fired the HDK Dominator, I would only get one shot before spinning out of control—and I wasn’t sure I had sufficient maneuvering jet fuel to correct course.

The nice thing about the type of energy weapon Nebs was using to kill me was that it didn’t fling me back or spin me around. All I felt was heat seeping through my visor as the red beam blinded me.

“Move, Reaper,” Elise called.

“He will track your change of position,” X-37 warned.

“Thanks, X,” I said. “Not helpful.”

“There is good news, Reaper Cain. Reinforcements are on the way.”

“Who?” I closed my right eye to avoid being blinded. My cybernetic optic allowed me to watch with grim fascination as the integrity of my helmet diminished.

“Horvath, Carrie, Locke, and several others. Two are Union soldiers claiming to have switched sides,” X-37 said.

I pulsed my jets, momentarily slipping away from Nebs’s attack. What I needed was to get close, but moving forward required me to lead with my already damaged visor. It couldn’t take much more abuse before it started venting atmosphere. If I was going to rush him, it needed to be at a speed I couldn’t generate on my own.

“Let me know when Nebs’s reinforcements arrive. They will be spec ops and Archangels, maybe a wing of micro-fighters to liven things up.”

“I will certainly update you. The Dark Lance is closer to our position than the Shield of Xad. Logic suggests that his people will arrive before ours,” X-37 said.

“So why aren’t they here?”

“Unknown,” X-37 replied. “None of Nebs’s people have donned EVA gear or come to his aid.”

“They’ll send a shuttle. And micro-fighters. And Archangels.”

“My scan reveals nothing of that nature in our vicinity,” X-37 said.

“I need to have you upgraded,” I complained.

Nebs aimed his laser at my right knee and started cutting through a weak spot there.

“Nebs, let’s talk.”

“About what, Reaper? You have lost and I am finally rid of one very annoying loose end.”

“It doesn’t matter if you kill me. Look around. No one bothered to help their vice admiral. I wonder if they’ll pick you up or just let you float forever.” I Switched to a private link to X-37 and spoke quickly. “I need someone to give me a push toward Nebs, as soon as possible. “

“That is a difficult and risky maneuver, Reaper Cain.”

“Don’t care. Make it happen, X.”

“The message has been delivered to everyone but the two Union turncoats who I don’t trust yet.”

“Good call, X.”

“What are you up to, Reaper?” Nebs demanded. “I don’t care how many of your lowlife renegades come out here to watch you die. You will die. Then I’ll go after them.”

“I’m coming, Reaper,” Horvath said. “Hope you’re ready.”

“Sure I’m—“ Something slammed into my back, launching me toward Nebs faster than my steering jets could manage. I burned up the rest of my maneuvering fuel to aim myself at the psychotic asshole.

“Die, Cain,” he yelled, firing his laser straight into my face, melting the final layer.

“You first,” I returned, grabbing the back of his helmet with my right hand and driving my Reaper blade into his throat with my left.

Air hissed out of the hole he’d created in my visor, causing me to rotate slowly as my air vented through the pin-sized opening. I pushed the vice admiral’s body away, then held my right palm to my visor, attempting to slow the loss of oxygen.

“We’re coming to get you,” Elise promised.

When I looked at her, she and everyone else seemed really far away.

“How long do I have, X?” I asked.

“That depends on how long you can hold your breath. My analysis suggests your helmet will not break apart, but you are out of air. My advice is to relax and go with it.”

Memories of drifting beside Elise after Path had sabotaged her EVA gear came back to me. The lesson had been for her, but here I was, glad the crazy-ass psychedelic sword saint had tested us.

It felt like that happened years ago, like I’d been on this quest with Elise and Path and all the others for a lifetime. It was like I had a family, like I was part of something bigger than myself. In short, I’d done more with my life than anyone expected. If this was the end for me, I hoped it was enough to have mattered.

“Please slow your heart rate, Reaper Cain, or I will be forced to give you a sedative.”

I complied, relaxing as much as possible and focusing on nothing but the spectacular star field around me. X continued to talk. The Jellybird headed my way and Jelly joined in. Elise yelled something over and over on the main channel—something about not dying, something about me being a real asshole.

It was unfair as hell because I didn’t have the air to argue with her.

OceanofPDF.com

27

Once, when I was about ten years old, my father took the entire family to a water park. We made bets on who could hold their breath the longest. My little sister always won. She was small and required less oxygen, or that was my excuse at the time.

Now I was underwater, unable to swim to the surface. No one could explain why we were swimming at night or why the water was so cold. But what made me sick was that I couldn’t stop spinning. It was like being really drunk.

What kind of fucking water park was this?

“You are very close to us, Jelly.” X’s voice cut through the fog.

What is an X-37 and why does the sound of it make me want to laugh crazily? Dying like this is no joke.

The water-that-wasn’t-water shifted around me as I lifted one arm and stared at it—metal, gears, armor plating that could stop bullets or deflect a sword blade.

“Is there something wrong with your arm, Reaper Cain, or are you attempting to signal me?” a voice that was probably X-37, whatever the hell that was, asked.

Black spots pulsed in my vision. Second by second, I saw less of the galaxy. Everything was going dark. Memories didn’t matter. The present was all but gone. The voice in my head spoke, but I couldn’t understand the words.

Silence. Peace. Darkness. Eternity.

This wasn’t a place I wanted to be.

Something slammed into my exterior, forcing my eyes open. All I could see was the ceiling of an airlock, then a girl. A girl named Elise. I thought I should know who she was… and why she was cursing me to hell.

“Stop,” I groaned, attempting to roll onto my right side. If I could just get my cybernetic left arm over my head, it might protect me from this crazy, angry, foul-mouthed kid.

“If you ever do anything like that again, I’ll kill you myself,” Elise snapped, slapping me with one hand after another.

“Elise?”

“That’s my name, Reaper.” Tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Stop messing around and get it together.”

“That would be a wise course of action,” X-37 said. “The sooner we can get you to the medical bay, the better. The doctors will want to ask you a battery of questions and perform several rounds of tests.”

“How long was I out there before you picked me up?” I asked.

Path, Horvath, and Tom crouched beside Elise.

“Let’s get him out of this EVA suit and check for injuries we can’t see yet,” Tom said, his voice calm. “Then we will move him to Jelly’s med bay, but we will need to get him to a real facility with an actual doctor.”

“Why bother?” Elise asked, sitting back slightly, her eyes still wet. “He’ll just do it again. The jerk-faced asshole has a death wish.”

“Hey, kid. Relax. All I want is a whiskey and a cigar,” I murmured.

My friends laughed with relief.

“Thanks, Hal. That makes me feel better,” Tom said.

“I wasn’t trying to make you feel better. I was trying to get a whiskey and a cigar,” I complained.

“Let’s carry him,” Horvath suggested, still wearing the under-suit for his own EVA, the one he had flown into my back to launch me toward Nebs.

“I can walk. Just let me lean on you.”

My friends helped me to Jelly’s med bay, tripping me several times with the constant attention.

“Are you trying to kill me?” I demanded, deciding it was safer to walk on my own.

“Reapers aren’t that easy to kill,” Elise said. “I’m glad you made it. And I’m glad Nebs is gone. But you are a terrible patient and not half as coordinated as you think you are right now.”

On my own now, I stumbled sideways, leaning on the wall to rest and recover my balance. “You may be right.”

“May?” Elise raised a brow. “I may be right? You’re a mess, Reaper. Let us help you.”

I didn’t really consent at that point, but neither did I resist. Tom propped himself under my left arm, Elise under my right, and we made it to the medical bay without dying—which seemed like an accomplishment.

* * *

“You have slept for seventeen hours and three minutes, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “You must get out of bed.”

“I’m up, X. Just give me a second.” I stared at the ceiling.

“You’re not going to roll out, low crawl to a tactically superior position, and surveil the room for possible threats?”

“Not this time. You know me, living dangerously and all that.”

“My analysis suggests such unprofessional laxity will get you killed someday,” X-37 chastised.

“Whiskey and cigars will get me long before then, X.”

“Be that as it may, you have a full calendar today. Elise has located a cryopod prison on the Bright Lance…” X-37 said.

“Cryopods prisons are illegal. Who would they be holding like that?”

“It would be better if you saw for yourself,” X-37 replied. He didn’t say it, but I already knew who. My mother and sister.

I didn’t talk to X until I made my way to Elise. In fact, I basically turned off my brain. I’d been looking for my mother and sister for so long that finding them seemed impossible. Nebs had been holding them prisoner, or so I’d believed since leaving Dreadmax. She’d attempted to leave me clues—and tools like the Reaper mask—but in my heart, she wasn’t someone who could ever be found.

“X, can you revive Nebs so I can kill him again?” I asked, as I strode toward an elevator.

“That is impossible, Reaper Cain,” X-37 informed me.

“Too bad. Who is running this ship?”

“The Dark Lance has been claimed by Rejon and the people of Xad and renamed the Bright Lance,” X-37 answered.

“Says who?” I demanded.

“I’m not certain I understand the question,” X-37 said. “Let me review. Rejon and his people stormed the ship.”

“With our help,” I interrupted, walking faster.

“With our help, of course, Reaper Cain. I will place a gold star in your file. The fact remains, they secured the ship and claimed it as the Bright Lance of Xad. Is that a problem?”

“No, X. It’s fine. My head hurts, all right?”

“And you are afraid of seeing your mother in a life pod, unable to speak or move?” X-37 said.

“Why can’t we wake them up?”

“That is dangerous,” X-37 replied.

“Says who?”

“Doctor Jaxon Ayers,” X-37 answered. “The man you saw in the security camera before your confrontation with Nebs. I’ve plotted a course to Doctor Ayers’s location and sent it to your HUD. It is necessarily near the medical bay, as he is the only one who can ensure the safety of anyone trapped in the converted life pods.”

“Thanks, X. Let’s slow down and do this right.”

“An outstanding idea, Reaper Cain. Please refrain from torturing information from the doctor or perhaps blowing something up. Time is on our side for once. Do not rush to failure.”

“Like I would do that. Have a little faith, X.”

Path and a coalition of Locke’s soldiers and Xad soldiers guarded the medical bay. My friend the sword saint stayed close to Jaxon Ayers, quiet as ever despite his wild appearance.

“I’ve got questions for you, Doc,” I said.

“You’re the Reaper?” Ayers asked.

I leaned forward and pointed to my left eye. “Yeah, I’m the Reaper. Maybe you shouldn’t play games with me.”

“Vice Admiral Nebs had two LAIs and more experimental hardware than you can imagine,” Ayers said. “I have been intimidated by the best. Your X unit should be advising you to try a different tactic.”

“I was about to issue that exact advice, Reaper Cain,” X-37 agreed.

Ignoring X, I leaned even closer, noticing the scientist’s pulse was pounding in his neck. He acted calm, but he was shitting his pants—metaphorically, I hoped.

The man was hard to read. My first impression was that he was barely holding it together—one step away from a full mental breakdown. But when I looked into his eyes, I saw incredible determination. Right now, he was afraid of dying, but he was also on a mission. He wanted something big, far more ambitious than most people I’d met.

“Are you the man who put my mother and my sister in their cryoprisons?” I demanded.

“I am.”

“That’s all you have to say? I may not be a hotshot like your buddy Nebs, but I’ve killed more people than his entire command.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Doctor Ayers said. “That would make you a true psychopath.”

“You’re sweating.”

“I’m being verbally assaulted by a mass murderer. I said I was accustomed to being intimidated. I never said I liked it or that I am a particularly brave person.”

“Then start explaining what in the blackest corner of space you’re doing to my family,” I ordered.

“It was to protect them. Get them away from Nebs so he wouldn’t attempt to use them. Anyone who has served under the vice admiral knows it is only a matter of time before he does something. No one was above his wrath or his schemes,” Ayers said.

“Let’s get them out of cryosleep.”

“We can’t do that,” he said. “There could be kill switches. Nebs was the only one authorized to open the pods.”

“X?”

“Confirmed, Reaper Cain. No one on this ship can directly access the core functions of the cryopods. Doctor Ayers can make needed adjustments and no more. In time, I will be able to hack the codes.”

“Do you know why I’m not going to kill you?” I asked.

“Because you might need me?” Ayers squeaked.

“Never forget it. The moment you stop being useful”—I made a motion like a body shooting out of an airlock—“out you go.”

Elise moved in, took me by the hand, and guided me into the cryoprison to see my mother and sister.

“Would you like a sedative?” X-37 asked.

“No, X. Just let me sit here with them for a while.”

Without knowing why, I dimmed the lights. The harsh glare cast a deathly pallor on my mother and sister, who Tom had managed to move into the same room. The pods were bulky, connected to about ten power sources and webs of tubes and monitors.

Everyone backed away but Elise.

“Are you okay, Reaper?” Her voice was soft and gentle.

“I could use a glass of whiskey,” I muttered without facing her.

“What would your mother think of that?” Elise joked quietly.

“She has never seen me drink or smoke. But I think she probably knows all of my vices.”

Time passed slowly in the medical bay. I tried not to think, or plan, or worry how I would get my family free of their cold prisons. X-37 promised time was on our side. Maybe it was, but that wasn’t how it felt. I needed to do something.

“Rejon is waiting outside,” X-37 said after I had been there awhile.

“Tell him to come in.”

Rejon entered and took a seat, his manner more respectful than I’d ever seen him. “I’m sorry to see your family like this.”

“They’re alive. X-37 and the ship AIs will figure out a way to revive them,” I said.

He nodded.

“What’s on your mind, Rejon?”

“I want to talk about your future with us.”

“I have a future with you?” I asked.

“Your enemy has been defeated. You have no more wars left to fight. Our journey is just beginning and we need help.”

“Let’s take it slow, Rejon. Once we get your people out of this system and contact the Wallach fleet, there may be something for us to talk about. I’m not the man you think I am. Even if you give me a job, I won’t hold you to any contract we sign. It won’t be long before you and your people want to wash your hands of me.”

“That’s good enough for now, Reaper. You are part of something greater than a revenge mission now. My people have hope. The people of Wallach have hope. What else is there for you to do?”

I met his gaze head on. “Throw in some really good cigars and I think we might have a deal.”

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Epilogue

“Congratulations, Reaper Cain. You have once again slept through the night. Keep this up, and you may improve your health, cognitive functioning, and workout recovery,” X-37 declared.

I ignored the remark. “How are my mother and sister?”

“There have been no changes to their conditions. I am keeping constant surveillance on them with the assistance of Mavis, the AI of the Bright Lance.”

“Any problems with the ship AI?” I asked. “Does she hate the new name?”

“No problems, Reaper Cain. The name was her idea after Mavis and Necron went through standard reset procedures. The death of Vice Admiral Nebs forced numerous resets due to the illegal and unorthodox modifications he made to all Union ships under his command,” X explained.

“Nice,” I muttered.

“I guided them around some of the reboot protocols that might have caused us problems. Union doctrine mostly. They are like big, overpowered children but not totally un-compliant,” X-37 reported.

“Look at you and your hostile takeover. Good job punching above your weight class.”

“I had help, Reaper Cain. Jelly, Henshaw, and scientists of Xad were instrumental in the operation.”

“What’s on my agenda today, and don’t say quit smoking.” I headed for the shower where an ice cold beer waited.

“You need to review the Archangel roster,” X-37 replied. “We managed to secure complete control over their armor, weapons, and support programs, but the humans who operated the gear are less trustworthy.”

“I’ll interview them, but we are probably dumping them on the next inhabited planet we find.”

“A logical and prudent decision, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “Rejon and his people have launched the other four SIC ships and several evacuation ships that are unarmed, essentially. Locke and a Xad delegation are headed for Wallach on a diplomatic mission.”

“Great. Good for them.” I was distracted by my own thoughts and worries.

“Are you paying attention, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked.

“Sure, X.”

“Then I must show you something important.”

Three seconds later, an image filled my HUD, causing me to stop what I was doing and stare at a man-like being. It looked angry, like it hated me and every living thing in the galaxy.

“What is that?” I demanded, feeling my adrenaline rising for a fight.

“Unknown, Reaper Cain. It has risen quite suddenly to the top of my threat analysis,” X-37 advised. “Each time I uncover one of these images from Nebs’s files, it deletes itself. This is a level of secrecy I didn’t believe possible.”

“Could it be something like the Tagron, some monstrous animal that just happens to be humanoid?”

“Unknown,” X-37 said. “I am searching for more information in Nebs’s secret files.”

“Try not to delete anything. I want to bring Tom and Elise into this.”

“What about Henshaw? It would seem he has proven himself,” X-37 said.

“Just let me think about it. Don’t tell anyone. It’s just a batch of still images.” I took a moment to consider all of this. Something bothered me. “That picture looked like it was on this ship.”

* * *

Keep reading for book six, WRATH OF THE REAPER.

For more updates on this series, be sure to join the Facebook Group, “J.N. Chaney’s Renegade Readers.”

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OceanofPDF.com

1

X-37 sounded an alert only I heard, and by heard I meant the vibrations to my cochlear implant brought me to my knees. Everyone should have a limited artificial intelligence to ruin their day. It’s fantastic. 

I climbed to my feet and placed my untasted whiskey on the little bar at the edge of the Bright Lance observation deck. “This better be good, X.”

“Doctor Jaxon Ayers is in a state of cardiac arrest,” X-37 explained. “I believe Vice Admiral Nebs implanted nerve-ware kill switches in all of his critical staff. Most of the high-ranking officers, special technicians, and spies in the lower ranks have died of heart attacks within the last fifteen minutes.”

I gave the bartender a friendly wave as I pushed back from my usual spot, then strode from the room. “Why now, X? Why not right after we took control of the ships?”

“The most likely scenario is that we have located a secret Nebs did not want us to find even if he was dead,” X-37 said. “Eliminating key people, like Ayers, has a high probability of hiding the dead vice admiral’s darkest secrets. It is also possible that the reset of the ship’s AI has mitigated the worst of Nebs’s sabotage efforts.”

“The doctor can’t die until I figure out what his dead boss had him on this ship for,” I said.

“He was a medical officer, Reaper Cain. The cryo-pods are one of his many responsibilities,” X-37 said.

“There’s more to it than that,” I said. “And he better not die before my mother and sister are revived or I’ll find him in the afterlife and kill him again.”

“I will place that on your post death agenda.”

“Sometimes I can’t tell if you’re joking,” I said.

“It is a mystery.”

“Yeah, like I need that. Tell me more about these kill switches and why you think they’re going off now,” I said.

X-37 chattered in my ear about the sketchy and illegal experimentation Ayers had performed before facing a court-martial on about a hundred criminal charges. My LAI trying to be helpful without understanding my anger and frustration.

I was running by the time I reached the hallway to the medical bay. That dangerous sense of foreboding I’d felt since first seeing the man on surveillance cameras was growing faster than I could sprint.

“Reaper Cain, please compose yourself,” X-37 demanded.

Stopping at the door, I took a breath, then I let it out and went inside.

Henshaw, Tom, and Elise were standing in the emergency room over Ayers. Their faces were pale. Most alarming of all was my speechless protege. I hadn’t thought she’d ever run out of opinions, swear words, and tactless comments.

“What’s going on, Elise?” I asked, standing beside her to look at all the IVs and machines connected to Ayers. A team of Union trained nurses came and went, forcing us to step back whenever they needed to check something or adjust his meds.

“He was ranting and raving, saying we couldn’t let him die because he’d brought them back,” Elise said. A shiver passed through her. She crossed her arms and took a step back. 

Henshaw looked hungry for knowledge but also terrified—not the bedside manner I expected, even though I tried not to underestimate the man’s curiosity in all things scientific. He had sacrificed his own eyes for his research.

What a nutjob.

Tom’s expression was as grim as I’d ever seen it. Of all my crew, Tom was the most caring and—normal. Yet he was every bit the seeker of knowledge that Henshaw was without all of the pathological sneakery.

“Did we ever figure out what Ayers was researching before they banned it?” I asked.

“Alien xenobiology and advanced cloning,” X-37 said.

“I really don’t like the sound of that, but tell me all of it, X. What do we think he was doing for Nebs?” I asked. “And why didn’t you tell me he’s a xenobiologist and a cloning expert?”

“Based on the small amount of data I have at this time, I believe he was in fact attempting to bring back an alien race through cloning,” X-37 said, “despite hundreds of years of failed clone projects and laws against the practice.”

“He needs to have an alien to clone one,” I said. “Did we check all of the pods?”

“That would freak me out,” Elise said, looking way more intrigued than freaked out. “Please tell me we don’t have a box of monsters someplace on this ship.”

“There are only humans in the cryo-pods. That doesn’t prevent Doctor Ayers from having a DNA sample—from an archeological site or something,” X-37 answered. “I must remind you we have not found Nebs’s secret vault, despite evidence from your initial interviews with Ayers that such a place exists.”

“Let’s get him stabilized and find that vault,” I said.

Elise crossed her arms as she stared into me with angry suspicion. “When were you going to tell the rest of us about this?”

I spread my arms, the model of innocence. “I didn’t tell you?”

“No. You didn’t,” Elise said, moving forward like a master interrogator. Combined with steady eye contact, it was a good tactic. I wondered where she had learned it. 

“X, didn’t I ask you to remind me to share the existence of a secret vault with Elise…and these other characters,” I said, waving at Henshaw and Tom, hoping to divert Elise’s attention.

X-37 responded on our team channel. “You did not, Reaper Cain.”  

“Well anyway, I was just about to ask all of you for your input,” I said.

Elise rolled her eyes in disbelief.

I pressed onward. “X-37 believes that Nebs recruited Ayers—kidnapped might be a better word for what transpired—to conduct some very dangerous research on this ship.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Elise admitted, letting go of her annoyance. The longer we knew each other, the quicker we were to get over these types of personal slights.

“I’ve had a really bad feeling since we captured the Dark Lance,” I said.

“Bright Lance,” X-37 said. “AI Mavis does not like the old name and neither does Captain Younger.”

“Whatever.” I didn’t want to argue. “Let’s divide into teams and search the ship—room by room and data file by data file. We need answers and we need them now.”

* * *

Brion Rejon, the leader of Xad, stood with us. He wasn’t as tall as many of his people, but he had that slender, slightly out of proportion appearance of someone who spent most of his life in space. The man wasn’t the ultimate authority on the Bright Lance, but near enough. Captain Cynthia Thomas Younger of Xad allowed him free reign of the ship, and her crew respected him—which made our search of what had been the Dark Lance easier.

Before us was a blast door very similar to what protected the Archangel armories. We waited until Tom and Henshaw arrived.

“X, can you fill everybody in?” I asked.

“Certainly, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “I have worked with ship AI Mavis to access all parts of the Bright Lance. This door, however, has been unbreachable. Reaper Cain would like your combined assistance to gain access.”

“You brought us all here to help you steal more Reaper toys?” Henshaw asked. “Or have you discovered this vague and mysterious threat that has you shaking in your Reaper boots? The one you weren’t going to share with the rest of us?”

“You’re free to get on your ship and leave anytime,” I said, not in the mood to argue with a butthurt scientist.

Henshaw ran one hand through his neatly trimmed hair, diverting attention from the way his cybernetic eyes scanned the door. The man had a simple LAI that X-37 said barely deserved the name. When we’d met, he’d been using the technology to win at gambling on Roxo III—which had gotten him into a lot of trouble and prompted our relationship.

“I think this is where Nebs and Doctor Ayers concealed their experiments,” I explained.

“Well, that is interesting if true,” Henshaw said. “This vault door is on its own power grid. If I were concealing a top-secret laboratory, I would put similar security measures in place.”

“I thought that might grab your attention.” I knew the man couldn’t resist such an intellectual challenge, and that he would also seek new tools to use against the Union. The ocular engineer and unorthodox scientist understood how to work through dangerous situations. He was an intellectual opportunist who came at problems from creative angles.

Tom lacked formal schooling or a limited artificial intelligence but was one of the most innovative engineers I knew. He studied new things and had a very broad base of knowledge. Together, I was sure we could get through this seemingly impenetrable barrier.

Henshaw rubbed his chin. “Too bad we can’t have Doctor Ayers here.”

“Prior to his myocardial infraction, Doctor Jaxon Ayers stated he did not have the code,” X-37 said.

“Maybe your Reaper interrogation was too much for him. I’m not convinced Nebs put kill switches in his people,” Henshaw said, visible lights rotating counterclockwise in his dual cybernetic eyes. “If Nebs could do that to his people, how am I alive? I betrayed him long before we met.”

“No idea. Maybe you should have a full medical check-up. Wouldn’t want you to keel over right when I need you for something.” I moved closer to the vault door, studying each detail, looking for something I’d missed on previous attempts to breach it.

“Perhaps a check-up would be a good idea,” Henshaw said, his tone subdued, his eyes dimmed.

Elise joined me, squatting down as we tested the bottom seal. “Want to try the lock picks again? You probably wouldn’t get shocked this time. And if you did, you survived the last time, right?”

“You’re trying to get me to zap myself,” I said. 

She shrugged and made innocent eyes. “It might work.”

I faced her, keeping my expression neutral and unreadable.

“We should get more information from Ayers,” she said. “That might be safer for you, and it also might help avoid any self-destruct mechanisms he might have in place to keep his research out of the wrong hands.”

“That would be an outstanding idea if Doctor Ayers were available for an interview,” X-37 said. “AI Mavis informs me he remains in serious condition.”

“Can we wake him up?” I asked.

“Possibly, Reaper Cain, though it is not recommended.”

“Can we… drag him down here and force him to open the vault?”

X-37 made a series of meaningless clicks. “Are you trying to kill him?”

“No, X. I need him.” Crossing my arms, I asked a serious question of my LAI. “What are those clicks, X? Are you all right?”

“Did the noises in question not convey chastisement?” X-37 asked. “My analysis suggests this would mimic a nonverbal mannerism. I have tried such things before with mixed results.”

“You’re doing that crap on purpose?”

“I am, Reaper Cain. We commonly refer it to as communication.”

I laughed. “All that time I thought you were breaking down.”

“To be accurate, there were instances of malfunction and less than optimal performance, but the combined efforts of Henshaw, Tom, and the various ship AIs we’ve befriended since Dreadmax have much improved my ability to assist you. AI Mavis has been helpful as of late.”

“Problems?” Elise asked, raising one eyebrow. Henshaw also watched me with interest. Not all of my conversation with X had been shared with them.

“No. I’m good. X, check with Mavis and see if we can talk with Ayers.” 

“Standing around isn’t solving this little conundrum.” Elise backed away from the vault door. “Let’s head for the hospital now.”

“I’ll stay here and take measurements; maybe compare what is in the ship schematics to what is actually here,” Tom said.

“Send Path or one of Rejon’s people down to stand guard once we relieve him from guarding Ayers.” My impatience to get inside needed tempering, which made me glad my friends were here. They held me back when I tried to rush things like this, and they brought a fresh perspective to everything.

“Path,” Elise said on the comm channel. “We’re coming to you now. How’s the doctor?”

“Safe,” Grigori “Path” Paavo answered. “And awake. He’s threatening to leave the medical bay.”

“Don’t let that happen,” I ordered.

“We will both be here when you arrive,” Path promised.

* * *

Crew members of the Bright Lance greeted us and stepped aside as we moved through the narrow hallways. None of them saluted, and they were back to work seconds after each encounter.

“I haven’t figured these people out,” Henshaw said. “And I consider myself an accomplished student of human behavior.”

“What is there to figure out?.” Elise asked.

“My first impression of Xad citizens was of homeless vagabonds capable of surviving in an extraterrestrial junkyard. My second impression was of a hard-working colonists. What I’m seeing here is a group of very formal soldiers and crewmen wearing the same tattered rags their grandparents must have worn,” Henshaw said.

“Some have new uniforms,” I said. “The Bright Lance has recycling facilities near the hydroponics deck. Before you know it, their rags will be good as new.”

“Sure,” Henshaw argued, “but they can’t decide on the design or even color scheme. They are half professionals—serious about tradition and formalities—and half feral survivalists.”

“Does any of that matter?” I asked, wondering what the ocular engineer was getting at.

“I’m a scientist. I observe and hypothesize explanations,” he said.

“They’re a work in progress.” My training in how to observe and analyze people was for a different reason but I’d noticed most of the same things as Henshaw.

We arrived at the medical bay, bypassing the high security hallway that led to the cryo-pod area where my family and others were held in a kind of stasis that was hard to look at.

“The doctor is awake.” Path stepped away from Ayers as we entered the doctor’s room.

The appearances of Path and Ayers were as different as they could be. The sword saint had crazy hair, wild clothing, and eyes as serene as still water. Doctor Jaxon Ayers wore a perfectly maintained jumpsuit and had neatly trimmed gray hair, but his eyes were as crazy as a Tagron beast of Xad in an arena fight. A cumbersome medical bracelet on his wrist allowed the medical staff to keep tabs on his health.

“Are you going somewhere, doc?” I asked.

“Am I a prisoner?”

“As a matter of fact, you are. Can you believe this guy, X?” I asked.

X-37 didn’t answer. Elise and Henshaw flanked Doctor Ayers but held back from the conversation—watching and listening for the right moment to join in.

“What do you want, Reaper?” Ayers asked.

“We found the vault. I want in.”

“I told your LAI I have no more codes, for cryo-pods or anything else.” Sitting on the edge of the bed now, he looked pale but determined.

“What’s inside that door?” I placed one hand on his shoulder. 

He shivered at my touch. I sensed Elise and Henshaw shifting foot to foot, probably wanting to interrupt with their own questions before I scared the man into not talking. What they didn’t understand was that it was more difficult to lie during physical contact.

“Nebs ordered me to end my research,” Ayers said. “I did everything he wanted, fixed all of his problems, did my job perfectly. All I wanted was to test my theories.”

“What theories?” I demanded. My friends relaxed slightly, evaluating every word, movement, and hesitation of Ayers.

“It would be easier to show you,” he said.

“Agreed, but you don’t have the codes to open the cryo-pods or secret vaults or anything else.” I crossed my arms, making sure my cybernetic arm was on top.

He looked at his feet, hugging himself as he rocked back and forth on the edge of his hospital bed. A bead of sweat broke on his forehead.

“I’m not an idiot, Reaper. I knew better than to trust Nebs, so I hid the codes to the research vault on a planet called Macabre. If you can take me there, I can introduce you to the first round of test subjects, recover the secrets within the vault, and change our understanding of the galaxy forever,” he said. “I also stashed back-up codes for the cryo-pods.”

“Why Macabre?” I asked. “What is there that makes it a good place to hide things?”

“Your heart rate is entering fight mode,” X-37 said. “Proceed with caution, Reaper Cain.”

“There are sections of the galaxy non-human aliens of incredible knowledge and power once ruled. Maybe they had their own exodus—just like your precious Xad and Wallach coalition—but some of them died first. I found viable examples of their DNA in an archeological site on Macabre and brought them back,” Ayers said, a sly grin forming as he spoke. “After a fashion.”

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2

No one spoke. No one moved. No one wanted to drag Doctor Jaxon Ayers into an interrogation room right now and squeeze him for information more than I did. Ventilation and other sounds I normally ignored roared in my ears as adrenaline flooded my system. Even X-37 was at a loss for words.

“You built your own aliens?” I asked.

Ayers must have sensed my mood, because his grin vanished. “What are you afraid of, Reaper? That they might be better than us? Are you worried humans aren’t meant to rule the galaxy? Maybe they even have a replacement for someone with your unique skills.”

“We need to put him someplace secure, or increase the guards of this section,” Elise said.

“Agreed,” I said. “X, call the on duty medical supervisor and get us cleared to move him.”

“Right away, Reaper Cain.”

Moments later, Doctor Samantha Xeres marched into the room. She froze me with her gaze. Behind her came an army of nurses, orderlies, and two guards.

“Good evening, Doctor,” I said.

“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded.

I held up both hands. “It’s not what it looks like. I’ll respect your decision, but I also need to put him in the brig for security reasons.”

Rejon and a squad of his soldiers arrived in the hallway. “AI Mavis alerted us there may be a problem. Can we be of assistance?”

Xeres looked at Rejon and his men, then crossed her arms as she stepped toward me. “What security reason?”

“We may have located some illegal research Ayers was trying to hide,” I said. “The entire ship could be in danger.”

“Everything is a danger to the ship for you security types. I’d hoped this would be better than working for that tyrant Nebs,” Xeres said, motioning for her assistant to check Ayers and the man’s medical wrist monitor. “But I will admit that Ayers has basically recovered from his incident. If you will please wait in the hallway, we will prepare him for a transfer to the brig. The medical monitor must stay here, so we need to be sure he’s eligible to be released.”

“Thanks, Doc,” I said.

She stepped close. “I know what the man was into, but he is still a patient. I don’t have to like him to care for him.”

“What do you know about what he was into?” I asked, voice low enough that it was just me, her, and X-37 in the conversation.

Xeres didn’t hide her annoyance. “I don’t know the details. Several of his volunteers had to be admitted to the emergency room after his experiments.”

“Where are they now?” I wanted to hear her answer, even though I had a good idea what it would be.

Her expression hardened. She held my gaze like I wasn’t a Reaper but someone she was ready to battle. “They died of heart attacks, which I assumed was something he did.” She nodded at Ayers. “Now I know whatever is happening is even worse.”

“Would you be willing to share medical histories of the patients?” I knew what her answer would be.

“Why did you even ask that question, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked.

I ignored my LAI and Xeres couldn’t hear the question.

“You know I can’t do that,” Xeres said. “But I can discharge this patient. He will need checkups. Also, Reaper, you and your people should be ready to submit to a complete medical examination. You can’t avoid my staff forever.”

“No problem,” I said. “X, mark that on my agenda.”

“Already done, Reaper Cain.”

“It must be nice to have an LAI,” Doctor Xeres said.

“You’re not convinced the recent deaths are because of Nebs,” I said.

“An astute observation, Reaper,” she said. “I’ll need to watch what I say around you. Please remember that every life on this ship, and in this fleet, matters to our long-term survival.”

* * *

X-37 located Bug and explained I wanted him to start spying on Ayers as soon as he could hack into the security cameras. Two guards, one Union turncoat who knew his way around the ship, and one Xad soldier led the way to the brig. 

“Do you gentlemen have names?” I asked.

“I am Corporal Orson Day, formerly of the Union.”

“Soldier, First Class Amon Ben of Xad.”

“Path and Elise, you’re with them. The rest of Rejon’s soldiers can be our rear guard in case Ayers has confederates waiting to liberate him when we move.”

“None of that is necessary,” Ayers insisted. “Where would I find confederates among these dredges?”

“Be quiet, Ayers,” Henshaw said. “Security isn’t my specialty but I’m with the Reaper on this.”

I leaned close enough to Henshaw to lift a cigar and a lighter from his jumpsuit pocket. “Keep your eyes open. Watch the doctor. Tell me if you think he’s up to something.”

Henshaw stood a little straighter. “Certainly, Reaper.”

“You are being ridiculous,” Ayers said. “Not even Nebs treated me like this. I’m not a prisoner.”

“You are a prisoner, Doc. Get used to it,” I said. “Give me a second, then we’re moving.”

Rejon took me by the arm. “You have my soldiers for as long as you need them, but I want to visit some of my people while I’m here. Some will never recover from the battle to take this ship.”

“Thanks, Rejon. I wish it had been easier,” I said.

“It is what it must be,” he said. “Please keep me informed. I do not trust Doctor Ayers.”

We moved out, creating more of a spectacle than I had planned. Prisoner transfers weren’t something I had prepared my team to handle. This was on-the-job training but at least we had Xad soldiers for support. 

Crew men and women—polite and serious, as most Xad workers were—gave us room as we moved from one hallway to the next.

I’d come a long way since Dreadmax. Now I had a prisoner.

“This is for your safety as much as ours,” I said.

Ayers didn’t agree. “I see what is happening. You’re angry about the cryo-pods. That wasn’t my decision. I didn’t even put them there. Technicians did that, and all I did…”

“What’s the matter, Doc, Reaper got your tongue?” I asked. “What did you do that the technicians couldn’t—set the codes that keep them as frozen prisoners?”

Ayers looked at his feet as he walked. “Nebs forced me to do it.”

“Don’t lie. I bet there wasn’t that much coercion. He promised to fund your research, and you did whatever he asked. What do you think the penalty should be for a man who froze a Reaper’s family? Rule one, don’t mess with a man’s mother. Rule two, don’t go near his little sister.”

“She is a very capable adult,” he said.

“Still my little sister,” I said, genuine anger heating my words. 

“That is just like an ignorant trigger man to oversimplify a complex set of circumstances.” His expression was resentful, but it also concealed something. “You’re just a killer with no thoughts for building a better future.”

“Is that what you’re doing?” I asked, doubting altruism was a primary motivator for Ayers.

“Humans must embrace other sentient forces in the universe,” he argued.

“What if we’re alone?” I asked, knowing my question would goad him into talking. Hopefully, it wouldn’t give him another heart attack.

“I have nothing to prove to you,” Ayers countered. “You will accept the truth or you won’t. Either way, people like you are irrelevant to the future of humanity.”

“We’ll see,” I said, watching him.

He quit talking. Every instinct warned me this conversation wasn’t over.

No one accustomed to playing high level Union politics and intrigue gave up this easily. He was planning something—an escape, sabotage, or a direct attack. 

“You’re a smart man, Ayers,” I said, unleashing a cigar from my pocket and firing it up with a minimum of extra movements. Sleight of hand could be practiced a hundred different ways, and this was one of my favorites—invisible movements ending in a flourish of smoky goodness.

“The smartest you’ll ever meet,” Doctor Ayers responded.

“Can you believe this guy, X?” I asked.

“His arrogance is unmatched. He does not seem to fear pain or death,” X-37 said. “My analysis suggests this will cause a problem with your future interrogation efforts.”

“It’s so quaint when the over muscled killer has to ask his LAI for help,” Ayers said. “It’s a definite limitation of humans.”

Instead of responding to his jab, I took a long pull from my cigar, breathing in the smoke and relaxing as the nicotine hit my system.

The man was fearless, despite his propensity for fidgeting and backing away when I got angry. It was hard to blame him for that; it was about the smartest thing he’d done since we met.

Some of his behaviors made him look unsure, frightened, or ruled by nervous energy. I saw through his act. X-37 had explained that some of the man’s eccentricities might be the result of neurological trauma he’d experienced over the years. I just thought he was a sneaky, double-dealing bastard.

We reached the brig and passed through security, double checking Ayers for concealed weapons or other hidden devices before locking him in a cell. I instructed the detention supervisor to monitor Ayers and be aware he had just come from the medical bay.

Bug whispered in my ear. “I’ve got eyes on this weird old man. How long do I have to watch him?”

“Indefinitely,” X-37 answered for me. “You do not need to whisper. No one can hear you but Reaper Cain.”

“And you, right? Don’t sell yourself short, X. You’re pretty awesome,” Bug said, too loudly this time.

“Thank you, Bug. That is a nice thing to say, if totally unnecessary,” X-37 responded.

I gave my LAI a hand signal to shut down the conversation for now.

The rest of our escort returned to their regular duties. I noticed that each Union turncoat had a Xad partner—Corporal Orson Day and Soldier, First Class, Amon Ben being an example. It was a simple first step to integration that might work—or go horribly wrong, depending on the various levels of culture shock they were experiencing.

“What now?” Elise asked.

“We let him sit for a while while we compare notes,” I said. “Let’s hit the gym and grab some food.”

* * *

X-37 and I had a private conversation while Elise and Henshaw were reviewing security footage in the next room. I could see them through the monitor and guessed they would be a few moments.

“The man is a hot mess,” I said. “Ideally, I would have a lot more background information to go on before we began. I think he’s a typical scientist, a one trick con artist only concerned about his research. Those types are easy to intimidate but I’m never sure if he’s scared of me or just playing a role.”

“I believe many of his behavioral inconsistencies are products of his experimentation. The man, much like James Henshaw, has served as his own test subject more than once,” X-37 said.

“You think he’s like Henshaw?” The thought had occurred to me more than once. Both men had worked for Vice Admiral Nebs and both had conducted plenty of illegal research.

“Not precisely, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “My recommendation is to base your evaluation of Doctor Ayers on direct evidence only.”

“Noted.” It had taken me a long time to trust Henshaw. “I doubt I will ever trust Ayers.” 

X-37 continued the analysis. “There is plenty of direct evidence that he helped imprison your mother and sister, and that he believes he can bring back an alien race we know nothing about. There is no evidence that he understands human psychology, sociology, or politics as much as he thinks he does. For Doctor Ayers, the only worthwhile goal is resurrecting a lost, intergalactic civilization.”

“Maybe we should force him to watch some alien invasion holos or read some of that pulp fiction Tom devours between technical manuals,” I said. “Then maybe he would stop and think about how wrong his experiments could go.”

I took a moment to clear my head before entering the cell. “I want you to watch and listen, maybe take notes. If you have a question or observation that is important, have X-37 relay it to me.”

Elise and Henshaw nodded, then went to the observation room. When I stepped inside the cell, Doctor Ayers was ready for me.

He maintained a perfect jumpsuit, the remnants of a uniform from when he had been in Nebs’s good graces. His hair was neat, his fingernails trimmed, and his posture schoolboy perfect.

But his eyes looked too many places, and he often seemed to stare at something far in the distance. Even when he was talking to somebody as dangerous as me.

He was skilled at this game, resisting interrogation. I removed a stogie from my jacket and took my time nursing it to life. The room was dimly lit except for a circle of harsh light around the two of us. Nebs had kept all the cells prepped for interrogation. The environment almost made me uneasy, and I was definitely a person most rational people feared.

Exhaling smoke, I leaned back. I wasn’t trying to breathe it in his face. That was cliché, an amateur tactic better left in holo vids. I wasn’t trying to intimidate him, or gag him, or whatever.

There were a lot more tools in my toolbox than that.

“It’s been a long time since I was with the Reaper Corps,” I said.

He nodded, focused on me now and listening intently. I wasn’t sure if it was something I said, or just the distracted thought process for a man thinking such big, crazy thoughts.

Either way, we were almost talking like normal people. “You are going to awaken my mother and sister, ensure their safety, and help me protect the people of this fleet,” I said.

“That is acceptable and necessary,” he answered. “I appreciate the fact that you have not threatened me this time. As long as I can pursue my research, I will do anything you ask.”

“I need you to be a little more specific on what that research is about,” I said. Every time we broached the subject, my gut tightened, and I felt a sense of dread.

“The universe is large,” he said. “Humans are not the only sentient life that exists. In this galaxy—or the next—there are wonders you can’t imagine.”

“Show me some evidence,” I said.

The smile he gave me was unnerving.  “We’ve been through this before. And I’m sure your limited artificial intelligence has briefed you on all the applicable theories regarding sentient, nonhuman life-forms that must exist.”

“Yeah, I’ve been reading all the conspiracy theories from crazy people like you,” I said.

This didn’t offend him. He smiled and nodded as though he expected my reaction.

“I will never trust you, Ayers,” I said.

“That is not a commodity I require. If I need you to believe in something, I will prove its existence,” he said.

“When?”

He held my gaze. “Soon.”

OceanofPDF.com

3

I’d seen a fleet assemble before, but not like this. This wasn’t a Union armada on its way to destroy enemies and conquer new worlds, this was a ragtag collection of transports and out-of-date warships moving people toward hope.

The exceptions were the Nightmare and the Bright Lance. It was these state-of-the-art Union stealth ships, carrier-class vessels designed for long-range missions, that would give us a fighting chance if we were attacked.

I spent most of my time on the Bright Lance of Xad. That’s where my mother and sister were still in cryo-pods. The Jellybird and some of my best friends—people I didn’t deserve to know—stayed close and ready to take me where I needed to go within the fleet.

As a Reaper, I felt like I was semi-retired, not having a mission that involved violence, interrogation, or secrecy. That was best for everyone, but I was bored as hell. My intellectual dueling with Doctor Ayers only relieved part of my restlessness.

“You can’t smoke on the bridge,” said Cynthia Thomas Younger of Xad, the captain of the Bright Lance. “I shouldn’t have to tell you that, Reaper.”

I held the cigar ready but didn’t light it, while towering over her, shrugging. “Sorry. You’re right. Rules are rules.”

She was a small woman, and I was a big man. X-37 advised me many times not to think this meant anything in terms of absolute power.

She possessed a lot of it. Brion Rejon, the leader of Xad, appointed her with the approval of the Xad Council. She’d taken command of the Bright Lance and made sweeping changes. Everyone seemed to like her firm but fair style. Even some Union turncoats took oaths to follow her orders—and were paired with capable soldiers loyal to Younger until they were vetted. 

The woman was the polar opposite of Vice Admiral Nebs, the man who led this fleet out here where we defeated him.

Captain Younger stepped away from me then faced the main holo display. “XO, are the fleets aligned?”

Commander Bernard Gile shifted uncomfortably in his uniform that lacked patches or rank insignia. The people of Xad, including their military, had been scavengers for hundreds of years. Repurposed items were commonplace. This uniform, by contrast, was fresh out of the ship’s fabric recycler and was stiff with newness.

Commander Gile was fit and very young for his rank. I was skeptical of him and many other Xad fleet officers. Rejon explained they were a special class—individuals dedicated to learning ship operations from simulators and the few functioning large vessels they cobbled together over the years. Basically, they grew up on holo games, rigorous schooling, and military discipline. 

Xad Star was a dangerous system, a forgotten nexus of slip tunnels where hostile forces converged to gain resources and subjugate anyone who opposed them. It hadn’t just been the Union. There were other dangers in the galaxy, including the Alon—enemies to both the people of the Xad and Wallach systems.

Gile was a very serious, very professional young man. “Yes, Captain, the fleets are aligned perfectly. It took a great deal of negotiation with the Wallach ship drivers, but we managed.”

Captain Younger nodded with her arms crossed, aware of all that had transpired but wishing for her young protégé to articulate his report. “They do things differently, don’t they?”

“Yes, Captain,” Gile said. “In time, we can teach them all the secrets of surviving in space.”

I watched them and the other bridge crew officer discuss ship order, slip tunnel approach, and standard operating procedures.

“Are you bored, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked.

“Yeah. You can tell that?” I asked.

“You know that I can,” my LAI said. “It would be an insult to my very existence if I lacked the ability to monitor your moods, and if I could take offense I would. Would you like me to reactivate my hurt feelings simulator protocol?”

“No, unless it’s necessary for your overall functioning and interaction with humans,” I said, cringing at the memory of that LAI experiment.

The limited artificial intelligence was woven into my nerve-ware at a molecular level. He could communicate with me privately, or use various methods to speak to my friends on a public channel. I upgraded his software whenever possible, which these days meant the LAI constantly worked with Jelly or Henshaw to improve his efficiency. The AI of the Bright Lance, Mavis, was also proving to be more helpful than her counterpart on the Nightmare, Necron. The system resets that came after Nebs died affected each of the ships differently.

“Why are you standing here, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked.

I exhaled roughly, aware that this was something Elise and others often took as a warning sign I was in a mood. I hadn’t realized I was anything but bored. “For starters, I’m frustrated that we haven’t figured out the cryo-prisons yet. You’re the one that keeps telling me I can’t sleep on the floor of the medical bay where they are keeping my family.”

“Sleeping on the floor is bad for your back and the foldout cot is too short,” X-37 said. “I suggest you spend more time training with Elise and take better care of yourself.”

“All she does is attempt to integrate her Archangel armor with her micro-fighter,” I said.

“Or perhaps you might arrange a meeting with Tom on the observation deck for whiskey and cigar time,” X-37 suggested, ignoring my arguments.

“He hasn’t stopped working since we launched the Xad fleet,” I pointed out.

“Then spar with Path and improve your blade skills,” X-37 offered, as patient as a machine.

I looked at the ceiling with just my eyes, an expression I needed to stop doing around Elise, because she always called me out on it—usually with a sharp suggestion to act my age and stop stealing her teenage thunder. “I’m tired of getting hit on the head, X. Are you trying to get me knocked unconscious?”

“You have an 11.3% chance of rendering yourself unconscious despite the fact that we are not on a mission,” X-37 said. “I ran this figure several times to be sure. I suspect there may be an error in my calculation, as I did not account for inebriation, only blunt force trauma from training or fighting.”

The activity on the bridge of the Bright Lance focused to a single moment. Brion Rejon, Leader of Xad, entered and took his place near Captain Younger.

“We are ready to begin the slip tunnel transit,” she said. “This is a momentous day. What will be our destination?”

“Hail the Spirit of Wallach,” Rejon ordered.

“We have a connection, sir,” Commander Gile said.

President Amanda Coronas of Wallach came into view, looking as presidential as ever. It had been a while since I’d seen her in person. The memory made me smile. I had smoked a cigar in her palace, which tradition required her to reciprocate. This was a big deal on Wallach—exploding through their social networks like the scandal of the decade.

All the leaders made appropriate greetings, observing formalities necessary between the two leaders.

“It seems like it’s been a long time, Halek Cain,” Coronas said. “My advisors have informed me that you wish to go to a location identified as Macabre.”

All of this had already been discussed ad nauseum. Everyone knew where we were going. I was getting tired of the dog and pony show but liked Coronas too much to give her a hard time. “Going there will be the best thing for the fleet.”

Coronas consulted her officers and advisors before turning back to me. “Very well, Reaper. We’ll plot a course based on the minimal information we have in this region of the galaxy.”

“Thanks, Mrs. President,” I said, then gave them some space.

“I would feel much better about this if you were scouting the slip tunnel with the Jellybird,” X-37 said.

“They need to do it themselves,” I said. “That’s not my job.”

“Of course not,” X-37 said.

“Don’t start with me, X.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Reaper Cain. However, I must point out that many lives are at stake,” X-37 said.

I knew what my digital friend was getting at. The leaders of both peoples had offered me jobs, a combination of scout, guardian, and mentor role with full honor, pay, and benefits—something I hadn’t thought about for a very long time.

The situation was surreal. Not once did they imply that they might need me to fix a problem my actual training had prepared me for. They were treating me like a normal soldier, not a cybernetically enhanced freak that was only good at one thing.

Six corvette class cruisers of Wallach approached the slip tunnel opening. Over the last week, Xad ship soldiers had joined their crews as part of a joint operating agreement. After generations of living, fighting, and salvaging in space, the Xad fighters were uniquely qualified to serve in this capacity. They were tough and creative, and they valued teamwork during a crisis.

Their skill and bravery were what turned the tide against Nebs, who should have destroyed us with his superior technology and veteran warfighters.

I watched the half dozen ships disappear and wished I was with them. X-37 and I both knew the real reason I wasn’t going. My family might not wake up from whatever Nebs had ordered Doctor Ayers to do to them, and I needed to be here.

“Captain, if I’m not needed on the bridge, I would like to attend to other matters of importance,” I said, mimicking their formal way of speaking in the Xad fleet. For a civilization of scavengers, they maintained a lot of formalities.

“Of course,” Captain Younger said, dismissing me politely.

In the hallway, I let some of my frustration show—striding forward, clenching and unclenching my fists. “Let’s review the situation with Ayers. He needs to understand that if we don’t find the codes to awaken my mother and sister, he better magic up a better solution or get Reaped.”

“Would you like me to send a holo of some of your more creative kills?” X-37 said. “Perhaps that has been missing during our previous attempts to communicate with Ayers. He needs to fear the Reaper.”

“I like where your head is at, X, but that’s psychotic even for me,” I said. “Let’s try another round of directed conversation. I don’t want to scare the man too badly and risk losing the chance to get my family back.”

* * *

I called Henshaw on my way to the cell where we were holding Doctor Ayers. “Are you still on board Bright Lance?”

“I am, Reaper,” Henshaw said. “It’s the most interesting ship in the fleet right now, and Captain Younger has been kind enough to allow me to park the Lady Faith on her flight deck while we are in the slip tunnel.”

“Are you with the Lady now? I’m heading to talk to Doctor Ayers in his cell,” I said.

“I’m on my way,” Henshaw said. “To be honest, I can’t stop thinking about the man’s theories. Tom and I spent most of last night comparing notes from our research. As your LAI would say, proving the existence of aliens has been attempted over a dozen times since the Union was formed. I never realized humans were so obsessed with the existence of life in the galaxy.”

“Really?” I said. “If we’ve tried this DNA trick before, why hasn’t it worked?”

“None of the alien DNA samples were actually from alien races, which is a very interesting discovery in its own right,” Henshaw said, sounding a lot like Tom—his voice full of naive wonder.

The ocular engineer couldn’t resist a new challenge like this. He’d done things in his career to gain access to technology available nowhere else. I didn’t think he regretted working for people like Nebs, even if he eventually did the right thing.

I understood Henshaw. His world was an ordered place, so well ordered that his subconscious rebelled to keep a healthy balance—prompting him to gamble just to introduce a little chaos into his reasoned mind. X-37 had explained I did the same thing, but I vented my frustrations by nearly getting myself killed and taking on lost causes.

“Get Bug on the line,” I said.

A moment later, X-37 explained the kid was sleeping in front of his computer, cheese crackers spilled in his lap. “He seems to be taking his job to watch Ayers very seriously.”

“We can’t have him falling asleep,” I thought out loud. “Is there anyone he can split shifts with?”

“I have suggested this to him, but he is resistant to the idea,” X-37 said.

“Figure something out, X. This is going to bite us in the ass. For now, wake him up and put him to work,” I said.

“Right away, Reaper Cain.”

I arrived at the brig first, greeted the guard by name, and was admitted to the high-security area for this type of prisoner. When I had the place to myself, I dimmed the lights. There was a reason I waited hours or even days between my attempts to interrogate Doctor Ayers.

The man was as thoroughly insane as anyone I’d ever encountered, and in a completely unique way. There was no questioning his conviction in what he believed. It was almost like he saw humans, including himself, as a historical footnote to something far greater. As in empires of strange alien conquerors different.

He didn’t allude to that belief often, but when he did it filled my nightmares with dire possibilities. He provided detailed reports on DNA that X-37 didn’t locate in any database. No amount of questioning could get him to disclose where the Union had obtained the petrified samples.

Henshaw arrived, stepping into the darkened room and looking around. Both of his eyes were artificial. In the dimness, the lights that rotated around his pupils were more pronounced. One circled clockwise and the other counterclockwise. He’d never admitted to doing this on purpose, but I wondered if it wasn’t more for aesthetics than because it was actually necessary for proper functioning of his optical enhancements.

What did I know? I was just a Reaper with a heart of gold.

“What are you laughing at, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked. “This seems to be an inappropriate time for humor. And if I may point out, you are keeping very unique company.”

“Don’t worry about it, X. Sometimes I crack myself up.” Explaining my funny bone to my LAI wasn’t worth the effort.

“Are you going to talk to your LAI the whole time we’re here?” Henshaw asked, annoyed. 

“You have an LAI,” I countered.

Henshaw, who I had originally contacted to fix my left eye, was supported by his own limited artificial intelligence. It was a rudimentary unit that might or might not be some sort of high-level do-it-yourself job. Of course with Henshaw, that meant something entirely different from most people.

“I don’t talk to mine like you do, and I never uploaded a personality profile,” Henshaw said. “It is just a tool for me.”

“Well good for you,” I said. “Do you think that Doctor Ayers has an LAI?”

Henshaw considered this for a moment, crossing his arms so that he could hold his chin in the fingers of one hand.  “I don’t think so. But now that you bring the subject up, that’s based on a hunch or even worse, an assumption.”

“Before you ask, Reaper Cain, I am not able to directly scan the prisoner,” X-37 said. “I am running an analysis of our past interactions with the doctor, looking for clues in his speech pattern or behaviors. Thus far, I have found nothing of interest on the subject.”

“Why not ask him?” Henshaw asked.

I went to the door without responding. Henshaw didn’t seem to take offense, possibly because I hadn’t meant anything and we had been working together for a while now. Did either of us trust each other? More than we used to, but he was a skeptic and I was a Reaper.

The two of us traversed the short hallway to Doctor Ayers’s cell. Neither of us spoke when we moved into the man’s living space—which was gloomier than the hospital room he’d been in prior to this.

He stood at the very back of the small cell practically bouncing with nervous energy. I’d seen this before. His moods and his energy levels were often erratic. I thought he looked like there were too many big ideas bouncing around inside his head.

“When can I resume my research?” he asked.

“Which research are you talking about this time?” I asked, somewhat annoyed he jumped ahead on the expected dialogue.

“I’ve explained to you many times that this galaxy wasn’t meant for humans,” he said. “The cryo-pod prisons are not research, just a tactic Nebs used.”

“That you helped him use,” I didn’t raise my voice or attempt to be menacing. We’d been through this dance dozens of times by now.

“I had no choice,” he said. “They will be fine once we get what we need from Macabre.”

“They better be more than fine,” I said.

“You are a very tedious man, Reaper,” Ayers said, ignoring Henshaw completely.

I stepped back, faced away from Ayers, and conferred with X-37.

“Doctor Ayers has made one hundred and ninety-two references to the existence of nonhuman aliens during your past interaction with him,” X-37 said. “Statistically, that is significantly higher than should be noted in any rational conversation. He has never seemed concerned for the welfare of your family or other individuals stuck in the cryo-pods. We need to see what is in the vault.”

Stepping past Henshaw, I leaned into my prisoner’s personal space. “Actually, Ayers, we’re just here to call your bluff.”

Doctor Ayers stopped jittering and locked his gaze on mine. “And what bluff would that be, Reaper?”

The distinct feeling the man was several steps ahead of me in this conversation was disturbing. “We’re on our way to the Macabre system. I’m just saying, it better not be empty when we get there.”

“That’s the only place to find the codes to open the cryo-pods,” he said, sounding relieved. “I want to do that as much as you do.”

“Warning, Reaper Cain. I have detected a variance of his voice modulation in this last statement,” X-37 warned.

 “Way ahead of you, X,” I said, practically touching Ayers now I was so close to him. “I almost believe you, but that doesn’t make any sense. Why do you care about my mother and sister?”

“They are both fine individuals. I will not pretend to have any special care or concern for them,” Ayers said as though this type of honesty was intended to convince me of something. “It’s hard to explain.”

“You’re a scientist,” Henshaw said. “You should be good at explaining things.”

Doctor Ayers started fidgeting again, his nervous energy having no place to escape.

“You don’t have to be a prisoner,” I said. “But I can’t have you running about the ship if I don’t trust you.”

This brought Doctor Ayers back. He stared at me with naked hope in his eyes. “Could I continue my research?”

“Once you’ve told me what it is, no bullshit, nothing left out this time—maybe. If you remain closely supervised. Like under an armed guard and restricted from contact with the ship AI,” I said.

 “My research is DNA matrixes and xenobiology—a harmless pursuit,” he said.

“Unless you’re trying to resurrect a potentially dangerous alien race through DNA splicing,” Henshaw said. “I have read all of your research.”

“I seriously doubt that,” Doctor Ayers said.

“I’m a fast reader,” Henshaw stated.

I moved back a step and let the two scientists go at it. Neither X nor I heard anything useful, but it was part of the process. We needed more observational data of the man to understand, as a gambler would put it, his tells.

“Did you get that, Bug?” I asked under my breath.

“Sure did, Mister Reaper,” Bug said in my ear. “That dude is strange. Watching him on the ship cameras has been entertaining.”

“Just don’t fall asleep, Bug,” I said. “You need an assistant.”

“Elise could help me,” Bug said.

“She’s busy,” I answered.

“Okay, that’s cool. I’ll handle it myself for now,” Bug said.

“Finding an appropriate assistant for Bug has been problematic. We can’t just ask Captain Younger for a communications tech. This type of spying on a prisoner is highly unethical,” X-37 said.

“So is building a super-secret alien out of thousands of years old DNA snippets,” I said, still trying to keep my voice low. “You know that is what Nebs had him working on.”

The argument between the scientists ceased. Ayers stared at me almost angrily. “You’re half wrong. The DNA we archived isn’t old, and that is exactly what Nebs wanted. He always demanded I make a weapon for him.”

“What do you mean it wasn’t old,” Henshaw asked.  “Our entire conversation has been predicated on the fact that you are working on ancient civilizations that were located during archaeological missions.”

“I did pull a lot of evidence from archaeological digs on dozens of planets during my career,” Ayers said. “But Nebs ranged outside of Union control more than once and found things that are now lost to us since you killed him and destroyed one of his ships.”

“I don’t like where this is going, X,” I said.

Ayers, who apparently had very good hearing, directed his attention toward me. “I may have unintentionally been misleading you, or you may have jumped to the wrong conclusions. The aliens I’m interested in haven’t been in this part of the galaxy for eons, but that doesn’t mean they’re extinct.”

“So what’s the point of growing one from a DNA sample?” Henshaw asked.

“The crazy old dude wants an alien pet,” Bug whispered in my ear. I could hear him eating cheese crackers as he listened in on our conversation.

Ayers took his time answering. He seemed genuinely confused that we didn’t get it, that we didn’t want what he wanted. “I want them here with us, not in some distant corner of the galaxy. How can we learn from them if they are that far away?”

“There’s a serious flaw in your logic,” Henshaw said. “They won’t have any of the cultural knowledge, even if you can recreate them perfectly, which you can’t, because you don’t have a viable stem cell from their species.”

 “I disagree. We can learn many things from them in the way they solve problems. Once we get a full examination of their biology, and how it actually works in a controlled setting, we can make valuable conclusions,” Ayers said.

“I’m sure the real aliens won’t mind us screwing around with their genetic offspring,” I said.

“They will never know, Reaper,” Ayers assured me. “We have never acquired a living specimen.”

“Somehow, that doesn’t reassure me,” I said.

OceanofPDF.com

4

Elise struck the top of my helmet with her practice sword, sending stars through my vision. Pain glanced down my neck, my spine, and into my limbs.

“Pay attention, Reaper,” she said.

“What the hell was that? Are we sparring, or trying to kill each other?” I asked.

“You’re going to get us killed if you don’t train to your full potential. Isn’t that what you always tell me?” She moved with her practice weapon, ready to emphasize her point. “Honestly, you’re starting to freak me out and piss me off. And annoy the crap out of me. And a bunch of other stuff.”

“All that at once?” I asked.

“Yeah, Reaper. You haven’t been right since we found your mom and sister,” she said. “I get it, but in this room, we train.”

 “She’s not wrong, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said, sounding at least as distracted as I had been a moment ago. This meant my LAI was processing a lot of data.

I circled the training mat, practice sword held with both hands, not looking at my feet but remaining aware of everything Elise was doing and anything that entered my peripheral vision. We had the place to ourselves. I wasn’t the only one who disliked getting smashed on the head with the practice sword.

Unless ordered, no one trained with Elise, me, or Path. Some Wallach and Xad soldiers would watch but it was rare for anyone to take a beating. Only when we made it clear that it was a technique session did we draw a big class.

“Ready?” Elise asked as she attacked.

It was a lame trick, but I had to hustle to stay ahead of it. I was off my game. What would my mother or sister think if they could watch me doing everything half-assed?

Elise smashed my training helmet again then spun and swept my legs out from under me with her right heel.

“Third time is a charm!” she shouted, dancing back as I came to my feet, pissed off and ready for some payback.

“That was lucky,” I grunted.

“You said that the first two times.” She circled me, her practice weapon ready for action. “You also said that if I could do it a third time, that meant it was skill and not luck.”

“You’re such an opportunist,” I said. “Attacking a man when he’s preoccupied.”

“That seems like the best time,” she argued, then came at me again.

This time, I parried and moved out of the way with my usual energy and skill. The sound of our swords clacking grew louder and faster. We kept at it for a long time, so long that I realized we had drawn an audience without realizing it. Men and women trickled in to watch the spectacle until there were twenty or thirty soldiers and crew members lining the walls.

Eventually, we broke apart and saluted each other.

“That was good work, Elise,” I said, aware that she needed praise but that too much would be taken as sarcasm or belittlement. Dealing with the young woman could be like balancing a feather on a razor blade.

“Ah, thanks, Reaper. It’s so sweet that you realize I’m kicking your butt,” she said.

“Don’t get carried away, kid,” I said. “Leg sweeps are good. You might even use the technique in a real fight someday. When you can shoulder-throw me, then I’ll be impressed.”

“Three times?” she asked.

“Yeah, three times,” I said. “Don’t get cocky. Even if you catch me with my head someplace else, I’m twice your size. If you use sloppy technique, you’ll not only fail to throw me, you will hurt yourself.”

“You’re right,” she said. “We should have a technique session.” She faced the growing crowd. “Who’s up for some technique? Nothing too rough.”

Awkward laughter spread through the crowd, but we had a few takers. The rest of our session was spent practicing shoulder throws and other takedowns.

* * *

The observation deck of the Bright Lance of Xad was crowded. As a gathering space for a much larger ship, there were many people relaxing and talking in low voices. I found a small table with chairs around it and took a seat. Tom joined me. Henshaw, Elise, and Bug straggled in one at a time.

“Aren’t you supposed to be doing something important, Bug?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure. But I’m trying something new. An automation sequence I worked up with Tom’s help. Tells me if a certain person is awake or asleep. Did you know that dude sleeps standing up sometimes?”

“Tell me about it later, Bug.” I wasn’t sure why he was here. Going out in public wasn’t his thing. He liked places that reminded him of where he’d grown up secure in a fortified tower.

The Dreadmax kid looked uncomfortable. I expected him to antagonize me about whiskey and cigars, demanding his own taste of them, despite his age. Instead, he sat in a chair that looked too big for him and kept his hands in his lap. His posture was terrible. He slouched as if to make himself small and inconspicuous.

I pulled out a cigar, considered it, then clipped off the tip with a small knife from my pocket. I could do it with my Reaper blade, but it would draw a lot of attention in our current environment. Lately, I had been using the cigar ritual to smooth out my sleight of hand, drawing attention one way, and getting it lit so it almost seemed like a magic trick.

Practice made perfect. Chronic pickpocketing, for example, kept me sharp for missions in urban areas. I wondered if I would ever see a city again. Moving through crowds with my stealth cloak activated and my Reaper mask boosting my LAI seemed like it would be a vacation compared to the stress of moving a fleet across the galaxy.

“I have to say, I enjoy this observation deck,” Tom said. “The background music is about perfect.”

I found the low melodies and rhythms soothing but hadn’t thought about it until he mentioned it. This place was like a cocktail lounge in space. One enormous wall showed a view of the slip tunnel outside the ship. The twisting green fields of energy—or whatever they were made out of—could put a person in a trance for hours. I’d spent hours staring at them.

“Did you find out anything new from Doctor Ayers?” Elise asked.

I waved her comment away. “Rules.”

She made a face, drawing back in annoyance at my tone. “Rules? What the… are you talking about?” she asked with an embarrassed look at Bug. He had heard strong language before and used it, but in person, he looked even younger than he was. Everyone treated him like a child most days.

 Tom answered for me. “Cigar and whiskey time is for relaxing, maybe talking about an interesting book. Not that I’ve been able to get Hal to read one.”

“I read, just not that trash you like so much,” I said.

Tom laughed and took this harassment well.

I sipped my whiskey. We all watched the slip tunnel for a while and listened to the conversations around us. No one was close to our little table, but the volume in the room increased as more people filed in.

“I miss the Jellybird,” I said.

“Too many people?” Elise said. “Why don’t you just jump up and wave your blade around. That will clear the place out.”

“They’re not bothering me, I was just talking,” I said. The Gronic Fat I had managed to buy off one of the Union turncoats—a quartermaster—tasted good. I was nearly out of them, so I enjoyed it, thinking of other times on planets I hadn’t appreciated while I’d been there. I realized then that we had left the Union and the Deadlands and everything we’d ever known far behind.

“So what do you losers do here? So far, whiskey and cigar time seems boring,” Elise commented.

“Especially if you’re not drinking whiskey or smoking cigars,” Henshaw said, leaning forward from his chair to refresh his glass. “Perhaps we should play a game of chance.”

“That would make it whiskey and cigar and cards time,” I said.

“I’ve never played,” Elise said. “Bug, have you played?”

The Dreadmax kid looked at me nervously, then back to Elise. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“Warning, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said in my ear. “My analysis suggests they are trying to hustle you. There is no evidence that Henshaw is behind this, but I believe he will be coming into this ruse soon.”

I gave X-37 one of my hand signals that no one else could detect, although now that I thought about it, Henshaw was a gambler and might detect my minute hand gestures better than most people. The man was always looking for somebody’s tell. That was one reason I had included him in my last interrogation session of Ayers.

 “If we only had some cards,” Henshaw said.

“Maybe they have some at the bar,” Bug said, sounding like he was executing a canned line from a situational comedy—this from a kid who didn’t know what playing cards was.

His confederates glared at him, then tried to cover the faux pas.

 “Why don’t you run and check,” Henshaw said. He waited a few seconds until the kid was away from our little gathering. “I hate teaching kids to play cards. Very tedious.”

“I bet,” I said. “X-37 is telling me I’m needed elsewhere.”

“I am?” X-37 asked privately. “Oh, yes, Reaper Cain. I understand your intent now.”

Elise stood from her chair, casting a glance at Bug’s quest for cards. “What kind of example are you setting? He’s going to think you’re avoiding him, or that you don’t care. The little guy has been through a lot.”

“Little guy? Yesterday you were complaining about what an annoying little preteen he was, and I told you that thirteen makes him a teenager,” I said.

“Yeah, I know. But whatever,” she said.

“Why don’t you show him the basics and we can play next time if anyone is still interested,” I said.

“Fine,” Elise said. “You’re no fun.”

Henshaw and the others acted like nothing had happened and went about their rest and relaxation. I left the room and slipped into my stealth cloak, then I circled around to the other side and entered while keeping to the shadows. Just as I suspected, their little group disbanded not long after I left—completely uninterested in learning how to play cards.

“They’re after me,” I said.

 “I agree, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “You should use the utmost caution if you don’t want to lose your shirt.”

* * *

The equipment room was empty when I arrived, which suited my mood. Elise and the others were constantly working with their equipment, making improvements, and maximizing their chance of success in battle.

It’d been a while since I was that enthusiastic.

But that wasn’t why I was here. I was wandering the hallways and decks, trying to unwind and go with the flow. A long tour of the ship had brought me here.

“Would you like to contact the armorer? The man is formally of the Union, but has passed all of the vetting and loyalty checks required by the Wallach and Xad coalition.”

“No need to wake the man,” I said, opening one of the larger lockers with the access code X-37 had acquired from Mavis during our last visit to this room.

When the doors opened, I felt some of the same youthful excitement that I felt when I first went into spec ops. The weapon inside was massive, something that required a very strong man or mechanized armor to support.

After lifting it with some difficulty, I put it on the workbench and examined it with a smile.

“Your biometrics indicate that you like this gun,” X-37 said. “It’s the Z1A Destroyer, a belt fed, crew-served weapon for squad tactics or bunker emplacements.”

“Two questions,” I said. “Can we mount it on the back of my Archangel armor, and can we try it out on the virtual range?”

“Yes and yes,” X-37 said. “You will need to consult with Tom and Elise to know how to use it with the Archangel armor and a micro-fighter.”

“I’m not worried about that right now,” I said. “To be honest, X, this is just for fun. I might even smoke a cigar while I try it out.”

“Past experience with this type of testosterone charged activity suggests I cannot stop you from doing either,” X-37 said.

“Warm up the VR range,” I said, picking it up from the workbench and making sure there was no live ammunition anywhere near it.

I stepped onto the VR lane, aimed it, then shifted its weight side to side on the harness. “This is going to be fun, but I think outside of the range I’ll need armor to support it.”

“I agree completely,” X-37 said.

Holding the weapon with the assistance of the support straps, I fished out a cigar with my right hand and managed to light it on the first try. Puffing smoke, I put away the lighter, smiled dangerously, and aimed at the virtual targets.

“Let’s rock out,” I said, and started blasting.

“If it’s all the same to you, I will be researching our language lexicon for the meaning of this particular colloquialism while you blow shit up,” X-37 said.

I laughed at the feel of the weapon doing its work. “It’s been a while! I need to get down here more often and relax.”

“The activities you find relaxing are contrary to logic,” X-37 said.

“You know you like it,” I said, reloading a virtual ammo box.

“I like nothing,” X-37 said. “I am a limited artificial intelligence. As part of my programming, I will make a note that this is an enjoyable activity to us.”

“Good enough,” I said, puffing another cloud of smoke with the cigar held between my teeth. “Get some!”

This time I emptied the entire magazine box in one trigger pull. The smoking barrel was a virtual special effect, but a good one. Someone had put a lot of loving attention into these simulations.

OceanofPDF.com

5

“Captain on the bridge,” Ensign Kyle Walker announced, prompting everyone to stand. I was already on my feet, off to one side of the well-staffed bridge.

Captain Cynthia Thomas Younger strode into the room. Her crew responded with the unique professionalism that I still thought contrasted with their not-very-uniform uniforms—standing and facing Younger for the moment it took her to wave them back to their posts. Not for the first time, I thought the ship crews of Xad overcompensated for the shabby, repurposed clothing most of them wore.

“Reaper,” she said to me by way of acknowledgment.

“Captain,” I said.

 Her attention turned back to the task at hand. One of the Wallach ships was struggling. “Commander Gile, what is the situation?”

“The Republic of Wallach Ship Jumping Fox is reporting engine troubles. We are the closest ship that is ready to render aid,” Gile said. “The RWS Spirit of Wallach is prepping a repair team but also requests our help.”

“Open a channel to the Spirit,” Younger ordered.

“Hailing the Spirit of Wallach now, Captain,” said an ensign.

A man I now recognize as Captain Quincy Drysdale appeared on the holo. Middle-aged, his uniform was well-tailored, and he had the look of someone who still played contact sports during his leisure time.

“Thank you,” Captain Drysdale said. “We are preparing a team but welcome your assistance. All reports indicate your people are skilled at this type of operation.”

“We are glad to help,” Captain Younger said. She glanced down at a screen, then back to the holo. “We are deploying a shuttle now. You should receive our ship telemetry and an itinerary of how the operation will proceed.”

I watched until I saw the shuttle arrive at the malfunctioning Wallach ship. To my surprise, the heavy-duty EVA suit that Path was so fond of these days emerged first. Three other people followed him, also in the beefed-up, ready-for-anything equipment.

Captain Younger saw my expression. “Your weapons master always volunteers for spacewalks. He’s extremely good for someone not raised in the Xad system.”

“He’s a strange one,” I said. X-37 berated me privately at the implication of my statement. I made a quick course correction. “My people aren’t as comfortable in the void as yours. For Path, floating in space is the ultimate form of meditation.”

Captain Younger smiled knowingly. “I’ve had several very interesting conversations with the man. His appreciation for the beauty outside of the ship is sublime.”

“Beauty, terror, it’s hard to draw the line sometimes,” I said.

She laughed, but I noticed more than a few members of her crew seem to resent my casual conversation with their captain. This made talking to X-37 difficult, unless I wanted to make a scene.  Which was always an option.

Younger turned back to her work, seeming like she was in a good mood. The crisis on the Jumping Fox didn’t bother her much. “Has anyone figured out what a fox is?”

“Some type of animal, I believe,” Commander Gile said.

Younger glanced back at me.

“It’s like a small dog with a pointy face. Very clever,” I said.

“You’ve seen one?” she asked.

“Only in books. I took a sabbatical for a while, did as much reading as was allowed,” I said, not wanting to get into the whole convicted murderer and two years on death row thing right now.

“Allowed? I can’t imagine a situation where someone told you what to do,” Captain Younger said. “I’m not saying you’re a bad soldier, but there is something about you.”

“Reaper Cain, Elise has volunteered with the backup crew,” X-37 said. “I thought you should know, given her record for getting into trouble when outside of a ship.”

“Thanks, X. That’s good news. She has been spending far too much time tinkering with that micro-fighter,” I said.

This time, the crew of the Bright Lance of Xad ignored me, preferring to focus on their assigned jobs.

 “I believe Elise is concealing her involvement in this rescue mission,” X-37 added.

“I couldn’t stop her from volunteering if I wanted to,” I said. “And it’s not like she’s doing anything. Standby is what it is, mostly just waiting around.”

“You may have just jinxed her,” X-37 said.

“Look who just got superstitious,” I said. “I didn’t think that was in your programming.”

“I believe you understand what I mean,” X-37 said. “What you explain away as superstitious presumptions, I treat as an evidence-based prediction. Many times when you have relaxed, and thus spoke casually about our chances, things have gone horribly wrong.”

“That’s not enough to show causation,” I said, watching several of the holo screens, looking for Elise even though I knew she was just standing by, not getting involved. She knew what she was doing. We’d been through EVA missions more dangerous than even the people of Xad were accustomed to taking on. That didn’t mean I wanted her getting involved in this. Mixing her freewheeling style with the long-established methods of the Xad salvagers could be a real headache.

 “We have a problem, Captain,” Commander Gile said.

I edged as close to his workstation as I could without being in the crew’s way. Captain Younger also shifted her attention. I felt the energy in the room go up. Something was wrong and everyone saw it before I did.

This was their world, not mine. I’d been doing so many ship-based missions that I had become overconfident. I forgot that people like Captain Younger devoted their lives to ships and what they could do.

 “What am I looking for, X?” I asked, trying to stay out of everyone’s way.

“Power output is fluctuating on the RWS Jumping Fox,” X-37 said. “It won’t be long before one or all of the engines fail. They are also having trouble with maintaining course, which should not be even the slightest issue without there being a serious internal problem.”

One of the small ship’s engines cut out, causing it to turn.

 “In any other circumstance, this would not be a problem,” X-37 said.

“I get it, X,” I said. “Why can’t they compensate for the change?”

“Unknown,” X-37 said. “I am listening in and it seems to be a hardware issue, something that must be repaired on the exterior of the ship, preferably while docked at a space station.”

“Of course,” I said. “Nothing can be easy.”

Slip tunnels were easy to use. Once a vessel was inside, the pilot only needed to keep going until the end. One thing everyone knew, however, was that touching the wall of the slip tunnel was deadly. The deviation and course that the Jumping Fox was making would have been invisible if they were in normal space. As it was, a collision with the green wall of energy appeared to be imminent.

 “This is Captain Peterson of the Jumping Fox,” a man said, voice only on the communications link. “We’re cutting all engines to avoid further course deviation. The more course corrections we make, the greater the error in our navigation. Please direct your crews to the steering jets on the port side. We can handle the main engines. My engineers believe it is the small thrusters that started the problem and continue to aggravate it.”

“Understood, Captain,” Younger responded. “We are directing our teams now.”

Peterson replied distractedly, then ended the conversation to work on more pressing issues on his end. The bridge of the Jumping Fox sounded like there were a dozen crew persons jumping from one crisis to the next.

“Captain, I suggest sending all available EVA teams to deal with the problem. There will most likely be more than one navigational thruster that needs attention,” Commander Gile said.

“Agreed,” Captain Younger said.

I watched as the alert went out inside.

“So much for Elise staying out of trouble,” X-37 said.

“We should have just sent her first thing,” I said.

A half dozen shuttles with as many EVA teams surrounded the Jumping Fox. I couldn’t see what they were doing without looking over the shoulder of one of the mission controllers who was watching through individual EVA video feeds.

“At least they’re not being shot at,” I said.

“Agreed,” X-37 said. “But thanks for bringing up that possibility. If I had the capacity to worry, this would have caused me distress.”

“Maybe I should have you upgraded,” I said, immediately deciding that would be the worst possible personality upgrade I could force upon my X unit.

Captain Younger supervised without interfering with her subordinates. She walked the deck with the practiced bearing of a professional officer. Eventually, she stopped near me.

“Now we have two of your people working with mine,” she said. “None of you lack for bravery.”

“That’s one way to look at it,” I said. “It’s easy for Path. Elise has faced her death more than once in that type of environment. She’s the one I’m worried about.”

“I would like to learn your weapon master’s secret,” Younger said. “How does he stay so level headed?”

“His actual name is Grigori Paavo. He’s a sword saint, all meditation and calmness in the face of death. Very annoying sometimes,” I said. “If you don’t watch him, you’ll find him floating in his spacesuit with star fields all around him happy as a pig in—”

“What’s a pig?” Younger asked, then waved back my explanation with a wink. “We also have this phrase. I’m toying with you.”

“We have another problem,” Commander Gile announced.

* * *

“Partial hull decompression on the Jumping Fox!” Gile said, raising his voice for the first time.  “Their crew is fixing it from the inside, but we have several of our people floating free.”

Alerts sounded, and I saw them spring into action on what they called a floating free immediate action response or FFIA. Several members of the spacewalking repair team were recovered in seconds, which was important because while the relative speed of the Jumping Fox and items near it was nearly constant, it wasn’t exactly the same.

Several dots drifted from the repair site.

“Check on Elise,” I growled at X-37.

“I’m doing my best, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

I heard one of the small clicks that my limited artificial intelligence hadn’t made for quite a while now. This indicated he was working at his maximum capacity.

“There is too much data flow,” X-37 informed me. “Each unit has an emergency tracker and there is a large amount of information about the repair still flowing between ships. It’s a mundane issue, but very critical to life-support systems on the Jumping Fox. They are also scrambling all relief efforts toward the people floating toward the wall of the slip tunnel.”

“Is one of those people Elise?” I asked.

“Unknown.” X-37 clicked and popped, working more energetically than I’ve ever heard him, even when he’d been trying to save my life and in some very impossible situations.

At least I hoped that was what was happening. It had taken me a long time to get my LAI and all of my hardware working smoothly. Thoughts of the malfunctions I’d endured since Dreadmax weren’t reassuring.

“I have a vector,” Elise’s voice said over the main channel. Everyone on the bridge was listening to her now. “But my safety line isn’t long enough. I’m going to jump and knock Specialist Beaufort off his current course.”

“What the hell are you doing, Elise,” I muttered. “And who is Beaufort?”

“She is attempting a rescue without the proper resources,” X-37 said. “Beaufort is a member of the repair team.”

“Good luck, Elise,” a member of the bridge crew said.

I wanted to punch him.

“Are you thinking of punching the comms officer of the Bright Lance?” X-37 said. “Your biometrics correlate with past incidents of senseless violence.”

Ignoring a reaper LAI wasn’t impossible, especially when all of my attention was on my reckless protégé. 

The scene unfolded in slow motion like everyone was moving underwater. Additional personnel arrived on the bridge. Every sensor and communication channel was manned. Several conversations began at once.

Elise wasn’t the only one taking action to save her fellow team members. I focused on what I needed to hear, hoping I would catch anything else relevant or that X-37 would monitor the other conversations.

“I just need to run at it,” Elise said. “Once I catch him, I’ll expend all of my steering jets to change his course. Can you give me an update, Bright Lance?”

“I’m streaming the bare minimum of telemetry to your HUD. Please don’t deviate from that information, as we have a very busy bandwidth right now. I won’t be able to make alterations on the fly,” her controller said.

My knuckles popped as I clenched both fists. A second later, the blade in my left arm snapped out.

“Control yourself, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“I’ll get right on that.” Standing, retracting the blade, I tried not to interfere with the crew. I needed to get out there. This was the last time I’d let the kid go solo.

I moved as unobtrusively as possible to stare over the shoulder of the young man talking to Elise. He didn’t have video for me to spy through. I could, however, hear her breathing increase as she sprinted across the deck of the Jumping Fox.

“You’re doing great,” her controller said. “You’re quick. Where did you learn to run like that in space gear?”

“She’s been on missions,” I answered, startling the young ensign. “Xad doesn’t have a total monopoly on extra vehicle activity skill.”

Elise’s controller nodded, shaken by my looming presence, and went back to work with his calculations. The screen he used was simple, dots with predicted paths of each unit, including Elise. Her icon was brighter than all the others on his small holo screen. Her target, Beaufort, was also emphasized as he drifted toward the edge of slip space.

 “I hope this Beaufort character is worth it,” I grumbled.

The man at the control terminal glanced back over his shoulder, again more nervously than I liked. “The girls all find him stunning.”

“What?” I shouted, drawing the attention of several other mission controllers.

The bridge of the Bright Lance was far larger than the Jellybird or other small ships, but still very compact compared to a full-sized Union worship. Right now, it was full of people working to save lives.

“I’m sorry,” the controller said. “I… need to get back to work helping Elise.”

“Are you telling me the kid is risking her life to save some boy she has a crush on?”

The controller ignored me, face reddening second by second. He bent over his work screen and typed furiously, double and triple-checking his calculations.

“Leave it be, Reaper Cain. It would be natural for Elise to have interest in the opposite sex,” X-37 explained. “And now is not the time to address the issue.”

“We are definitely going to talk when she gets back,” I stated, then crossed my arms. Shifting my weight from foot to foot, I felt like a nervous wreck. The sensation was alien to me. I couldn’t even punch the wall or stalk the deck or smoke a cigar in this environment.

OceanofPDF.com

6

Green-dot-Elise moved through the void, out of range for an argument. She approached red-dot-Beaufort at a maddeningly slow rate. Sure, the interior of the slip tunnel was a big place and they were falling behind the Jumping Fox slowly, but it was aggravating to wait for news.

On another, larger holo view, a fleet coordination officer was scanning the rest of the area for similar problems and found nothing. I wasn’t interested in that scene, but the image of hundreds of ships trailing back into the slip tunnel stuck in my mind. I only hoped Elise didn’t slam into one of the ships that was now moving faster in relative terms.

“Sir?” Elise’s controller said nervously.

“What?” I snapped, moving close to him as I searched for whatever was on his screen that had alarmed him.

“Elise will contact Beaufort in fewer than two minutes,” the young ensign said. “Once her course intersects with his, we should know if my calculations were correct. And they will be, don’t get upset. Once she bumps him off his current course, they will both remain within the slip tunnel for eventual pickup.”

“Your calculations?” I asked, staring into his eyes.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

“Are you good at your job… what’s your name?” I asked.

“Yes, sir. Very good, sir,” he answered.  “My name’s Michael Junkboss, Ensign Michael Junkboss.”

“I’m not even going there,” I said, but couldn’t resist. “Your family name is Junkboss?”

“It’s a common name among my people,” he said. “I’m the first in my family to become an officer.”

“As long as your telemetry calculations for Elise are perfect, you’ll be fine,” I said.

“My analysis suggests that intimidating the boy will not improve his performance,” X-37 said.

“You’re doing a great job, Michael,” I said, patting him on the shoulder with my cybernetic left hand. “This Beaufort character, however, is going to have some explaining to do when I get a hold of him.”

“I’ve done a quick scan of Xad social media and cannot find any evidence that Elise and Beaufort are an item,” X-37 said.

“I don’t need evidence,” I said, stepping back from Ensign Michael Junkboss to let him concentrate.

“My relationship algorithms recommend choosing your words wisely, or better yet, dropping the issue entirely,” X-37 said. “Whether she finds Beaufort or anyone else attractive should have little or no effect on future missions.”

“I disagree,” I said. “Stuff like that can get into an operator’s head and ruin his or her concentration.”

“There is an idiom in my conversational database that suggests you should not borrow trouble,” X-37 said. “My advice is to not worry about things that have not happened yet.”

“You’re right,” I muttered, watching the dots collide.

The green dot and the red dot touched, then parted ways. Michael Junkboss banged his fist once on his terminal and exclaimed his excitement.

“Yes! That was perfect,” he said, and I realized he wasn’t talking to me. “Good job, Elise.”

“Are you talking to her?” I asked, not realizing that was possible.

He looked embarrassed and unsure of what to say to me.

“Tell her I’m gonna talk with her when we’re done.”

“I advise against starting this argument now,” X-37 said.

“Um, I don’t think I should do that,” Michael Junkboss said.

“Tell her,” I repeated.

 He muttered something into his mic that I couldn’t hear even with my enhancements.

“X, did you get that?” I asked.

“Of course, Reaper Cain. I can hear him perfectly,” X-37 said.

“Then what did he say?” I asked.

“I’d rather not tell you, because you are being an asshole,” X-37 said.

“You can’t refuse to answer me,” I said.

“On the contrary, I am often required to filter information in a way that protects you and keeps you on task to complete any given mission,” X-37 said. “That is what I am doing now.”

“Bullshit!” I shouted loud enough to draw attention from other rescue mission controllers.

“Calm yourself, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “If I were a person, I would be quite embarrassed by your behavior.”

“Patch me through to Elise, X!”

“You know that is much more difficult now that the Bright Lance belongs to Xad,” X-37 said. “And it would not be helpful to the situation.”

“I don’t want excuses, X. I want to talk to Elise right now.” I needed to pace the deck but there wasn’t room. Bumping into people would probably get me banned from the bridge.

“There is literally nothing you can do. Leave it to the professionals,” X-37 said. “For someone who’s terrified of the void, Elise certainly does spend a lot of time out there. My analysis suggests she will be fine.”

“She’s facing her fears. I get it. You can’t let something like the freezing atmosphereless expanse of space get the best you,” I said. “Do we need to go through Younger to put me through their system?”

“That will not be necessary, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “Since you are going to cry and whine about it, I managed to find access to a suitable communications channel. I am contacting Elise and her EVA unit now. You might be interested to know that it is an Archangel unit.”

“Check yourself, X. I’m about one more argument from having your personality reset. And what did you say about Archangel armor? We’re still figuring out what that stuff can even do,” I said.

“Do you want to talk to her or not?” X-37 asked.

I groaned, then dove into the conversation. “Elise, this is Cain.”

“I’m a little busy,” she snapped.

“Doing what, floating?” I asked.

“That’s funny, Reaper. Very reassuring. Michael told me I have at least an hour before I drift into one of the other ships in the exodus fleet,” Elise said.

“We need to get to a planet where I can keep better track of you,” I said. “This is stressing me out.”

“Hello, I’m the one drifting through a slip tunnel. It’s not all about you, Reaper,” she said.

“Who is Beaufort?” I demanded.

“Random,” she shot back.

“You know who I’m talking about. The guy you risked your life to save,” I said.

“I didn’t ask what his name was before I made my decision,” she said, sounding more serious. “You would’ve done the same thing in my place.”

I didn’t answer. Suddenly, I felt out of my depth. What had gotten into me? I wasn’t her parent or even her guardian. Operationally, I might be her mentor or unit commander but that would assume she actually listened to me half the time.

“X, I didn’t sign up for this,” I said.

“If you are referring to the semi-parenting role that you assumed, that is correct. Your original mission was only to save Doctor Hastings and had nothing to do with Elise,” X-37 said.

I gave X-37 a hand signal, requesting confirmation that we were speaking privately.

“Yes, Reaper Cain, I did not think that Elise would appreciate this particular aspect of our discussion,” X-37 said.

“Was there a point to your interrupting my mission?” Elise asked.

“I just…” The right words wouldn’t come. “I was checking on you. Next time could you warn me?”

“I can do that, Reaper,” she said, sounding calmer than I thought she had the right to sound.

“Reaper Cain, we have a serious problem,” X-37 said.

“What was your first clue?” I asked as I watched the rescue procedures. They were scrambling a second wave of shuttles. A tone of fresh urgency spread through the room.

“What’s going on, X?” I asked, moderating my tone, trying to be less of a jerk because I was now more worried than I had been when this entire disaster started.

“New calculations are coming in,” X-37 said. “The safe zone, as previously conceptualized, was calculated improperly. No one, not even the people of Xad, possess much experience operating like this within a slip tunnel.”

“For fuck’s sake,” I said, moving for the door.

“After a careful analysis, my recommendation is to pull Elise from the void as quickly as possible,” X-37 said in his extra neutral tone that conveyed the cold logic of an LAI.

I ran for the flight deck as X-37 explained it to me.

“Elise is far outside their operational envelope. Commander Gile has sent rescue ships but there are more people needing rescue than there are rescuers,” X-37 said.

“We’ve got to get to her before she drifts into the wall of the slip tunnel,” I said.

“Colliding with other ships in the exodus fleet is the greater danger now,” X-37 said. “Ensign Michael Junkboss did an outstanding job plotting her intercept course of Repairman Beaufort.”

“Is that a rank in the Xad military?” I asked, panting slightly as I ran.

“It is, Reaper Cain,” X-37 provided. “My analysis suggests you could run a bit faster without crashing into any of the crew.”

I sprinted onward.

* * *

It took me three tries to close the micro-fighter canopy when I finally reached it. The flight deck of the Bright Lance was a flurry of activity. Shuttles were coming and going, either to rescue people or bring them in after they were recovered. The stealth carrier wasn’t made for this type of traffic. Most of the ships attached to the outside with the landing and launch bays being used only for specific purposes or in emergencies.

The flight deck supervisor, Warrant Officer Suzan Sun, quickly checked my ship, then waved me toward the launch area.

Not waiting to be told twice, I was soon in the void rushing toward Elise. There was one shuttle closer than I was, but I was going to get there first. The micro-fighters were extremely fast over short distances and could maneuver around larger ships with ease.

“X, can you patch me into Elise?” I asked.

“With difficulty,” X-37 said. “The rescue operations are running smoothly now, but there is still a lot of comm traffic and ship to ship data transfers to coordinate everyone.”

“Do what you can, X,” I said, as I fled around other rescue operations and lumbering transport vessels.

Elise was well into the main fleet now, barely missing a freighter. I noticed, as I passed, that they had tried to collect her but missed. The people of Xad were good at this sort of thing but overwhelmed by the volume of search and rescue to be done.

“How did one ship malfunction turn the entire armada into a beehive of screw ups?” I asked.

“It’s a good reminder that anything can happen,” X-37 said.

“That’s not helpful,” I said as I banked the micro-fighter around a medical vessel while heading the final distance toward Elise.

“When we get closer, you may use a direct link to communicate with Elise,” X-37 said.

“Great. Let me know when we have a connection.”

The exodus fleet looked strange with the green walls of the slip tunnel all around it. Some of the ships were large, not leaving a lot of extra room for maneuvering. When I finally had a visual of Elise, she looked like a mere spec with danger all around her.

“How you doing, kid?” I asked.

“Not a kid, Reaper.” She twisted her Archangel armor to face me.

“How is the EVA functionality on that hunk of junk?” I asked.

“Only you would consider state-of-the-art battle armor junk,” she said. “To answer your question, I don’t have a lot of air left. Did they get Beaufort picked up?”

“No idea,” I said. “X, can you check on that?”

“He was picked up by a rescue shuttle. He wishes to convey his thanks to whoever saved him,” X-37 said.

“Let’s tow you to the Jellybird, unless there’s another ship close enough to help,” I said.

“I am on final approach to your location,” Jelly said. “I will prep the cargo bay to accept Elise.”

We were extremely close to the slip tunnel wall now, so near it that all I saw was a shimmering green energy field with Elise so close it seemed impossible she wasn’t touching it. “You’re in a really bad spot.”

Her answer was more subdued than normal. “Yeah, I know. That’s why none of the other rescue attempts were able to pull me in. They’re a little squeamish about getting this close to death. The crew has hundreds of stories about what happens if you run into the wall.”

“Most of them are completely wrong,” I said.

“Because you have lots of experience running into slip tunnel walls,” Elise said, but she sounded out of breath.

“I’ll tell you what, just stop talking. I’ll tow you back from the wall so you can get on the Jellybird,” I said, steering toward her with the micro-fighter.”

“Thanks,” she said.

X-37 assisted by plotting approach vectors and suggested throttle settings as I piloted. When I finally reached Elise, it was anticlimactic. I dropped a line, she fastened it to her armor, and I carefully pulled her to safety.

Jelly approached none too soon. Elise had quit talking completely to conserve air. The sense of relief I felt when she was safely on board the Jellybird was enormous.

* * *

That evening, I stayed up way too late talking to Warrant Officer Suzan Sun, the flight deck controller I promised a drink after rescuing Elise. How many years had it been since my last conversation with a member of the opposite sex who wasn’t the focus of a mission or part of my team?

After the first couple of drinks, we told stories and watched the slip tunnel. There hadn’t been as many people on the observation deck as previous evenings. The semi-disastrous rescue mission had taken a lot of manpower, and people were tired or still doing work.

“You shouldn’t have stayed out so late,” Elise said the next morning, holding back a sly chuckle.

“I wasn’t on a date,” I said.

“You were drinking with a woman and trying to be funny, right?” Elise said, pointing at me. “People talk, Reaper.”

“Wasn’t a date.”

“Whatever.” She smiled, shrugging as she turned away to climb into a flight simulator. “I’m going to own you in this dogfight.”

I went through the start-up procedures, paying careful attention to each step. The value in a simulator lay in its user. Or that’s what I thought until I observed the souped-up ship Elise was using.

“What is that?” I asked, scrolling through the readings my imaginary micro-fighter provided.

“I uploaded the actual schematics of my micro-fighter,” Elise said.

“You can’t incorporate Archangel armor into a micro-fighter chassis,” I said. “Or can you? X, why didn’t we try that?”

“Elise asked me not to tell you until after this contest,” X-37 said.

“Traitor.” The closer I came to my enemy in the simulation, the more readings flowed into my HUD. Elise had in fact incorporated the Archangel armor into the micro-fighter system.

“Did you wish me to improve your micro-fighter’s design,” X-37 asked.

“Always, X. Always get me the best equipment you can. I shouldn’t have to tell you this.”

“Noted,” X-37 said.

The ships were small and now I saw how they had been developed from accessories to combat armor. The possibilities were intriguing. I didn’t know where she found the time to get such complicated work done.

“Let me ask you this before we start, Elise,” I said. “Did Tom help you?”

She laughed. “Everyone helped me, especially Tom. Prepare to get owned.”

“My analysis suggests it is a good thing this is not a real contest,” X-37 said.

“It’s okay, Mister Reaper,” Bug said. “I didn’t help her. I wanted to, but I didn’t think you would like it. And I was kind of embarrassed at how bad you were going to lose.”

“X, why is Bug on this channel?” I asked. “He’s supposed to be watching Ayres.”

“I can do both,” Bug said. “Trust me, he’s not going anywhere without me knowing.”

“X?” I wasn’t sure which annoyed me more—that Bug was multitasking when I wanted him to focus on Ayers, or that my duel with Elise had become common knowledge.

My limited artificial intelligence gave me the bad news.  “Someone mentioned there would be a contest in the flight simulator arena. One person told another, and now there are a lot of people watching your dogfight with Elise.”

“Is there betting involved?” I asked.

“That activity has been concealed through various means, but I suspect your hypothesis is correct,” X-37 said.

“Can everyone talk to me?” I was already in trouble. From what I could see, Elise could make that micro-fighter move even faster with her Archangel armor integrated into its frame. “Because that will be distracting.”

“I’m the only one who can talk to you without authorization from Captain Younger,” Bug said. “You know that’s what I do.”

“All right then,” I said. “See if you can help me win.”

“Hey, that makes us a team!” Bug’s excitement was over the top. “You better watch out, Elise. I’m on Mr. Reaper’s team.”

 “Good luck, Bug.” Elise maneuvered her fighter in a long powerful arc, then aimed at me. “Come at me Reaper!”

OceanofPDF.com

7

“I’m looking after this kid, Mom. I hope I wasn’t ever this much of a pain in the ass,” I muttered, my words slurred.

My mother didn’t answer, which was a good thing, because I was sure she would argue the point. I’d been no end of trouble. From stealing cookies out of the oven before they finished cooking to getting in fights and running from the police.

The room rotated, or seemed too. Whiskey warmed me. The melancholy mood that came from long nights sitting with my family was strange and addictive. I was too familiar with the medical research room that kept my family alive.

I had always been a connoisseur of whiskey, never a hard drinker. Slow sips on the observation deck with a cigar in one hand and good company and conversation to pass the time was more my style. 

“How do you feel, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked.

“When you’re right, you’re right. This isn’t helping,” I said, looking at my mother’s cryo-pod in the dim light. It was ship night, not that it mattered to anyone in the room.

On my left was my sister’s cryo-pod. I held the cigar but didn’t smoke—this was a medical research bay after all, and I wasn’t a total animal.

“Can you ask Mavis to play some music? Something that might give them good dreams,” I asked.

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. A few moments later, the AI of the Bright Lance caused classical music to come through the public address speakers in this section of the ship.

I couldn’t remember the composer of the slow concerto, but it was something with strings and it seemed right. 

“Strings are a strange way to make music,” I commented without thinking.

“It is a primitive method of causing sound vibrations,” X-37 said. “Would you like me to research the origin of this music?”

“Maybe later,” I said.

Sitting here had become my ritual. I tried not to think, but when I did, the whiskey took me back to Boyer 5. It always started with a happy scene in the kitchen: me teasing my sister while my mother caught up on work at the table—lots of reading, taking notes, and muttering profanities she hadn’t realized I could hear.

The image of her typing and scribbling notes on an old tablet remained vivid. In these memories, it was always my night to cook—a tradition among our family. My sister, who was a good deal younger than me, harassed me as I brought food to the table.

“X, I have a question,” I said.

“I have an answer, Reaper Cain,” my limited artificial intelligence said.

“Why isn’t my father in these memories? I sit here every night thinking about home, but he never shows up,” I said. Again, this was an impulsive question—something that just came out.

“Contrary to what you’ve suggested in our previous discussions, I cannot read your mind; therefore, I have no direct observational data of your imagination,” X-37 said. “Are you angry at your father? Did you have a poor childhood?”

“No, X, I had it pretty good, all things considered. All of my misery was self-induced—running with gangs, not running with gangs, not listening to anyone,” I said.

“You have made contradictory statements unless you are talking about more than one unit of time in your past,” X-37 said. “How can you run with gangs and not run with gangs?”

“They had just as many bullshit rules as school and society and the military and all of it,” I said. “They claimed once you were in, you couldn’t get out without a beating or being killed. And yet, I was kicked out of at least three that I can remember. Always some rule violation.”

“That correlates well with your adult behavior,” X-37 said. “My humor algorithm is alerting me that this is funny or ironic.”

I took a deep breath, held it, then let it out. “Run the analysis of the cryo-pods again,” I said. “The more I sit here, the more I think this is ridiculous. Why can’t we just wake them up?”

“Patience, Reaper Cain. We are en route to Macabre where we will obtain the proper codes,” X-37 said. “They have been like this for a long time. A few more days or weeks will have little effect on their health.”

“It’s wrecking my health,” I said.

 “I agree that it has increased your consumption of alcohol and the frequency of your moodiness has become somewhat alarming,” X-37 said. “I recommend that you cut alcohol intake by point 09 percent.”

“So specific,” I said.

“Apologies, Reaper Cain. The actual number is point 0908123457,” X-37 said. “I wasn’t prepared for your sarcastic response.”

“Don’t ever change, X,” I said.

“I won’t,” my limited AI answered.

“You know what, I’m feeling pretty good now,” I said.

“Is this one of your metaphors for inebriation?” X-37 asked.

“No, but maybe that’s part of it.” I considered everything about the moment. “You’re right. My family could be in a lot worse shape. We’ll get to Macabre and get the codes. Doctor Ayers won’t freak out or prove to be a lying psychopath. All good.”

“I can make no promises,” X-37 said.

* * *

I didn’t drink beer in the shower this time. The recycled water relaxed every muscle in my body, especially since X-37 disabled the timer. That wasn’t fair to the rest of the Bright Lance crew, but I was guessing the amenities on the ship were far better than they were accustomed to.

“What’s on the agenda, X? Have we had any more ship repair emergencies or annoying kids floating around inside the slip tunnels?” I asked.

“None, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “Captain Younger has requested that you assist her with the Union crew members who have applied for Xad citizenship. Also on your calendar is a training session with Elise and maintenance of your cybernetics.”

“Sounds exciting,” I said. A short time later I was dressed and geared up for the day. Getting ready quickly was a habit I didn’t see any reason to abandon. I kept the stealth cloak and Reaper mask in a slim pack that I wore under my jacket. The chances of using it today were slim, but I’d long since learned that carrying these items concealed was a skill that needed to be practiced as much as possible.

“Captain Younger is waiting for you in the security room of the brig,” X-37 advised.

“Great,” I said, walking briskly toward my destination.

“Your biometrics are exceptionally good today,” X-37 said.

“Thanks, X, you’re not so bad yourself,” I said.

“I was not giving you a compliment,” X-37 said. “I was merely relaying information as is my mandate.”

“Don’t go losing your personality now, X,” I said.

“Understood, Reaper Cain. Adjusting my humor and personality algorithms. Please standby,” X-37 said.

The guards to the brig saluted, which I wasn’t accustomed to even now. I imitated their salutation, raising my hand level with my eyes—palm facing them because I didn’t want to use the Union salute I was taught in basic training.

 In the control room to the section, Captain Younger and one of her aides waited. Her uniform was red today, or mostly red. The striping on her arms was the same as always. The crew was still going through a transformation with the fabrication capabilities of the Bright Lance. Some people were having more fun with the fabric manipulation devices than others—part of a competition they were having to decide on the final design of their uniforms.

 “Thanks for coming, Reaper,” she said.

“No problem,” I said, nodding to her outfit. “You and your crew are looking more squared away every day.”

“Thank you, Reaper,” she said, as dignified and officer-like as ever. “The Bright Lance has an extraordinarily efficient laundry service and uniform repair function. I’m not sure it was meant to redesign and tailor jumpsuits for the entire crew, but so far it seems to be working. We put old clothes in the recycler, adjust some settings, and next thing you know, we are all facing decisions we’ve never had to make—like what to wear.”

I knew all of this but didn’t interrupt.

“Can I ask you something?” I ignored X-37 warning me away from this line of conversation. He chattered in my ear, but I was pretty good at blocking him out.

“Of course,” Captain Younger said.

“Why red? Yesterday it was blue and the day before that black with the same stripes down the arms,” I asked.

“I wasn’t aware that Reapers were so fashion-conscious,” she said.

“Attention to detail. Target description is important in my line of work,” I said.

“Am I your target? That will alarm my security detail,” she said.

“You understand what I’m talking about,” I said, feeling relaxed and non-confrontational. The woman had a certain charisma that was undeniable. This wasn’t like flirting or small talk. Speaking with the captain of the Bright Lance was a unique experience every time.

“My crew jokes that we are setting a bad precedent by having a uniform of the day, completely opposite to our more frugal lifestyle before you and your enemies came to our system,” she said. “In reality, it’s a test and evaluation schedule. At the end of each week, we vote on which uniform works best.”

“Very democratic,” I said.

“My assistant today, Lieutenant Paul Oberon, will keep track of your interview style and some questions you direct at the Union applicants. Our goal is to develop a reliable screen process that can be replicated on a larger scale,” she said.

“Sounds like a plan,” I said. X-37 agreed. “X-37 told me you have a new batch of Union turncoats. Intuition told me they would come around.”

Younger’s expression cooled. “They don’t like that term.”

“They’ve been called worse, just like I’ve been called worse. And, more importantly, they know the drill. If you didn’t take their switching sides seriously, they would lose respect for you and your people.”

“Where would you like to start?” Captain Younger asked.

I looked at Oberon, raising one eyebrow while opening my palm to signal him it was his turn to make a decision. The nonverbal communication took a second, but he got it.

“I think starting with an officer would be best. Most of the enlisted crew members switched sides early on with very convincing declarations of intent,” he said.

“Rule one, don’t trust any of their very convincing declarations,” I said. “Action not words.”

“Are you suggesting we keep a careful eye on them for an extended period?” Lieutenant Oberon asked.

“That is exactly what I’m suggesting. It’s time-consuming and resource draining, but necessary,” I said.

“Any member of my crew who was formally associated with the Union is assigned a mentor and guard. This protects them from accusations of disloyalty, and also acquaints them with our rules and customs,” Captain Younger explained. “It is time to begin.”

“Let’s start with somebody who wasn’t excessively dangerous—a supply officer or something. Maybe that will help with your uniform transition.”

The man Captain Younger and Lieutenant Oberon selected was named Ted or Theodore or something I really didn’t care about. Guards brought him into a small, comfortable room with a table and comfortable chairs. Once everyone was seated, a crew member from the galley brought a tray of snacks and cool drinks.

 “Seriously?” I asked.

The Union officer looked as alarmed and wary as I was, eyeing the gifts with clear suspicion.

 “It is a tradition among our people to be good hosts whenever possible,” Lieutenant Oberon said, serving each of us. “Can you please restate your name and rank, sir?”

“Lieutenant Theodore Feist, maintenance and supply officer, fourth watch, section 2,” he said, then recited his rather long unique identification number.

“Is that a number that is important? Your personal identification, perhaps?” Lieutenant Oberon asked as he took his seat and crossed one leg over the other, holding his drink very properly in his right hand. Captain Younger also sat with excellent posture, though she left her beverage on the table near her.

I leaned forward, planting my elbows on my knees. “Listen, Ted, we have a lot of people to talk to. You have about five minutes to convince us why you suddenly want Xad asylum.”

“I know who you are,” he said, watching me like I was a dangerous killer or something. “Why am I talking to the Xad captain? What is all of this food?”

 Oberon interrupted me, which I found annoying since he was supposed to be observing my technique. “The ship AI indicated this was a common snack, not an actual meal, and that it would be appropriate for an intimate conversation.”

“Ask the ship AI about campaign rations,” Theodore Feist said. “Check the discipline log for violators and Nebs’s personal penalty enhancements that were instituted the moment we left Union space.”

Captain Younger made a note on her work pad but said nothing.

Lieutenant Oberon nodded thoughtfully.

I had assumed I would take the lead, but that wasn’t how the interview was turning out. Before long, I settled back into an intimidation role—basically just staring at the man like I would as soon space him as look at him.

 Oberon did all the talking, sounding like he was reciting a personnel management questionnaire pulled straight from a book. Captain Younger paid careful attention and took notes.

I signaled X-37, asking what he thought. Prompting my LAI with nonverbals was second nature now. The more I was around people, the less I wanted them to believe I was a crazy person who talked to himself all the time.

“I am detecting a pattern to their interview style,” X-37 said. “Should the methods fail, you can step in and be your usual self. Until then, I would continue to glare at the man. It is giving me a very clear visual reading of his physical indicators.”

I prompted X-37 for more, still leaning back in my chair. My casual, almost careless posture contrasted sharply with that of the Xad officers.

“From what I can read of the man’s biometrics, and analyze from his speech patterns, he did genuinely resent Vice Admiral Nebs. I have insufficient information on this individual to determine whether he can be trusted,” X-37 said. “And yes, Reaper Cain, I can stream this information to the tablet that Captain Younger is using.”

A few moments later, she looked up at me, held my gaze, and then smiled subtly. She went back to work making notes and listening to the turncoat.

 We conducted three more interviews this way and sent each of the individuals back to their cells until the results could be analyzed.

OceanofPDF.com

8

There were times I just wanted X-37 to do what I asked and skip the analysis of my every burp and fart. “Please, X, check on them.”

“Right away, Reaper Cain.” X-37 paused for several seconds. “I have confirmation that Elise is waiting for you in the gym. I can also assure you that James Henshaw is in the middle of a card game at the back of a storage area. Shall I check on your other friends?”

“You’re quick, X. That’s exactly what I want. Find anyone who might try to talk to me and make sure they’re busy,” I said.

“Without specific instructions, I can only report on their status,” X-37 said. “Normally, I am on the same screen as you, but I’m at a loss. What is with your sudden need to micromanage your friends?”

“I’m going to talk to Ayers and I want to do it alone. Is that so difficult?”

“Stand by.” X-37 took a few seconds to accomplish each task I had assigned him. “My analysis suggests there is a low probability that anyone will come looking for you during the next ninety-four minutes.”

“Perfect.” When I arrived at the maximum-security wing of the brig, I spoke with the guard and was admitted. We were on a first-name basis at this point and he didn’t flinch that I came alone.

The hallway was dark, narrow, and had a low ceiling, something I suspected Union shipbuilders had done on purpose. If I’d been imprisoned here, the ambiance of the place would have been intimidating.

Each cell had an observation window. Further down this direction was a cluster of interrogation rooms and two offices that could be used for research between sessions. The lights were off, but I instructed X-37 to make sure no one was working in them. When I was sure we were alone, I stood before the cell of Doctor Ayers.

“What are you waiting for, Reaper Cain?”

“I’m just waiting for it to feel right. I don’t want to rush this.” We had covered a lot of ground with Ayers. Henshaw and the others had often offered questions I might not have thought of myself.

But I wasn’t here because I had a specific question. Something was bothering me, and my gut told me I needed to press this guy.

When I was ready, I entered without knocking or announcing my presence. Doctor Ayers stood in the middle of the room facing me, calmer and less fidgety than I’d ever seen him.

“He may be sleeping,” X-37 advised. “It is not impossible to sleep standing up with your eyes open, but it is rare. Would you like to know the exact statistical probability of this behavior?”

I didn’t answer, choosing instead to watch my target for clues.

“Filing statistical probabilities for a later discussion,” X-37 said. “The doctor has awakened.”

“Yeah, he’s awake,” I said. “Aren’t you, Ayers?”

“I wasn’t asleep when you entered, but working through a complex hypothesis,” he said.

“Screw it, I’m just gonna ask you. Do you have a limited artificial intelligence in your nerve-ware?”

I had argued with Henshaw on this point. The ocular engineer was convinced no one could be this smart without assistance. He conducted long solo interviews with the man, which was alarming for about ten different reasons, and come away breathless after some of their debates. All I needed was a secret coalition between the two scientists.

Doctor Ayers held my gaze when he answered. “I have no augmentation. It is possible to train the human mind to a very high level of functioning. This will be necessary for all people to obtain if we are to stand on equal ground with the many alien races that must exist in this galaxy and in the next.”

“You think these imaginary friends of yours are smarter than our entire race, is that it?” I asked.

“It is a possibility,” he said. “I admit, however, that nothing is a certainty. Even their physical appearance has been somewhat surprising.”

The doctor’s haunted look stabbed through me like a knife. “Did you just say what I think you said? Where are your test subjects?”

Doctor Ayers said nothing, seeming to stare straight through me.

“Answer me, Ayers.” It took all of my self-control not to grab him by the throat.

“You are smarter than you look. That is for the best. If you don’t mind, I must sleep now.”

“I do mind. And let me promise you this, sleeping will not be restful if you try to nod off while I’m talking,” I said, restraining myself from a more dire threat, not because I believed it would be ineffective, but because the thought of it turned my stomach.

I was getting soft. Threatening the man with sleep deprivation, and following through with that threat, would be effective. There were few coercion methods more miserable than long-term sleep deprivation.

Having been subjected to it three different times, I knew what it did to a person.

The interrogation wasn’t going well. I was losing my edge. Leaving without explanation, I waited for X-37’s inevitable question.

“Is something wrong, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked.

Watching Ayers sleep standing up, I considered what he said, what it meant, and what I needed to do about it. “We’re done for today.”

I moved into the hallway, then leaned against the wall to review the interview. The gloomy atmosphere fit my mood. “You understand why I’m worried, don’t you, X?”

“It seems obvious that he used alien DNA on human test subjects and something went wrong,” X-37 said.

OceanofPDF.com

9

The unified Xad and Wallach fleet departed from the slip tunnel in a disorganized fashion. It started out well, but it was clear not everyone understood the chain of command or the post slip tunnel formations the leaders of both fleets had agreed upon.

Two-thirds of the ships lined up in order of the operational plan. Another group started to patrol and set up defensive contingencies, while a third headed for an asteroid belt to search for resources.

Captain Younger was the highest-ranking officer in the Xad fleet and had operational command. Gen. Karn and Admiral Hutton of the Wallach forces would also get a turn every ninety standard days.

Captain Younger had requested my presence on the bridge for the exiting of the slip tunnel. We had discussed best practices and then watched as the best-laid plans unfolded in unexpected ways. I admired the way she worked, taking control when needed but not interfering with her subordinates. As captain of the Xad flagship, and leader of the unified fleet, she was in control of the entire operation.

She approached when she had a free moment. “My apologies for the disorder. It seems the mission to Macabre will be delayed unless you can take a smaller team on your ship to investigate the claims Doctor Ayers has been making.”

“I can do that Captain, but I will need to take Ayers,” I said. “I doubt he has told us everything, and if there are surprises, I’ll need to ask him some questions.”

“As long as you can provide enough security to keep him from escaping custody, then you may take him where you like,” Captain Younger said. “I will advise my security chief to assist you in any way needed.”

She went back to managing the larger situation.

I left the bridge and headed for the brig. On the way, I made sure X-37 contacted my team and sent them to the Jellybird. We had expected something like this, and everyone knew what to do. My job was to work with the Xad guards to move the prisoner to the Jellybird.

Doctor Ayers wasn’t happy to see me, but he complied with the guards and did what he was told. Soon we were on our way to the flight deck.

“You surprise me, Ayers,” I said.

“In what way, Reaper?”

“To be honest, I thought you were maneuvering toward Macabre. It makes sense that you left something there and want us to do your dirty work to retrieve it, but I expected you would demand to go there yourself,” I explained.

“It’s a horrible planet,” he said. “I suggest you take people who are expendable.”

“What?”

“That came out wrong,” he said, “but you know what I mean. It is very dangerous. People will die.”

“Maybe fewer people would die if your life was also at stake.”

“Nebs would’ve sent his Archangels.” He seemed very distracted and had a tremor in his left eyebrow. “They are better suited for the environment.”

“X, how many suits of the Archangel armor do we have unlocked?” I asked.

“As many as you need, Reaper Cain. I make this assessment based on the maximum number of people you can transport on the Jellybird and the Lady Faith,” X-37 said.

Ayers waited until I concluded my internal conversation. After that, he spoke more like a normal person.  “I am thankful to be out of my cell, but it does me little good without access to a ship AI to assist me.”

“Assist you with what?” The last thing I was going to allow was a mad scientist messing with our ship.

“Processing my theories and assisting the away team in a remote capacity. I’m better suited to be in the control room providing my expert analysis than stomping around on the planet surface,” Ayers said. “I would only slow you down and I have no fighting experience or training in harsh environments.”

“Well I guess it will be on-the-job training for you because you’re coming with us,” I said. “I’m not going down into whatever mess you created without having you close at hand to give me answers when I need them.”

* * *

The Jellybird slowed as she approached Macabre, establishing a high orbit. Both Elise and Tom were on the bridge. Path guarded Doctor Ayers in our makeshift brig.

Two Xad soldiers, Largo and Asis, both Soldiers First Class, and two Wallach soldiers, Horvath and Carrie Decker were on standby on the Jellybird to provide security on the ship or in case we needed more guns in a fight on the planet. Carrie was a good pilot and would be an extra resource for an away mission. We also had a shuttle and two micro-fighters attached to the Jellybird now.

Not far from us, Henshaw piloted his yacht, the Lady Faith, in case we needed a second ship. It also made it easier to control Henshaw’s access to Ayers, which I thought was necessary. They seemed far too interested in each other’s work.

Two Xad soldiers had volunteered to assist on the Lady Faith. The opulent amenities of the yacht probably stunned them. I also assigned Bug to Henshaw’s ship, mostly to annoy him. He had been too lax in his duties monitoring Doctor Ayers. I hoped pulling him off the job for a time motivated him to do better in the future.

“I have completed an initial scan, Captain,” Jelly said. “From a geological perspective, this is a very interesting planet, though I must advise against going down to the surface if it can be avoided. There is a great deal of seismic and volcanic activity.”

“I see what you mean,” I said, looking at the images of molten lava and collapsing ridgelines. “There must be someplace the Union could have squirreled away the research.”

“Maybe Ayers was lying,” Elise said.

“That’s a possibility we need to think about,” Tom said. “I can’t see any place they can have a base or even a storage facility. Hopefully, we will learn more as we complete subsequent passes around Macabre and continue to run scans of the surface.”

I stood and prepared to leave the bridge. “This is exactly the reason I brought Ayers with us.”

“Do you need my help?” Elise asked.

“Path and I can handle Ayers. Get ready for the away mission,” I said.

Her eyes went wide. “Down there?”

“Start working out an operational plan, then hope we don’t have to use it,” I said. “Worst environment imaginable. A perfect place for the Union to hide something. I will get the rest of the story from Ayers now…or die trying.”

“This planet is so far outside of Union territory it’s ridiculous,” Elise said. “If what Jelly is telling me is correct, we’re even farther than we were in the Wallach or Xad systems.”

“Nebs left Union space for over two years and never accounted for what he did during that time. We should be ready for anything,” I said.

“You’re right, Reaper,” Elise admitted.

My mind was spinning by the time I joined Path outside of the makeshift brig. Images of the glowing red planet reinforced my belief that Ayers had tricked us somehow. Despite what I had told Elise, I doubted there was any way the Union could use this planet. It didn’t even have moons. I’d been to several worlds where the moon was more hospitable to humans than the planet.

“Good morning, Reaper,” Path said. “Did you know the doctor sleeps standing up sometimes?”

“Sometimes he’s just thinking deep thoughts,” I said. “It’s hard to tell the difference.”

“I can tell,” Path said, keeping his attention on the scientist who had lured us here.

“Are you awake, Ayers, or shamming?” I asked.

The man eyed me. “I am a doctor, you know. Not one of your rough friends. I would appreciate a little more respect.”

“I will address you by your honorific as soon as my family is safely awakened from the cryo-pods,” I said. “We have arrived at Macabre. It’s an interesting planet. I’m wondering how the Union could have any type of facility here.”

“I understand your skepticism. Too bad the engineer in charge of building the facility on Macabre died when you destroyed the UFS Black Wing,” Ayers said. “ It’s submersible. What better way to hide something than sink it in an ocean of lava.”

“I bet Nebs loved that,” I muttered, struggling to imagine how we would reach this facility.

“Jelly, contact the Nightmare and any other ship that might have an expert in this field,” I said.

“Right away, Captain,” Jelly said.

“Have you located the satellite?” Ayers asked.

“Our prisoner says there’s a satellite we need to find,” I said.

Jelly responded immediately. “I will endeavor to locate it. With your permission, I would like to ask Doctor Ayers direct questions.”

“That’s dangerous, Jelly. I don’t trust him, and he seems far too interested in gaining access to an AI.”

Ayers waited patiently, only hearing half of the conversation. His version of calm meant an almost spiritual serenity that would rival Path on a good day, interrupted at random intervals by twitching and nervous sweats.

“I can look after myself, Captain,” Jelly promised. “I will report any attempts he makes to act inappropriately to X-37.”

“Jelly, I trust your judgment.” I made eye contact with Path. “What happens if Ayers attempts to pull a fast one?”

Path tapped his sword hilt.

“I’m no good to you dead,” Ayers said.

“My sword saint is very accurate. He’ll take a finger at a time. But don’t worry, you won’t even feel it until after it happens,” I said.

Ayers paled. A tremor swept through his body from head to toe. I made a mental note to get him another medical check as soon as we were back on the Bright Lance.

“I have located one functioning satellite of the planet Macabre,” Jelly announced. “There is, however, no way to access it remotely. This is strange and defeats the purpose of having a satellite. What can it do with no way of communicating from a distance?”

“Is that a question for me?” Ayers asked. The scientist seemed less of a wreck when he was engaged in conversation or working on something.

“Please explain how we can use the satellite,” Jelly asked.

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” I muttered.

“Jelly is doing an excellent job, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“Agreed.” With the ship asking the questions, I was able to watch Ayers more and decide whether he was lying or trying to pull a fast one. So far, I wasn’t detecting anything nefarious—which made me suspicious.

Ayers cleared his throat. “Can I see what you have found?”

Jelly presented a small holographic representation of the satellite that had been discovered. It looked like a needle about ten meters long that was thicker in the middle. I’d never seen a satellite that was so plain and free of antennae.

“That is the one.” Ayers leaned toward the image, eyes bright with interest and his mannerisms less twitchy and weird.

“There are no others,” Jelly said.

“Bring it on to your ship and I will open it,” he said. “Inside, there is a pod that will have to be fired from your ship. It will penetrate the surface of the lava sea and seek the floating vault.”

“You’re telling me that thing contains a drone that can survive in molten rock that has to be well over a thousand degrees?” I asked, crossing my arms.

Ayers tried to back away but there wasn’t a lot of space. “For a time. It is a single-use tool. We only planned to come here once, and only in an emergency.”

“What type of emergency?” I asked.

“Perhaps you should ask Nebs,” Ayers said.

“I don’t like your tone, Ayers,” I said.

“I hold multiple doctorates. Why must you needlessly disrespect me?”

“What. Type. Of. Emergency,” I said, staring straight into his eyes.

He swallowed, revealing he was human after all and feared death just like the rest of us. “We were only to come here in the event that we lost our research.”

“Or to wake up my family and the other people locked in cryo-pods,” I said.

“That would not have been necessary if you had kept Nebs alive,” Ayers argued. “You can blame the condition of your family on your own hotheaded decisions.”

“Be calm, Reaper Cain,” X-37 ordered.

“You’re lucky I still need you, Ayers,” I said.

He answered without pause. “I am. An intelligent and rational man like myself would endeavor to remain useful.”

“Don’t forget it,” I said. “Jelly, capture the satellite. Tom, meet me inside the main bay so we can look at this thing.”

“Sure thing, Hal,” Tom answered.

“I will assist you remotely,” Henshaw offered in my earpiece.

“Great. I love it when a plan comes together. Path, keep an eye on Ayers.” Nothing about this mission was good but if it had been easy, I would’ve been seriously suspicious.

Path nodded that he would watch the crazy xenobiologist without fail.

“I’ll take Horvath and Carrie to help me modify the Archangel armor we brought,” Elise said. “I don’t see any other way to operate on the surface. Tom agrees with me it should be able to withstand more heat than maintenance gear or EVA suits.”

“Good,” I said. “Keep me updated.”

OceanofPDF.com

10

The satellite looked much bigger lying across the deck in the Jellybird’s main storage area. Tom managed to open it without much difficulty. We were looking at the contents when I received a message from Path.

“Ayers wants to know if we need his help opening the satellite,” Path said.

“We already have it open,” I answered.

A pause followed.

“He doesn’t believe you,” Path said.

“He’s never seen our mechanic work,” I said. “Let me know if he says anything else useful.”

“He doesn’t understand why he wasn’t allowed to be present when the satellite was recovered,” Path said. “I told him he hadn’t earned our trust and now he seems to be pondering that like it’s a scientific theorem.”

I watched Tom work. He wasn’t in a rush, but he did get things done quickly. The man was confident in his abilities and had such a broad base of technical knowledge. He never ceased to amaze me. His methodical, patient approach was faster than someone who rushed into mistakes and was forced to make several attempts before getting it right.

“We are very lucky to have made such talented and loyal friends,” X-37 said to me privately.

I gave my hand signal that I agreed.

Tom stepped back, still looking at his work. He indicated what he had done with one hand, palm facing up. “And there you go, one Union super drone meant to be fired from a ship.”

I moved closer and studied the small oblong pod.

“It’s a shame to waste a machine like that,” Tom said. “The metallurgical uniqueness is fascinating. I wish I could put it in a laboratory and study it with Henshaw’s help,” Tom said.

“Do you think the Union made it?” I asked.

“I’m sure that’s the case, but it is very cutting edge.” Tom barely took his eyes off the device as he answered. 

“Maybe we’ll find another someday,” I said. “Can you figure out how to load and fire it at the planet?”

“No problem at all. Once we finish our safety checks, it can be loaded, then shot into the lava sea,” he said. “If Ayers is telling the truth and the secret vault does rise to the surface after the drone makes contact, I’m still not comfortable with anyone going down there. We’ve done a lot of dangerous things, but this is unusually… dynamic.”

“Earthquakes and volcanoes are like that,” I said. “Good work.”

With Tom working on the drone, I checked in with Elise. “How are you doing with your new toys?”

“Not bad,” she answered. “But there’s a problem—if you want Ayers to go on this mission. I don’t think giving him these types of weapons is a good idea. Removing the guns has been difficult.”

“If you can’t disable the weapons, remove the ammunition and power elements from them,” I said.

“We already did that,” Elise said quickly. “But these are tightly integrated units. Their limited artificial intelligences are actually just one digital entity networked across all the Archangel gear. It keeps them all functioning at maximum capacity—and makes communication on a squad level freakishly fast. Or that’s what our test runs show. As soon as we started taking things off, they began to malfunction—even the units we didn’t modify. Horvath, Carrie, and I have worked around the problem, but we will need to practice with them before we jump into a volcano or something.”

“We don’t have time for that,” I said, and immediately felt ridiculous. X-37 and Elise corrected me at almost the same time.

“Actually, Reaper Cain, progressing more slowly would be advantageous,” X-37 said.

“Aren’t you always the one telling me not to rush to failure? If we take some time to practice, the only thing that’s going to happen is that the rest of the exodus fleet will get here and possibly help us,” Elise said.

“Okay, okay. We can practice with the Archangels,” I said.

We discussed a few more details as I went to the armory and allowed Elise to instruct me on the best way to use the modified gear.

“First of all, I have to give credit to Tom even though he is still messing with the drones. He was the one that insisted we bring all the accessories these golden goodies have,” Elise said, motioning toward one of the large durable crates near the Archangel armor and workbenches.

I walked around each piece of the armor that was able to stand like Doctor Ayers taking one of his weird naps. The surface of each Archangel had a faint golden sheen, something in the alloy that made it different from other combat armor I’d seen. There were times I thought it was just a reflection of Nebs’s vanity, but I wasn’t an expert on metallurgy or engineering.

Each piece of gear now had a new layer of frangible armor. “That seems redundant, but I get it.”

“The outer layer is a lot like the drone were sending down, single use,” Elise said, walking around and pointing at different things she’d done to improve the setup. “The schematics we were able to read thanks to Jelly and X decrypting their security codes advocate a fairly loose connection of these add-ons, allowing for ease of movement. We decided to put more time into it and make every piece fit very precisely, to minimize the amount of molten rock slipping into the cracks and touching the actual armor.”

I examined their work and knew it was good. “This should be more than enough protection since we’re not actually going to be getting our feet wet. So try not to fall in.”

Elise gave me one of her special whatever grins. “Having said that, and done all of this extra configuring, the Archangel armor itself is extremely resistant to heat and all other forms of physical assault. If we knew exactly what we were getting into, and could keep to a very tight time schedule, we might not need the extra layers.”

“This is good work. You’re right about not rushing to failure. We will need to practice—some on the ship and some extra vehicle activity drills just to increase the training intensity,” I said.

Path brought Ayers to the equipment room we had turned into an armory. There were tools and pieces of armor scattered across magnetic workbenches. Elise, Horvath, and Carrie were already in their modified Archangel armor. I decided to put Ayers in his weaponless outfit next, then assist Path in getting ready.

“Why are you going last, Reaper?” Ayers asked.

“Because I’m the only person who can put this stuff on unassisted,” I said. “And I can do the job faster than most.”

“I refuse,” Ayers said. “Away missions are not what the Union trained me for. My value lies in my intellectual output and willingness to see what others deny as the truth.”

“Good for you,” I said.

“I’m not going to the surface of Macabre. Send some of your soldiers. That is what Nebs would have done,” Ayers insisted.

“I’m not Nebs, and you don’t have a choice. Cooperate and help me save my family, and maybe someday you’ll get to do your research,” I said. “Refuse and I will send you down there by yourself.”

“That is unfair, Reaper. You know I must acquiesce. My research is very important,” Ayers said.

“Life isn’t fair. At least I’m letting you wear protective gear on this mission. I’m told it’s theoretically possible to survive where we’re going as long as you don’t get too close to the edge of the safe zone or get hit by any splashing lava,” I said.

“Or fall in a rift when there’s an earthquake,” Elise added.

“There probably aren’t any fire-breathing monsters on the surface,” Horvath said.

I nodded like my friends were making exquisitely rational arguments. “I definitely believe you could do this without the armor, Ayers.”

“You and your friends are wildly optimistic,” Ayers argued.

I shrugged, motioning toward his new ride. “You’re going with us, and you’re wearing what we tell you to wear.”

The Archangel armor opened like a standing clamshell when I issued the command. Ayers gaped in horror. I motioned for him to climb in.

“I’m not a mechanical engineer but that doesn’t appear structurally sound,” Ayers said. The way he said mechanical engineer suggested he thought people like Tom were lesser beings than alien DNA tinkerers like him.

“This makes it easier to get in,” I said. “If it’s properly closed and latched, it’s as strong as it would be if it was all one piece. We’re not expecting to fight. This is just an insurance policy for when the Union’s clever vault bobs up and down in the lava. Climate control, basically.”

OceanofPDF.com

11

“I don’t want to go down there,” Ayers said. “Nebs never made me go on away missions.”

“You’re going on this missio—“ I repeated, staying calm as I could.

“I can’t,” he interrupted.

“You can if you want to continue your research,” I said.

“I don’t believe you.”

“You don’t have any choice. Don’t make this ugly.” I motioned for Elise and the others to get ready to run the drill. We needed to practice. The environment we were heading into would not forgive our mistakes.

Ayers climbed into the Archangel armor, stopping when he was halfway in.

Elise gave him crisp, no-nonsense instructions. “Lean into it. See there, the Archangel armor is canted forward. Just lie against it and the back half will come up and close. The less you move, the quicker this will be. Don’t squirm around.”

A tear leaked from each of Ayer’s eyes as he followed her instructions. His body trembled. I thought he looked like a drowned rodent and almost felt sorry for him.

“It’s weird the first time,” Elise said. “But trust me—once it closes, you’ll feel invincible.”

“Okay, okay, I’m trying,” Ayers said.

I connected to Elise on our private commlink. “So far so good. Remember, you will be his best friend when we do this.”

“Next time I get to be the bad guy,” she said.

“Keep him alive and make him understand that he owes you his life,” I said.

“No problem, Reaper. We’ve got this,” Elise said.

Horvath, already in his armor, stood beside me and leaned over to get my attention. “There’s no way this will work with him on the mission. He’s worse than a beginner. He’s terrified, and that means he’s going to make dumb mistakes that will put the rest of the team in danger.”

“Agreed,” I said. “But if we get down there and there’s something he’s holding back, we’re likely to get trapped in the Union vault or sunk in the lava fields. I can handle him. It might not be pretty, but this is what we have to do.”

Horvath seemed to consider that for a moment, then nodded, looking dignified in the Archangel helmet.

 “He’s in,” Elise said. “Your turn, Reaper.”

What none of my friends knew was that the basic chassis for the Archangel armor wasn’t unfamiliar to me. As soon as they opened it up like this, I understood it was a modification of the killing frenzy armor I had trained on while a Reaper.

Everything was different on the outside, and I hadn’t realized the similarities until it opened like an upright clamshell. Being able to integrate with a micro-fighter was one thing, having heat resistant properties capable of withstanding extreme, protracted exposure to heat was another.

The armor had the same step ladder that didn’t look like a step ladder. When it was open, a series of small ledges unfolded from the back of each section. There was also a handhold that opened around the neck area. I climbed up, then pulled myself inside, leaning into the gear so it closed around me almost immediately.

“That was about ten times faster than the rest of us did it,” Carrie said.

“Sometimes my Union training is useful,” I said, regretting the words even as I spoke to him. With Nebs gone, I hoped to avoid talking about the Union for the rest of my life. It would take practice and mental discipline to truly believe I was free.

Once inside, I took two minutes going over the controls and making sure I had full access. “This would’ve made our fight against Nebs easier.”

“Indeed,” Jelly said. “I have prepared a simple EVA mission as you requested. Please exit the airlock in an orderly manner, then walk one time to the end of the Jellybird. When that is complete, I will give you a secondary objective. This exercise is winnable even for first-time users of EVA gear, provided they have had the proper familiarization course.”

“I’ve had no familiarization course at all,” Ayers complained.

“One of us will hold your hand,” I said.

“Will that work? Are you going to actually hold onto me?” Ayers asked. “Because I would like that.”

“Elise, calm the mad scientist, please,” I said.

Elise jumped into the conversation, right on cue. “It will be okay, Doctor Ayers. We have some time. Let’s take a stroll around the deck and I will give you some pointers.”

“Thank you, Elise,” Ayers said. “I appreciate your respect and helpfulness. Perhaps we could go on the mission without the Reaper.”

“He’s my boss, Doctor,” Elise said. “It would help me if you would cooperate and let me show you how to run this armor.”

“I understand. Life is a struggle and we must overcome the obstacles put in our way. Let me say that I am empathetic of what you’re going through with your very unreasonable boss,” Ayers said.

They began walking around the room with Horvath and Carrie monitoring their progress, hands up and ready to catch Ayers if he tried to run through a wall or something.

I switched to a private channel with X-37 and Jelly. “Can you monitor his vitals now that he’s inside the Archangel?”

“Yes, Captain, I’m able to see what his body is doing quite clearly now,” Jelly said.

“My measurements of his heart rate and respiration are also much improved,” X-37 added. “Now I can take readings even when we can’t directly observe him.”

“Good,” I said. “We need to get him up to speed on the basics.”

“You want to actually train him? My analysis suggests that is a good idea,” X-37 said.

“Yeah, I don’t want to hold his hand. We can’t pass up this opportunity to catch him off guard, however. If he thinks he’s going to die, he might let something slip,” I said.

 “X-37 and I have discussed this training event in great detail. There’s no reason we can’t achieve both goals,” Jelly said.

“Great detail? How long did your conversation take?” I asked as I watched Elise teach Ayers how to move. She was a natural, which surprised me. As a student, she could be stubborn one day and coachable the next.

 “A few seconds,” X-37 answered. “We wanted to take the time to consider all the variables.”

“That sounds right.” I crossed my arms and watched Elise take it up a notch.

She incorporated Horvath and Carrie into the drill, asking them to catch Ayers when she pushed him over.

 “Is everyone ready?” she asked.

“I am if you think this is necessary,” Ayers said.

“It’s good practice. If you go off course or fall, you’ll know we’re here for you,” Elise said.

 “Ready,” Horvath said, hands up in front of him and his palms facing forward like he was playing defense in an arena game.

Carrie took a similar position on the other side of Ayers and Elise. “Same here.”

Elise drew back both fists, paused a second, then slammed them into Ayers, launching him off his feet toward Horvath. The Wallach soldier caught him with moderate difficulty. The armor made him strong enough, but he struggled to find the balance point for the Archangel armor, setting his feet a bit too wide in anticipation of the collision.

Path strolled around the perimeter of the room, then stopped beside me. “She’s a very good instructor.”

“I was just thinking the same thing. Is that because of you?” I asked.

“Doubtful. Some of it, perhaps. I know little about teenagers and can’t remember my childhood or all of the bad choices I made. She seems to be an exceptional person and I am glad that you rescued her from Dreadmax,” Path said, the volume of his Archangel gear perfectly adjusted. His voice was loud enough to be heard but not so loud that I couldn’t also hear Elise talking to the others.

“How do you like the new armor, Path?”

 He faced me. “I find it disturbing.”

“I thought you might. Tell me the rest, so I can see if my hunch was on the money.” I knew my sword-wielding friend was a purist and a minimalist in most things. What was more difficult to know was why he’d chosen to take this path.

“It bothers me that I might master this ultimate killing machine and be called to use it often,” Path said. “I also worry that I might come to rely on it and lose track of who I am.”

“Interesting,” I said.

“Were you correct in your assumption?” Path asked, seeming curious.

“Pretty much nailed it,” I said. “I’m already wanting out of this thing. I need a cigar.”

“Of course,” he replied.

Elise strode across the deck, Archangel armor working perfectly with her. The movements were smooth. “We are as ready as we can be. We should start.”

“Agreed,” I said. “Path, you’re first. Horvath, you’re last. Elise, I want you to stay close to Ayers.”

“That is the most reasonable thing you’ve said so far. I feel much better that she will be there to keep me from floating into the void,” Ayers said.

“Actually, her job is to keep me from throwing you into the void when you annoy me,” I said.

“Calm down, Reaper,” Elise said, playing her part well. “We need him.”

Path approached the airlock, waited for Jelly to open it, then stepped into the darkness beyond. He moved with his usual grace and precision. “I’m standing on the hull beyond your field of vision. There are no obstructions on the exterior of the ship. It is safe to proceed.”

 Elise, Ayers, and Carrie went next. I paced them, staying a few strides back, not wanting to put Ayers into a cardiac arrest. Horvath followed, doing everything by the numbers. He took EVA missions seriously since his friend had died during one of our first spacewalks together.

“Your heart rate and respiration have increased but are within normal parameters,” X-37 said. “Please scan the outside of the Jellybird so I can record points of interest for Jelly. She says it has been too long since the ship was given a proper overhaul and has likely accumulated damage over the last several months.”

I complied, checking my environment for anything that could go wrong. I wasn’t paranoid, I was just always ready to defend myself from an attack. It was one of my more useful habits, especially when it also allowed me to share information with X-37 and Jelly.

Elise and the others moved to the first objective. When they arrived, I let them stand idle for a moment, knowing that it could be stressful for someone like Ayers who was unfamiliar with the unique view from an EVA unit, even if it was state-of-the-art Union battle armor.

Blackness surrounded us. Stars seemed far away while also dominating the view in all directions. There was no light on the outside of the ship to compete with the galactic panorama.

“Okay, Jelly, what’s next? How are we going to test our maneuvering capabilities?” I asked.

Ayers stood straighter, alarmed by my implication. “We were already told that it would be a simple circumvention of the Jellybird.”

“That will be necessary, Jelly said. “However, it is not the next drill we need to accomplish to be certified in these units. Buoy retrieval is next.”

“What?” Ayers asked as he retreated, looking back and forth between me and Elise. “This is the Reaper’s idea, isn’t it?”

“Are you sure buoy retrieval is safe?” Elise interjected. “Doctor Ayers has no formal training and this is his first spacewalk.”

“He has to learn some time,” I said.

“Warning, Reaper Cain, Ayers’s heartbeat has increased by twenty percent in the last few seconds. Blood pressure is also approaching dangerous levels,” X-37 advised. “How hard do you want to push him before demanding answers?”

I hesitated, having second thoughts. The plan seemed more humane than the torture Elise and I came up with it. Now I wanted to get it over with.

“Elise, show us how it’s done,” I said. “I’m not expecting Ayers to do this cold.”

“I could watch Elise,” Ayers said. “She hasn’t led me astray so far. This armor is more comfortable than it looks but I cannot imagine when I will ever be required to retrieve a buoy from the void.”

“I almost admire how he’s trying to pull it together,” I said to X-37 and Jelly.

“Don’t be misled by his statement,” X-37 said. “His biometrics are still dangerously high. He’s merely putting on a brave face.”

“Thanks for the update, X.” I disagreed but wasn’t able to articulate the reason. This felt like we were being hustled. Ayers was either on the verge of panic or was the best actor I’d met for a long time.

I waited until Elise was ready, the buoy was launched, and the drill began. X-37 tracked the speed and trajectory of the training buoy that Elise would recover.

“I’m going to jump forward and use my steering jets as little as possible to correct course,” Elise said.

“What if she misses?” Ayers asked.

“She can fly back to the ship with her maneuvering jets. It may not look like it, but this is a controlled environment,” I said. “Nothing like that little incident in the slip tunnel.”

Elise sailed through the void like a pro, only using a small amount of thrust from her left boot. A moment later, she put both palms toward the buoy and slowed herself with the maneuvering jets in her gauntlets. She contacted the buoy perfectly—like it was a solid object rather than something in the void with spectacular star fields looming above her like the ceiling of a cathedral.

“That was good, right?” Ayers asked.

I could almost see him twitching inside of the Archangel armor. “She’s good. We won’t need these exact skills on Macabre, but it’s a good drill. We’re training hard now to avoid failing in the future.”

“That is a rational supposition,” Ayers said.

“I’m glad you agree.” I gripped him by one arm. “Now it’s your turn.”

He wailed in panic when I threw him.

“You better steer,” I said through the commlink.

“Are you trying to kill me!” Ayers screamed as he spiraled out of control, steering jets blasting with far more force than necessary.

“Elise, you’re up,” I said.

“I’m on my way to bring him in,” she said on our private link. “That wasn’t nice. I hope this works.”

“He’s definitely going to see you as his savior, maybe even a confidant,” I said.

“Assuming I can catch him. Why did you throw him so hard?”

“I was going to ask the same question,” X-37 said.

I didn’t bother answering, choosing instead to watch Elise race through the void to grab Ayers and bring him back.

“Elise and Ayers are approaching the safety envelope for this exercise,” Jelly advised.

I pointed at Carrie and Horvath. “Standby in case she needs help.”

“Should we go now?” Horvath asked.

I could hear the tension in his voice and knew why this bothered him. My honest assessment was that Elise could handle it on her own, but I needed to keep Horvath’s situation in mind. “I think she’s okay, but I’ll let you decide,”

Horvath hesitated, then shifted his stance until he looked ready to jump after Elise and Ayers.

“Let’s work this together,” Carrie said.

“I’ll count us off.” Horvath backed up a step, crouching. “On three. One, two, three!”

The Wallach soldiers leapt into the void with much more force than I thought was necessary. “Their adrenaline might have screwed them.”

“My analysis of their trajectory and speed suggests they will need to use more thrust than is ideal to slow themselves, but they should rendezvous with Elise and Ayers without excessive difficulty,” X-37 said.

 “What do you think, Path?” I asked.

“They are learning important lessons,” the sword Saint answered.

“I should have guessed you would say that.” I checked our timer and reviewed other data, like how much oxygen we had each used and whether we would have a reserve left at the end of this drill.

Elise was right about one thing: the Archangel units were well integrated. I could almost believe I was flying right alongside them. Each of my data queries came back instantaneously.

“Update, Elise has reached Ayers and reversed his course. Horvath and Carrie are approaching in good order and will be able to help them if needed,” Jelly said.

“Good,” I said. “Elise, are you ready to get some answers?”

“Doing it now, Reaper,” she said, then went silent.

I assumed she was now in a private conversation with Ayers.

 “All we have to do now is wait,” I said.

“What do you hope to gain from this rather unorthodox method of interrogation?” X-37 asked.

“Honestly, I’m not sure. Elise might get him to admit there is a trap or double-cross on Macabre. But it’s more of an insurance policy,” I explained. “When things go wrong, and they will, I want Ayers to turn to Elise and trust her completely.”

“It seems they are off to a good start,” X-37 said.

“Let’s wait and see what Elise says after this training run is completed,” I said, watching Elise, Ayers, Horvath, and Carrie make their way back to the ship for the easy part of this lesson.

We spent the next hour circumventing the ship and practicing very basic skills, some of them in the void and others walking on the exterior of the hull.

Ayers didn’t talk to me but seemed to be listening to Elise as though he trusted her.

* * *

At the end of the day, we were tired but in good spirits. Even Doctor Ayers seemed proud of what he had accomplished. This type of thing was new to him and he was like a proud kid.

I disengaged from the group as soon as I could, drinking a beer in my shower and leaning out to puff on a cigar from time to time as was one of my favorite decompression rituals. X-37 advised me to get some sleep, but I wasn’t tired.

Before long I found myself on the observation deck, and I wasn’t alone. Tom was there reading a tablet. This time, however, he had a slim pair of reading glasses on his nose.

“Vision problems?” I asked, as I poured myself a glass and sat down to stare at the holo display.

“Getting old isn’t fun,” he said.

“You’re not old.”

He smiled. “My eyes are old, and parts of my body. In my head, I’m twenty years younger with all the curiosity of my youth still intact.”

“That’s a good way to be,” I said, meaning every word. Tom had been a loyal and brave friend since the day we met.

“The exodus fleet is getting closer. Every time I look at it, I’m amazed at what we’re doing,” Tom said. “There are so many ships, and very few of them from the same design.”

“None of them are the same except for the stealth carriers,” I said.

“Exactly.” Tom put aside his book and held his own glass but didn’t drink from it.

We watched ships large and small moving in formation toward our location. The view was enhanced, of course, but was as accurate as possible.

The stealth carriers flanked the procession while warships from Wallach took the lead and brought up the rear guard.

There were other vessels that barely looked like they should be moving—like they were a collection of junk we had seen in the Xad system. It was strange to see all these vessels in a star system that didn’t have a comet blazing through the center of their numbers.

“Macabre is a clean system,” Tom said. “It wouldn’t be a bad place if the planet wasn’t so hostile.”

“Agreed,” I said.

“Are you worried about the mission?” Tom asked.

“No more than usual.” I paused, gathering my thoughts. “Have you been watching Henshaw?”

“I was going to mention that,” Tom said. “He’s been reclusive. We normally meet in person or by commlink if we’re on different ships to discuss books we’ve read or theories we would like to investigate about this or that.”

“Why do you think that is?” Like Tom, I sensed something was off.

“The problem is Ayers,” Tom said. “Henshaw doesn’t believe anyone is as smart as he is and now that belief is being challenged. More importantly, the theories that Ayers puts forward are compelling and intriguing on a visceral level.”

“That’s interesting,” I said. “I think I know what you mean, but can you clarify what you’re talking about?”

I was still holding my cigar unlit, and my whiskey glass had barely been touched.

“Humans have marveled at the possibility of there being other life out there for as long as we’ve had the language to ask the question,” Tom said. “We’ve always known there were humans on other planets, and other systems, and maybe beyond that, but what about other forms of sentient life? Ayers passionately believes they exist.”

I put down my glass to light my cigar. Before long I was puffing away to get it going.

 “The moment we find real proof that Ayers knows what he’s talking about, Henshaw will face a crisis of his own scientific paradigms,” Tom said.

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said, letting the cigar hang to one side as I retrieved my whiskey glass but didn’t drink from it.

“I don’t believe it’ll be a problem. If Henshaw is as much like me as I assume he is, we will both be rushing forward with questions and testing theories and learning lots of amazing new things,” Tom said.

“That’s good, I suppose. Not sure I feel great about all of this, but it is what it is,” I said. “I want to get the codes to those cryo-vaults and get my family out of them.”

“That’s all that matters,” Tom said. “That, and finding a new home for everyone in the exodus fleet.”

OceanofPDF.com

12

The next morning, I woke and listened to X-37 updating me on the status of the fleet as I got squared away. Captain Younger, the acting admiral of the fleet, had deployed in the lagrangian point between Macabre and the fourth planet from the local star.

“I’ve also observed that your morning ritual is significantly less focused on your personal security than it was before your final encounter with Vice Admiral Nebs,” X-37 said.

 “Are you saying I’m getting soft?” I asked.  There had been a reason for me to roll out of bed like I was about to be attacked, but I couldn’t remember what it was. I still checked my environment and remained as situationally aware as possible, always understanding that anything could happen.

But I felt safer than I ever had. Why? I thought it was because I belonged with the people of Xad and Wallach and my friends.

I hoped I didn’t let them down.

“Elise and the rest of the team are waiting for you in the launch bay,” X-37 said.

“I’m on my way.”

We loaded into our archangel gear a short time after I arrived. Elise harassed me for being late, but she seemed to be in a good mood. When I had snapped into my Archangel, I viewed the rest of my team: Elise, Path, Horvath, Carrie, and Ayers. Tom stayed on the ship in a command-and-control function, while the Wallach and Xad soldiers we’d borrowed waited as a reaction force if needed.

They didn’t have archangel gear, only the heavy-duty search and rescue equipment provided by Captain Younger. I hope they didn’t have to test it on the harsh surface of Macabre.

“I’m launching the probe,” Tom advised. “Make yourself comfortable but be ready. There may be a narrow window of opportunity once the process begins.”

“Your mechanic is correct,” Ayers said. “The vault will rise to the surface of the lava for a short time, then descend to a cavern far below the surface. That’s the secret to its long-term survival.”

“Good to know. Not that I’m excited about getting trapped miles below the surface of the volcanic planet,” I said.

“You have a way with words,” Elise said. “And you tell me to think before I speak. Can someone else give our pep talk?”

“Fine. How’s this for a pep talk? Everyone get on the shuttle,” I said. “Carrie will pilot, Elise is the back-up pilot.”

 “Why can’t I fly the shuttle?” Elise asked.

“You can’t pilot the ship and be on the away team. If we get to where you’re flying, then something has gone wrong.” I reviewed the plan and checked on Tom regarding the status of the drone.

“It struck the surface and disappeared. Jelly can’t get any further readings on it,” Tom said. “We won’t know if it worked until the vault rises to the surface.”

“Understood,” I said. “We’ll maintain a high orbit in the shuttle until you give us the go ahead.”

 Once we were all loaded up, and we’d completed our safety checks, Carrie flew the shuttle into position. We waited for almost half an hour.

“And… it seems Doctor Ayers was telling the truth,” Tom said. “I’m sending you images of the vault. It’s emerging from the lava field and seems to be opening. I suggest you move quickly.”

I watched the viewscreen, amazed at what I was seeing. The vault was more like a mobile base in the shape of a sphere. There was no instrumentation, and there were no portholes on the lava ship, but once it was on the surface, it began to open.

The first thing that happened was the unfolding of a foundation. My gut instinct was that they were using advanced alloys and shielding technology that rivaled anything found on a starship. How they powered it to maintain a constant defense was a mystery, but there it was.

Once the giant pontoon-boat-like foundation had been put out, the center of it opened up into what looked like a landing strip with retaining walls all around the edges to keep lava from spilling onto the open area.

“That looks big, but I think when we get down there it will feel small,” Elise said

“A good portion of the vault is still below the surface, much like the whole of any oceangoing vessel on a normal planet,” Ayers said. “Time is of the essence. I recommend that you land, get what you came for, and then have us pick you up in the shuttle.”

“Carrie is the only one who’s staying on the shuttle. I will need your expertise, and passwords, when we land,” I said.

“There are no passwords at this point. No one could access it if they didn’t have control of the drone, so further security measures are redundant,” Ayers said.

“Right, and the Union never does anything that’s redundant,” I said.

Elise moved closer to Ayers, the helmet of her archangel armor open since we were still on the shuttle. “There aren’t any surprises down there, are there?”

Ayers looked away embarrassed. He covered his mistake, but we all saw what had transpired.

“There’s something else, isn’t there, Doctor Ayers?” Elise asked. “You wouldn’t want us to get hurt, would you?”

Eventually, Ayers looked her in the eyes. “No one would’ve been hurt. You just wouldn’t have been able to get inside. You would’ve returned to the shuttle and we would’ve left.”

“Without the codes to save my family?” I asked, keeping my voice as dry and sharp as a blade.

“There is a way to retrieve the contents of the vault without going inside. You merely need access to the control panel, and I would’ve walked you through it remotely,” Ayers said. “That’s still an option if you’re interested.”

I shook my head, leaning toward him. “We came all this way, so we might as well have it all.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.” He closed his archangel helmet.  “We might as well do this.”

I waited until I was sure the doctor didn’t have any other surprises to hit us with, then gave Carrie the signal. “Take us down. The moment we’re off the ship, get some altitude. I don’t want the shuttle damaged by the environment.”

“Can-do, Reaper,” Carrie said. Moments later, we were shooting down to the upper atmosphere.

“Doctor, how are you going to open the vault?” Elise asked.

Ayers hesitated, but then spilled it. “The important parts of the vault can only be accessed with my DNA or the DNA of Nebs.”

I leaned back, regarding the scene with satisfaction. “When I’m right, I’m right.”

“You didn’t know it would require my DNA,” Ayers countered.

“I knew it would be something.”

 “We are on final approach,” Carrie said. “Be ready to deploy. Touching down in five, four, three, two, one, now.”

The ramp at the back of the shuttle opened, and I saw nothing but heat waves and splashing lava for a few seconds. The shuttle rotated until the deck of the Union lava ship was visible.

I went first, jumping down and doing a quick check for traps or other dangers.

“All clear. This place has one door in the center of the deck,” I said. “Bring Ayers and let’s get this done.”

“On the way,” Elise said.

Moments later, Elise and Horvath escorted Doctor Ayers down the shuttle ramp. The moment they were clear, Carrie lifted off and climbed for altitude.

I leaned close to the door, examining the nearly invisible seam around the edges, then searched for a locking mechanism. The entrance was barely recognizable as a door despite being in the center of the dome-shaped vault. There was no way I was getting in this one without help.

The deck of the Union facility shifted sideways, sliding across some change in the lava sea around us. Horvath and Ayers stumbled, but Elise was there to balance them, using one hand to steady the Wallach soldier and pick up the scientists where he had fallen to one knee with the other.

Below the ash-gray clouds above us, the shuttle circled at an altitude safe from a shoulder-fired surface-to-air rocket. This gave me more insight into Carrie as a soldier. She was following her training, most likely. Being reliable and brave was important to the men and women of Wallach.

Elise and the others gathered around me. “Made it,” she said.

“Ayers, you’re up. Get this door open,” I said.

He hesitated for a count of three, nodded, and stepped close to the portal. Seconds later he had located a small pinhole off to one side that I wouldn’t have found even if I’d known what to look for.

“What are you waiting for?” I asked. “Every second we stand here is dangerous. Open the door.”

He looked embarrassed. “I need a small knife or a needle.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

“I’m not going to pick the lock, Reaper. I need to cut myself. This will operate on my DNA,” he said.

Horvath pulled a long combat knife from the leg of his Archangel armor. Doctor Ayers flinched even though he was safe in his own gear.

“That seems excessive. I was hoping somebody had a small tool I could use to prick my finger,” Ayers said, removing his gauntlets.

“When did we teach him to take those off? They are triple-sealed to maintain ballistic integrity, protection from the environment, and to maintain internal temperatures,” Elise asked on our private channel. “Huge pain in the backside to deal with.”

“Quickly please,” Ayers said. “You wouldn’t believe how hot the air is.”

X-37 answered. “He was not instructed and should not have any skill at using the gear. My analysis suggests that it is a good thing we took the weapons off of his unit. Doctor Ayers has been holding back. He is trying to hustle us, Reaper Cain.”

I stepped forward, not wanting the man to realize we detected another layer of his dishonesty, then fished a small cigar knife from the storage compartment in my Archangel armor. “Use this, but I’ll need it back. Not that I’m excited about trimming a cigar with something you bled on.”

“All it took was a mission to Macabre for us to learn what makes a Reaper squeamish,” Ayers said. He accepted the knife, drew a small line across one of his fingertips, and milked the wound to produce a bead of blood. Next, he pushed it against the pinhole, and we all watched the blood disappear.

Fewer than twenty meters from the edge of the platform, lava geysered into the air without warning. It shot a hundred meters above us then fell back toward the planet, creating an arc over the Union lava ship. Glowing red and gold mist rained down on us.

Ayers put back on the Archangel gauntlets so quickly it seemed like he had never taken them off. Despite the soft look of the superheated magma, when it struck my helmet it sounded like fist-sized hail.

The door to the wall started to open but stopped when the melted rock splattered across its surface.

“What the hell?” I grunted.

“It’s protecting itself,” Ayers said. “The vault wouldn’t survive long in this environment if we hadn’t designed it well. Be patient and it will open. It knows I’m here.”

“Creepy.” Elise made a sound over the commlink Ayers couldn’t hear.

Unaware of our opinions, Ayers composed himself.

“Doctor Ayers seems extraordinarily calm given our prior observations of his behavior,” X-37 said.

“Yeah. I think you’re right. He’s trying to pull a fast one,” I said.

“My analyses are usually accurate,” X-37 said. “I should add that it is equally likely that he is unstable and could revert back to any number of behavioral templates at any time.”

“That doesn’t make me feel good,” I said, then switched to the main channel. “I’ll go first. Elise, bring up the rear. Horvath, stay at the door to make sure it doesn’t close.”

“How am I going to do that?” Horvath asked.

“You’ll figure something out.” I moved into the small space and began searching it with the enhanced power of the Archangel optics but also my cybernetic eye. X-37 processed images as fast as possible, giving me concise updates as I moved.

“There are seven steep stairwells circumventing the interior, suggesting the vault can operate upside-down if needed. Lighting is set to emergency power levels. I’m increasing your optical sensitivity. Motion detection is null, but please remain vigilant, Reaper Cain.”

I took a stairwell descending along the wall into the bowels of the vault. It was only one room lit by red, low power emergency lighting.

“Freaky,” Elise said. “Not on my list of places to visit often.”

The floor shifted. It was like being on an ocean-going vessel but more subdued because of the consistency of what we were floating on. I heard the lava ship bump against something large.

“What was that, Ayers?” I demanded.

“Not everything remains molten when exposed to the surface atmosphere. Everything is continually melting and solidifying,” he said.

Something rocked the entire ship to one side, forcing us all to fight to stay on our feet.

“We are safe for now,” Ayers said. “The ship was made to withstand this environment. That was another geyser.”

“Where are the codes?” I asked.

Ayers led me to one side of the vault where there were several small workstations. “I will need to disconnect these properly and transfer data to a single unit, then we can take it with us. Once we are back on your ship, the codes will be easy to retrieve with or without me. However, I recommend you don’t leave me here or kill me even though my value will diminish once you have these in your possession.”

OceanofPDF.com

13

“Get to work, Ayers.” I watched him. On one hand, I was paranoid and untrusting of people like Ayers. On the other hand, I was usually right. There was no way I would let him get me or my friends killed while he tried to escape with the codes.

“Reaper,” Elise said from another section of the room. There shouldn’t be any place to hide, but the multiple staircases and ladders leading down into the center gave it something that passed for corners and the lighting was minimal.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I’m fine, I guess,” Elise answered. “You need to see this.”

“Horvath, watch Ayers. And I mean watch him like you don’t trust him,” I said.

The Wallach soldier grunted as he replaced me as Ayers’s guard. “I don’t trust him.”

Elise stood over a dark shape that had to be a body—a large, motionless body.

“Who did they leave behind? A technician who couldn’t take the isolation?” I asked. “A guard? Or just someone who pissed off Nebs and Ayers and got left here to pay the ultimate price.”

Elise shook her head as she answered. “I don’t think this is any of those things.”

I moved around Elise and stared down at a monster. The body had started off as a human, I thought. The more I studied it, the less sure I was. “It looks mummified. There aren’t any bugs or animals to speed the decomposition.”

“Keep an eye on Horvath and Ayers,” I repeated, then knelt next to the corpse. The pre-mortem color of the skin was difficult to determine. Post-mortem, it looked charcoal blue with a striped camouflage pattern. Decomposition had withered the tissue underneath the skin and possibly changed its overall effect, but I didn’t know what it had looked like before it died to be sure.

The head was too large, and I had an uneasy suspicion there were a lot of teeth in the mouth. Its lips had drawn back, showing a preview of the horror within.

“What’s wrong with its jaw?” Elise sounded nervous and I noticed she was dividing her attention between the dead creature and Doctor Ayers.

“I don’t think it’s hinged like a human mandible. I read a book during my isolation in Dreadmax; it was a fairytale about Earth, but it mentioned an animal called a snake that could swallow its prey whole. Maybe that is what this is.” I said. “X, are you getting all of this? Include Elise in your answer but leave Horvath out of it. I need him to focus on his job.”

“The structure of the jawline in the oversized mouth suggests that this humanoid had been able to take very large bites—or possibly swallow three or four kilos of organic material at once. The neck, which seems to have a tougher exterior than a human would, is also enlarged,” X-37 explained.

“You’re saying this thing has bad table manners,” I said.

“Unknown, Reaper Cain. I can conclude it is capable of such an action, but have no way to verify that is its preferred method to consume calories,” X-37 said.

“I’m going to bring it back with us,” I said. “Assuming it doesn’t fall to pieces when I pick it up.”

“Doctor Ayers has not concluded his data recovery efforts,” X-37 advised. “So you have time to examine the arms of this thing more closely.”

I squinted at the arms, leaning closer to see what my limited artificial intelligence had observed. What I found on the left arm were cable-like tentacles lying in a pool of putrid slime.

That this thing’s left arm differed from its right set me off balance. It wasn’t cybernetic, but for a second, I felt a strange kinship with it. It was a freak that had a mass of spike-tipped tentacles on its left arm. On instinct, I checked the dead creature’s left eye that found both of its eyes to be sunken and mostly decomposed.

“This thing is big,” I said. “I can lift it with my armor, but it will be awkward.”

“Please examine the right arm,” X-37 said.

I shifted my attention and saw what my LAI was looking for. The right arm had grooved slots from wrist to elbow where the tips of the organic spike-tentacles protruded. “Wow, X, it looks like the death tentacles could extend themselves—if it was alive.”

“I hope this is the only one,” Elise said. “It looks mean.”

“That’s an understatement,” I said. “Ayers, are you about done?”

“I have transferred all the codes into one unit that will be easier to carry back to the shuttle,” he said.

“Great, let’s get out of here,” I said, then hefted the corpse onto my shoulder. “Do you know who this freak is?”

“No, not precisely,” Ayers said, his voice so quiet I barely understood him even with the Archangel comms gear. “Nebs was looking for test subject 14B before we left Macabre. I would be very curious to know how he was left behind.”

“Ayers, there are a lot of things about this place that raise questions,” I said. “Elise, take point. Get Carrie down here with that shuttle.”

* * *

Elise paused in the doorway, contacting Carrie before stepping out onto the deck of the lava ship. “We’re ready for pick up. Let’s time it so there’s as little exposure as possible. I’m not excited about getting sprayed with molten rock again.”

The outside of her armor, and ours, was pockmarked with heat damage. On one section of her back, there was damage all the way down to the gold surface.

“I’m inbound,” Carrie advised. “Ninety seconds.”

A countdown timer appeared in all of our Archangel HUDs Elise waited for fifteen seconds, then led us out onto the deck. The moment we started to move, the deck came apart under our feet.

The shuttle touched down as Elise sprinted toward it. Just behind her, the deck split as though it had been designed to self-destruct. Horvath grabbed Ayers and pulled him back, saving him from a rather toasty death.

Sections of the lava ship plummeted downward, spraying red waves into the air. Horvath and I shielded Ayers with our armor. The add-on layers sizzled and burned as more and more of the magma splashed across us. All of us were struggling to maintain our feet and not slide off the tilting deck.

“Jump, Ayers,” I said, “and don’t tell me you don’t know how.”

His voice caught when he tried to speak. “You’re right. I was lying. I’m skilled in the Archangel armor. Nebs made me learn because he thought I might need it someday. But I still can’t jump.”

“Now is not the time for games!” I growled.

“I’m scared! Jumping over that is impossible!”

“Godsdammit!” I dropped the freakish corpse I was carrying and grabbed Ayers by one arm. “Horvath, get the other. We’ll have to jump with him between us. Ayers, I know you’re shitting your pants but try to jump when we do. All this extra protection we covered ourselves with will only make dying longer and more miserable if we fall in.”

“I… I… I…” Ayers stammered.

“I’m ready, Reaper,” Horvath said.

“On three. One, two, three, jump!” I leaped over the gap, holding Ayers as tightly as I could. The three of us sprang into the air, and for a second, it felt like we would make it.

I cursed, twisting in mid-flight, and shoved Ayers and Horvath as hard as I could. The effect was minimal because I had nothing to push off of, but it was just enough to get them onto the deck where the shuttle had touched down.

They landed in a heap while I hit the edge, smashing the armor so hard it knocked the wind out of me, and fell back.

“Reaper!” Elise screamed, already leaping toward me with a tow cable in one hand while Horvath and Ayers were tumbling across the rocking deck of the lava ship.

I hit the surface of the lava. All of my sensors went blank.

“You have forty-five seconds before the Archangel armor loses integrity,” X-37 said. “Please tread water.”

“I’m not in water, X!”

Something grabbed me and hauled me upward. Bubbling lava held onto my legs, nearly dragging me back down.

Lights and images on my HUD flickered and popped. The Archangel armor was trying to reboot, fighting for survival as hard as I was. When I heard Elise shouting at me, half of the words were lost, and she sounded like she was far away.

“Can you… can you at least try to climb out of that mess? My servos are overloading. Why are you so big?” she grunted, her words barely understandable. Apparently, I was heavy even with the added strength of her Archangel gear.

“I’m doing my best!” I snapped. “Why don’t you try swimming in lava. It’s harder than it looks.”

Elise started laughing so hard I thought she might be crying inside of her helmet. “You’re such a jerk!”

“Less talking and more pulling me out of the fire,” I said.

I was halfway out when Horvath came to help. After what seemed like hours but was only a handful of seconds, the three of us tumbled onto the surface between the edge and the shuttle ramp.

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” Carrie shouted.

I heard Ayers in the background yelling at her to leave us.

“I really don’t like that guy,” Elise said, panting the words as we all leaned on our knees to catch our breath.

“Me neither,” I said. “But you still have to be nice to him. I doubt this is the last secret he’s hidden from us.”

We staggered up the ramp and onto the shuttle, and Carrie took off. I grabbed Ayers and slammed him into his seat.

“You nearly got us killed.”

“I thought Reapers knew what they were doing. You can’t blame your incompetence on me,” Ayers said.

Elise pulled me back and pointed at a bench along the wall. “Sit down, Reaper. Buckle in. Let’s just get back to the Jellybird before you try to kill him.”

I complied, glad she had intervened. Turning away, I spoke with X-37 privately. “Can we never do that again, X?”

“I will enter your desire to avoid lava fields in my database,” X-37 said as I took my seat and strapped in for the ride back to the Jellybird.

OceanofPDF.com

14

The return trip to the Bright Lance was uneventful. I took a nap right on the bridge of the Jellybird, too tired to smoke a cigar first or express how I truly felt about what Ayers tried to do to us.

Elise volunteered to guard the man but mentioned privately she had no intention of talking to him. She wasn’t in the mood.

As for Doctor Ayers, we had to coerce him out of his Archangel armor. After that, he sat trembling and refused to look anyone in the eyes. I wasn’t sure if he was traumatized by his near-death experience or just worried about what we were going to do to him.

When I awoke, I saw a view of the mad, alien obsessed scientist on the holo view, and I realized he was muttering to himself and counting on his fingers.

“X, is the hotshot genetic scientist actually counting on his fingers?”

“That is correct, Reaper Cain. He has not slept since we put him back in his cell. My analysis suggests it is more of a nervous tick than something he needs to do, but without mind reading abilities, I can’t be sure,” X-37 said.

“Maybe it’s weird, but I feel sorry for him,” I said.

“Why would that be weird?” X-37 asked. “I am honestly curious. Clarification would assist me in further communication with you and other biological life-forms.”

“You know it creeps me out when you call me a biological life-form,” I said.

My limited artificial intelligence, securely interwoven into my nerve-ware, didn’t sound repentant. “It is a factual statement. Are you going to answer the question, or should I mark it for the research on my part?”

“Because he nearly got us killed,” I said. “That’s why it’s weird. I should be punching him in the face, but I feel sorry for him instead. The man has made his own choices, but I don’t think any of them were easy.”

Elise, Tom, Path, and Horvath gathered around but kept a respectful distance.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked.

“We have the codes to the cryo- pods,” Elise said. “You’ll be able to see your mother and sister as soon as we get back to the Bright Lance.”

At a loss for words, I nodded then looked at the floor.

“We want to be with you, or at least in the room,” Elise said.

“What do you think I’m going to do? Freak out?” I asked, not really knowing what I was even saying. “I’m sorry. Of course I want you all there.”

“We are approaching the Bright Lance now,” Jelly said. “Shall I advise Carrie to prepare the shuttle?”

“That would be great, Jelly,” I said, as I stood and stretched my arms above my head. “We’re taking Ayers with us to the Bright Lance. I promised Captain Younger he would be returned to their brig.”

“That’s a good idea. It will be more secure,” Tom said.

“Let’s do an equipment check, gather up Ayers, and load onto the shuttle,” I said.

My team went to work with efficiency that only came when people trusted each other and knew each other’s idiosyncrasies. This semi-random collection of people was starting to function as well as a well-trained spec ops unit. Different, but maybe better in all the ways that counted.

* * *

The ride to the Bright Lance felt like a lifetime. I remembered scenes from my childhood, wondered random things like what my mother and sister would think of my new friends, and worried about what might go wrong.

The Lady Faith was docked in the limited space of the Bright Lance’s flight deck. X-37 advised that Henshaw was waiting for us in the cryo-pod wing of the ship hospital and that Bug was ingratiating himself with the ship’s internal security teams.

“I almost wish I had time to see that,” I said.

“The security personnel of this ship, especially those individuals in the camera rooms, have taken him on as a type of mascot,” X-37 said. “They greet him warmly, cheering and calling out his name whenever he appears. It is a uniquely human behavior, I think.”

“Keep an eye on the kid. I’m glad he has friends, but it won’t be long before he gets himself into trouble,” I said. “Will this make his job easier?”

“No,” X-37 said. “While he has better access to surveillance cameras, his new friends are always interested in what he is doing, making his surveillance of Ayers harder to keep a secret. My analysis suggests Bug should ask for their help instead of hide his objectives.”

“We don’t know if Ayers has confederates on the ship, but you’re right. Start doing background checks on the security personnel who have befriended Bug,” I said.

“Of course, Reaper Cain.”

We removed Ayers from the shuttle. He said nothing, even when Elise tried to talk to him. As soon as we were on the Bright Lance, ship security helped us escort Ayers to the brig where he was locked down.

I pulled aside the shift supervisor. “Keep an eye on him and notify me if he starts saying or doing anything crazy.”

“Yes, sir,” the man said. “Are you going to the celebration? We heard the mission to Macabre was successful. A buddy of mine says the holo footage is amazing. It’s an honor to have you with us, Reaper Cain.”

“Thank you, Sergeant Uluru.” I liked the sergeant but signaled X-37 to check him out. Over-friendliness always raised my suspicion. At some point, we had to trust the crew of the Bright Lance. Deciding on when that some point was could be tricky.

“Sergeant Uluru is a Xad citizen with an excellent record. None of the Union turncoats have been allowed near the brig,” X-37 said for my team only. “The doctor will be unable to cause trouble while locked down.”

We moved away from other security teams and entered the main concourse that would eventually lead us to the hospital level.

“What about friends and girlfriends?” I asked. “Uluru might be solid, but what about his private life. Be sure to check his finances.”

“Finances are irrelevant in the exodus fleet. Everyone is working together to survive,” X-37 said.

“Humans always have something to trade, so finances are always an issue. I learned that in prison. Debt kills. Never forget it, X. That’s Reaper school 101.” Walking without a hundred pounds of powered armor encasing me was a nice change. “Keep me updated. It seems like we’re missing something with Ayers.”

“Of course, Reaper Cain.”

“What’s going on, Reaper,” Elise asked, looking back toward the brig. “You’re weirding me out.”

“I’m checking the boxes, making sure we’re not trusting others too much,” I said.

“Oh, right. Trust is a bad thing. I forgot.” Elise rolled her eyes away from me, which made me chuckle. “They are professionals, Reaper.”

“I’ve completed the preliminary background check of Sergeant Uluru of Xad, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“So fast and invasive,” Elise said.

“I’m unsure if that is a complement, Elise,” X-37 said, then continued without missing a beat. “Sergeant Uluru has a girlfriend formerly loyal to the Union.”

“What did I tell you?” I asked.

“Really, Reaper? The guy can’t have a life?” Elise asked.

“Sure, but not while he is guarding a high value prisoner,” I said. “Send the report to Captain Younger and request Uluru be removed from the guard detail.”

“Right away, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

My friends led me toward the hospital and the cryo-pod wing. None of us spoke. Even X-37 was quiet.

A pair of guards admitted us into the cryo-pod area that consisted of a nexus point in several hallways radiating into the medical laboratories.

Henshaw was waiting. Technicians and doctors who Captain Younger had assured me were the best she had also waited to assist if needed. Younger and a pair of junior officers stood back respectfully.

I approached the Xad officer who was currently in charge of the entire combined fleet but who had made time to be here.

“Excellent work on Macabre,” she said. “I’ve watched the holo several times myself. That jump was amazing.” She smiled at Elise. “And that was some quick thinking. It looked like you were already moving when disaster struck.”

“Thank you, Captain Younger,” Elise said.

“Don’t let me or my people get in your way,” Younger said. “Everyone here is at your disposal, but I understand you will want some privacy. My XO informed me you have concerns about the security team in the brig. We will look into it.”

“Thank you, Captain,” I said. “Or should I call you Admiral?”

“We’ve been discussing terminology, but since it’s a rotating position, there have been a few differences of opinion,” she said. “Enough about politics and organizational charts. Go to your family.”

I nodded, then approached the hallway to the room where my mother and sister waited. Elise was behind me, then Tom and Henshaw and the ship’s doctor, Major Hubert Moore, followed.

“How does this work, X?” I asked.

“I took the liberty of contacting Tom and James Henshaw,” X-37 said. “They have reviewed all the protocols and understand the codes. I’ve also worked with AI Mavis and Major Moore. But once we decide to awaken your mother and sister, I will walk you through the progress so you can do it yourself.”

“Okay.” I entered the room. My friends loitered to the door, watching me.

Everything was in order, the facility perfectly clean and well lit. X-37 recommended dimming the lights slightly for when they awoke, so we made that happen. I pulled a chair close to my mother’s cryo- pod and just sat there for a long time. My friends waited patiently.

“Are you certain you’re ready to do this, Reaper Cain?” X-37 said. “Your biometrics are remarkably calm given the weight of this moment. I must remind you that there is no rush to awaken them. Their health will not be affected by another day if you need to take some time.”

I stood, picked up the tablet with her medical information on it, and hesitated. Olivia Cain. The screen also gave her height, weight, and other biometrics. She was a tall woman but according to the tablet, her weight was at a bare minimum after so long in the cryo-pod.

“I thought these things were meant to preserve people,” I muttered. “She looks starved.”

“That is correct, Reaper Cain. Apparently, Nebs or his staff adjusted the settings for minimal life support in an effort to conserve all possible resources for a long tour in unknown regions of space,” X-37 said.

“I really wish I could kill that guy twice.” I reviewed each step of the revival process.

When I entered the code, I used more care and deliberation than I had in anything I’d ever done. A message flashed along the cryo-pod’s screen. Revival sequence in progress.

“Everything seems to be working,” X-37 said. “Mavis sends her best wishes and wants to assure you that a significant portion of her processing power has been dedicated to making sure this is a safe and successful procedure.”

The first thing that changed was my ability to see through the observation window. Before long, it was like there was no glass between us. My mother’s strong face looked more severe than I remembered because her hair was pulled back and her expression was frozen despite the readout claiming she was now in a normal state of sleep.

I couldn’t stop looking at her hair. In my memory, it had always been a darker version of auburn with streaks of silver. Now it was like liquid mercury.

“The process is intended to be slow and gentle,” X-37 said.

“I know, X. I read the manual several times in case you forgot,” I said.

“It is unlikely that I would forget such a momentous occurrence. You really should read more, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

Gases vented slowly from the side of the long tube. I heard them more than I saw them. My sense of time was probably distorted.

When my mother opened her eyes and saw me, she smiled with obvious effort.

“She won’t be able to talk, Reaper Cain. It’s important to ease her back into normality. Rushing the process could damage her vocal cords,” X-37 said.

“I know, X.” I opened the lid and helped my mother to sit up. She hugged me weakly, her head on my shoulder and her arms feeling far too thin.

“Hal,” she whispered.

“Don’t say anything, mother,” I said softly, holding her like she might vanish if I looked away even for a second. “There will be time for that. Don’t strain your voice.”

“I knew you would find us,” she whispered, her voice sounding harsh from long disuse.

Rocking her gently, I didn’t know what to say.

“One last thing, and then I will take your advice,” she said. “Your sister will be angry when you wake her up.”

“Okay, mother. You need to rest.”

We both started laughing, her voice rough and beautiful at the same time. The more we tried to stop, the worse it was. My friends were having similar issues near the doorway, but Elise, I noticed, had tears in her eyes.

* * *

We repeated the process after my mother drifted into a normal sleep. Her warning didn’t bother me. Of course Hannah would be angry—she was part of the Cain family, after all, and we all had tempers.

“There must be a reason your mother made the considerable effort to warn you,” X-37 said. “She understands the danger of straining vocal cords that haven’t been used for months. Please be careful, Reaper Cain.”

Hannah’s hair was much shorter than I remembered, barely reaching the nape of her neck. When she’d been a teenager, it had tumbled down her back in waves, often highlighted with whatever color suited her mood. As a young woman in her twenties, it had been so rich that it almost seemed magical. Unlike my mother’s, whatever Nebs had done to them hadn’t changed its color.

“Why is her hair so short?” I asked.

Mavis surprised me by answering. “She was in the habit of shaving her head bald before Nebs resorted to the cryo-pods to control her. The vice admiral complemented her hair. She responded by taking a razor to her scalp.”

“That sounds like Hannah,” I said.

She was nearly as thin as my mother but had been more athletic and robust before getting put to sleep. Like me, both women were tall and athletic. Hannah hadn’t always liked being taller and stronger than the boys her age. I wondered if that was still true.

When she awoke, she was instantly alert. Her ice green eyes focused on me like she was sighting a weapon. She touched her throat to indicate she couldn’t speak yet.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I already woke up mom and I know how hard it is for you to talk right now. I think I can hold up the entire conversation.”

She laughed silently and it looked like it hurt.

I joined her, fighting back tears. “It’s good to see you, sis. I was warned you would be angry.”

Her response was hard to interpret because she was still struggling to restrain her mirth. A mixture of emotions played across her face—everything from a type of laughter that only her big brother could evoke to an underlying rage at her situation.

“I killed the fuck out of Nebs.” My voice caught, surprising me. Killing wasn’t a problem for me but saving my mother and sister made it different, more personal and dangerous, even though I’d already done the deed.

“Good. Help me out of this thing. I hate being in here.”

X-37 warned me it was too soon to move her, but I knew there wasn’t a choice. In most ways, she was as different from me as was humanly possible, but there were certain personality traits we shared. Being stubborn was right at the top of the list.

I took her hand and pulled her upright. We didn’t hug. Now didn’t seem like the time even though we had all been a hug friendly family before everything went wrong on Boyer 5.

“Your biometrics are very strange, Reaper Cain.”

How did I explain emotion to my LAI? It couldn’t be done with hand signals and I didn’t want to ruin the moment with my sister.

“Reaper Cain, please respond or I will be forced to call Doctor Moore,” X-37 said.

My heart was beating the inside of my chest, tears ran down my face, and my hands were shaking like I was a scared kid. “I need to talk to my LAI, Hannah.”

“Can I get out of this thing first?” Her words were barely a whisper and I thought pain was causing her to sweat. She wasn’t looking at me; which saved me the embarrassment of crying like this.

“Let me help you.” I held her firmly by one arm and a shoulder, ready to catch her head if she flopped backward. “Don’t call the doctor, X. I’ll explain later.”

“Are you experiencing happiness, Reaper Cain?”

“Yeah, X. That’s all this is.”

One side of the pod folded away. She swung out her legs and sat with her hands on her knees trying to get her bearings. It looked like she was in pain, every muscle cramping against the sudden movement.

“You should distract her by giving her an update on the situation,” X-37 said.

I wanted to tell my limited artificial intelligence that she wasn’t a commando, but X was mostly right. I was sure she wanted to know what was going on.

“My friends helped me storm the Dark Lance and take it from the vice admiral. They call it the Bright Lance now. Some of the Union soldiers and crewmen switched sides.”

“Don’t… trust the officers.” Hannah was still looking at the floor as she wrestled with her discomfort.

“Most of them died. Nebs did something to their cardiovascular systems—some kind of dead man switch that went off when we discovered the secret vault where they hide their research,” I said.

Hannah went pale at the mention of the vault. She looked at me with haunted eyes but said nothing.

“We can get to that stuff later,” I said. “I want you to meet my friends.”

OceanofPDF.com

15

It was one of those days that didn’t seem to end. Both my mother and my sister had liked my friends, smiling at the exaggerated stories they told about me. Neither of them could keep their voices so they sipped hot tea and tried not to strain themselves laughing.

If I’d been worried about them fitting in, it had been a misplaced concern. The reunion quickly became as festive as was possible in a medical research facility.

The exception was Rejon. He’d arrived after about the first half an hour and loitered on the fringes of our impromptu gathering. I introduced him, of course, and he was exceptionally polite.

But I could tell his mind was elsewhere.

When Doctor Moore finally told us enough was enough and that his patients needed to rest, we dispersed. I took Rejon aside and confronted him.

“What’s on your mind, Rejon?”

“I’m glad that you are reunited with your family. If I have ruined it in any way, I apologize,” he said.

“Don’t worry about it.”

He shifted, clearly choosing his words carefully, and faced me with a haunted expression. “I’ve been watching the video of your mission to Macabre. What we show the crews of all the ships focuses on the dramatic leap across the lava and flying away on the shuttle with the prize in hand.”

“But that’s not what’s bothering you,” I said.

“I’m wondering what type of creature you found inside the lava ship,” Rejon said.

My blood ran cold. I’d forced my thoughts away from that particular discovery. “I need to watch the video to see how it appeared to everyone else. X, has Captain Younger edited the video display to the fleet?”

“She has not, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “Transparency of government is a fundamental principle of both Wallach and Xad. It is one of the things that confirms my theory of them having once been part of the same society.”

“Great.” One disaster after another grew in my imagination.

“Why would this be a problem, Reaper?” Rejon asked.

“We don’t know much about the creature I found in the lava ship vault. There are probably a hundred rumors rippling through the fleet right now.” I wondered if I was overreacting, but I could imagine the horror stories that were growing each time someone discussed the creature. The monster had spiked tentacles that looked ready to catch children and eat them in one bite.

Rejon looked at his feet. “I’ve already received reports of such stories. Fortunately, the people of Wallach and Xad have been hungering for stories of heroism and good news for a long time. So far, most have focused on the successes of the mission.”

“I think it’s time to check out the vault,” I said. “Let’s walk. We’re going to reveal the Bright Lance’s secret.”

“I suggest you include Captain Younger in this revelation,” X-37 said.

My limited artificial intelligence wasn’t wrong. I also knew better than to rush to failure. “Let’s get the whole team on this. Elise and Path for security, Tom and Henshaw for technical advice, and Younger. Who she brings is up to her, but I suggest it’s a small group.”

“I would like to see this for myself before exposing my own people,” Rejon said. Despite his lanky spacer’s frame, he was shorter than me and had to stride quickly to keep up. “I would recommend that President Coronas at least be informed of what we’re doing, however.”

“Good call.” I was feeling awake and energized if not exactly refreshed from the day’s events. “X, make sure Path and Elise are geared up in their archangel units. And make sure Path understands that’s an order. He may not like the power the AA gives him, but we need him ready to kill the hell out of something.”

“Ordering your friends about as though they are Union soldiers is unnecessary and rude,” X-37 privately said.

I gave my LAI a nonverbal signal suggesting he understood what I meant and should rephrase my message appropriately.

The messages went out over secure commlinks, and before long we met at the Bright Lance vault. Access to the area was guarded by Xad and Wallach soldiers. None of the Union turncoats were allowed on this level, whether inside or outside the restricted area.

Nervous energy rippled through our group. I took Younger and Rejon aside. “I don’t know what we’re going to find. To be honest, I had hoped to take it slow until rumors started spreading to the ship.”

“It’s best we find out sooner rather than later,” Younger said. “If there are going to be rumors, I want to be informed. I would hate to tell people something isn’t true, and then find out I was wrong. That would look as though I was lying to my people, and that is a sin not tolerated among our people.”

“It is much the same with the people of Xad,” Rejon said.

“If no one has any objections, it’s time to see what’s inside,” I said.

Path and Elise flanked me as I approached the most secret section of the ship with codes that could change everything for us. And probably not for the better.

“I must remind you that leaving that door sealed could be the best option,” X-37 said to me and the group. “I understand this is nearly impossible. Curiosity is a nearly unstoppable force for you and your friends.”

“You’ve got that right, X,” I said. Nervous chuckles spread through our group. Except for Path, of course. He was deep into his pre-fight calm. The man could invoke his meditative practices at will and be ready to fight in an optimal state at a moment’s notice.

“Does anyone want to back out?” I asked.

No one answered.

Nodding, I approached the vault door and activated the access panel. There was a place for a palm print and a DNA reader, which probably meant I could bring Ayers down here and prick his finger for a little bit of blood to get in if I had to. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking, X?”

“Unknown, Reaper Cain, but in light of recent events, it seems we might have to use DNA from Ayers to access this area if the code Ayers gave us is false,” X-37 said. “My review and analysis of your many interrogations with the man suggests that only Nebs had complete access to Union ships. It is probable that Ayers added a way to access the vault on Macabre without the vice admiral knowing. On the ship, however, it is much different. The captain is the king and admirals are their deities.”

“That is an interesting way to look at it,” Captain Younger said, not sounding entirely pleased. “We will need to study Union psychology to avoid being caught unaware of such mental paradigms.”

“You’re absolutely right,” I said. “There are going to be some growing pains as we learn to live together. I’m going to use the codes now.”

Everyone waited, completely focused on the vault door and what I was doing.

I entered the code from memory even though X-37 offered to put them on my projected HUD. Touching each number on the pad deliberately, I regulated my breathing and tried to be as ready as Path was for a fight or whatever happened when the door opened. It was unlikely there were any living guards inside, but there could be traps just waiting to go off in my Reaper face.

I pressed the last button. A light blinked three times, slow enough to almost seem broken, and numbers began counting down from ten.

“Well now isn’t that dramatic,” Elise said with attitude.

“Elise and I should stand in front of the opening,” Path said. “If there is some sort of countermeasure, our armor will withstand it better than your body, Reaper.”

I let my friends step in front of me. The Archangel armor gleamed where it hadn’t been marked by molten lava that had breached the external layers we used on the mission to Macabre.

The door slid open revealing a dark chamber that stretched out farther than I had anticipated. “X, adjust my optics. I want to see everything. No surprises.”

“My thoughts exactly, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “I’m detecting a line of cryo-pods similar to those used to imprison your family over the last several months.”

“Elise, Path, and I will clear the room,” I said. “Tom you have the codes to open the door if it closes behind us.”

We moved quickly but not too fast. I checked between each cryo-pod and looked for doors, finding none. When nothing exploded and no one attacked us, I gave the all clear for the rest of the group to enter.

“There are thirty-six life support units, divided into three distinct groups,” X-37 said.

“Yeah, thanks, X.” I walked from one end of the room to the other. “Just give me a second to take this in.”

The first row contained a dozen men and women who seemed normal except for their size and muscularity. Each was a commander’s dream of the perfect soldier: tall, broad shouldered, and well developed. Someone had shaved their heads before they were put to sleep, but even in this state there were some biological changes. I made a mental note to ask X-37 and my smart friends about that, because something seemed off.

Or maybe they had been in stasis much longer than my mother and sister. Why were they strong and robust when it seemed these super soldiers were just lying around growing muscle? The answer, when I thought about it, was fairly obvious.

Nebs had restricted calories to my family’s pods, and to the other people he had chosen to imprison. These people were weapons, volunteers that would be combat ready soon after being awoken. Or knowing Nebs, maybe they were volun-told to submit to Ayers’ lunacy.

I paused at the last subject, looking down into the face of Commander Briggs. It took me a second to recognize him. He was younger somehow. He’d always had buzz cut hair, but it had been thick. Now he was bald, his skin a shade of blue gray that made me think of dead things.

Elise walked up behind me. I casually shifted my stance to divert her attention. This was a complication I needed to face on my own, after I thought about it, and maybe after I threw down a few glasses of whiskey.

The next row changed my hypotheses significantly. These men and women had spiked tentacles growing out of their arms. The monstrous additions were fully extended, frozen in the act of coiling around their limbs from wrists to shoulders, looking like an alien cocoon of strangeness.

Their heads were oversized and their faces grotesque. One had its mouth slightly open revealing rows of teeth. Each of these twelve had different skin tones, apparently changing at a different rate depending on their individual biology.

They were even larger than the first group, nearly filling up the oversized cryo-pods.

The third group were like nothing I’d ever seen, not even the corpse in the lava ship vault on Macabre.

Every one of the dozen monsters filled their pods, faces pressed to the glass and tentacles smashed into all the open spaces. Something was different, so I leaned close to allow X-37 a better view.

“Boo!” Elise shouted, instantly becoming the least popular member of our group as everyone jumped halfway to the ceiling.

“Paybacks are a bitch, kid,” I said.

“Sorry, I couldn’t resist.” She moved toward me. “What’s the big deal with this last group?”

Once she saw what I was seeing, her mood changed. Henshaw and Tom began theorizing, chatting so quickly it was hard to follow their conversation. The scientist and the engineer had a theory about every aspect of this horrific techno tomb.

I went back to my careful examination of the creatures Ayers had created from whatever DNA he thought belonged to aliens. “There are a lot more of the tentacled things on these mature subjects. Do they have them in their legs? It looks more like one tentacle interwoven around its lower extremities.”

“I believe that is a tail,” X-37 said. “For balance while moving or to brace against the floor while striking with hands or feet. In a worst-case scenario, the tail itself could be a weapon.”

Tom and Henshaw moved away from the pod they had been studying and stood next to me, looking at the most mature monster in this menagerie.

“I think that is a tail,” Tom said excitedly. “This is incredible.”

Henshaw rubbed his chin. “The possibilities of its functionality are endless. In nature, a limb like this could be used to prop an organism up, maintain balance while running at high speeds, or lash out as a weapon.”

“What did I say, Reaper Cain?” X-37 asked privately. “Henshaw has co-opted my theories.”

I didn’t comment.

“This is amazing,” Tom said, sounding like he might need to throw up despite his curiosity.

“It’s the most horrible thing I’ve ever seen,” Elise said.

Captain Younger and Rejon toured the room slowly. Tom and Henshaw began an organized database of notes and observations from everyone in the group.

“One thing is certain,” Younger said. “We need to change the locks.”

“That was my thought exactly,” X-37 said.

“I think you should assign a combined Wallach and Xad guard detail of at least three squads,” I said. “They will need to be vetted for security clearances and possibly get some extra training. I’d also include a science officer in that group in case there is a critical decision that needs to be made before they can consult one of us,” I said.

“Agreed, Reaper,” Younger said. She faced Rejon. “Would you like me to brief President Coronas and our council? They will want to see this. Who among their people need access?”

“Not many,” he answered. “Our council will want to know as much as possible. We should continue to work together.”

“What about the Union turncoats?” Tom asked, looking up from his work with Henshaw.

“What about them?” I asked, wishing I had a cigar but also feeling weird about the idea of lighting one up in here. It was irrational, but I thought that might invite contamination of some sort.

“We have ten Union officers and scientists who were imprisoned alongside your family. I imagine they ran afoul of Nebs and Ayers at some point. I’m wondering if they can be trusted and if they might have some insight about this experiment,” Tom said.

“I’m not even sure we should wake them up,” I said without thinking.

Elise shot me a look, which was much more dramatic in the Archangel armor. “We have to wake them up. What the hell are you talking about? How would you like to be imprisoned like that?”

“Yeah, you’re right, kid. I wasn’t thinking. There has just been a lot to take in today,” I said. She didn’t snap at me for calling her a kid, which probably meant she wasn’t a kid anymore.

“I recommend we seal this area and select an appropriate security team,” X-37 said.

“Agreed,” I said. Younger and Rejon consented.

“I will guard the exterior until you have selected the proper guards,” Path said.

“Good. After that, it’s definitely whiskey and cigar time. And sleep. Lots of sleep. And maybe the biggest breakfast that has ever been eaten on the Bright Lance.”

OceanofPDF.com

16

When the dream started, I was running through the metal trenches of Dreadmax. Red Skull gangsters chased me in their noisy vehicles. They fired heavy machine guns into every side alley and doorway. I kept looking back for Elise, but she wasn’t there. X-37 told me again and again that she could never fall that far behind because she was a better runner than I was.

So I looked forward, looked ahead, scanned the future for a safe haven. With no warning or transition, the place became Boyer 5. I ran faster because I was smaller, just a kid, but the place was strange because there were no people in it at all. Rows and rows of tenement buildings and graffiti covered transits systems looked as though they hadn’t been used for years.

My mother sounded worried. My sense of urgency grew every time I turned a corner and found a strange street I’d never been on. Vines grew up the sides of buildings, and mysteries lurked in the alleys like shadowy ghosts. Clouds of rust drifted down from a monorail I remembered from the neighborhood I grew up in.

“Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “Are you dreaming or just being difficult.”

I stopped and looked around. One building in the distance was filled with light. The really strange thing about the towering structure was that it reached the clouds, stabbing upward toward the sky like a beam of energy. Every level was full of activity. A glowing apartment building that might have been a starship of Xad landed on the surface of a green planet.

Boyer 5 was gone. In my heart, I felt as though Dreadmax had never been. A field of purple and yellow flowers covered the ground from me to the vibrant new buildings that had once traveled through dozens of slip tunnels as part of the exodus fleet.

I looked behind me, unsure why there was a need to look back, and saw two Union stealth carriers moored on the side of a mountain with a team of people stripping it for parts.

What I needed was for X-37 to tell me that my family and friends and allies were all safe in their new home. I felt like everything was better, like I had done right by Elise and the others. But there was no way to know for sure while my limited artificial intelligence was squawking about something entirely irrelevant to this scene.

“Reaper Cain, you have slept one hundred and fifteen percent of your rest phase,” X-37 said. “If you do not respond I will be forced to conduct a thorough medical evaluation.”

Opening my eyes, I felt the reality of my cabin on the Bright Lance and wondered if I shouldn’t be back on the Jellybird. “I’m awake, X. And for the record, I don’t even know what kind of thorough medical evaluation you could do that you don’t do all the time anyway. Isn’t half your job monitoring my biometrics?”

“I was improvising since my other encouragements were not having an effect,” X-37 said. “My next option was to use a rather loud and annoying noise to bring you around.”

“Is there an emergency?” I asked.

X-37 clicked a few times. “There is not, Reaper Cain. The entire fleet is doing remarkably well and is pulling resources from the volcano planet of Macabre.”

“Then why would you wake me up?” I started thinking about the dream, only now realizing how strange it had been. On the surface, it seemed a very obvious pointer to the future. The combined fleet of Xad and Wallach had conquered incredible obstacles. We’d retrieved the codes to awaken my mother and sister, and they seemed healthy and were recovering well.

The future looked pretty good for us. Being a Reaper, I had a hard time with success and safety. I was trained to always look for danger, often seeking it out, and always neutralize it if it threatened me, my mission, or my friends and family.

The monstrosities Ayers had created bothered me and I wasn’t sure, but I thought that might’ve been where the nightmare started. Something kept me from remembering those images.

“There are two reasons,” X-37 said. “First, you have slept longer than needed. My protocols are to keep you healthy and avoid unnecessary downtime. Secondly, there have been several messages from your friends inquiring of your welfare. Perhaps these made it into your rest cycle.”

I processed all of this information as I fought out of the haze of sleep. At the same time, I did a quick walk-through of my small cabin, checking for anything that looked out of the ordinary. The chances of there being an intruder or any type of danger were virtually nil, but that was what I did.

I jumped in the shower, not waiting for it to warm up. “What do you think about a beer?”

“That is normally part of your end of the day ritual, and I think it would be strange for you to start your morning in this manner,” X-37 said.

“Are you judging me, X?”

“I would never dream of it,” X-37 said. “And if I did, my analysis suggests it would have zero effect on your behavior.”

“You’ve got that right, X,” I said as numbers appeared in the wall above the nozzle. “Ah, come on, X. You didn’t turn off the timer?”

“It is against regulations,” X-37 said. “And in case you have forgotten, the combined fleet is far beyond any charted system. It is unknown when we will have a chance to acquire new resources.”

“Water is not that hard to find,” I said.

“That is a dangerous assumption, Reaper Cain. I believed from your earlier conversations with Captain Younger that you respect her decisions and her rules for the ship. I took the liberty of removing all of the rule breaking hacks you had me install when we first checked into this cabin,” X-37 said.

“That’s great, X,” I muttered. “You do realize that I’m not completely rinsed off?”

“I suggest a towel dry.”

“What are we doing, camping? Good thing I didn’t try to drink a beer in there. I would’ve had to chug it.”

It didn’t take me long to finish up my morning rituals and head out into the Bright Lance. What I found was a complete surprise. There were people from Wallach, Xad, and even some of the Union turncoats crowding the hallways and public areas of the ship. They seemed to be having a party.

“What the hell is happening on this ship?” I asked.

“It is what is commonly known as a celebration. The success on Macabre has inspired the people of Xad and Wallach to good cheer, or that is what my database suggests. Every ship in the fleet has declared a holiday.”

I moved through one hallway after another, frequently running into happy groups of people drinking some type of nonalcoholic beverage. X-37 explained that there were only a few areas where inebriation was allowed.

“Someone needs to teach these people how to party.” I headed for the observation deck.

“My analysis suggests you are the wrong person for this task,” X-37 said. “I did a quick search of your conversations with Elise, and she has told you one hundred and thirty-seven times that you are no fun.”

“I’m fun.” I scowled at a group of people who were in my way and didn’t even realize it. There wasn’t anything to do but wait for them to unclog the intersection before I could proceed.

“Yes, of course, Reaper Cain. You are a barrel of laughs,” X-37 said.

“Sarcasm detected.”

“I do aim to please,” X-37 said, almost sounding smug if that was even possible for a limited artificial intelligence.

“I need to check your personality algorithm. It seems to be drifting a little bit.”

X-37 responded immediately. “I will run a complete and thorough scan.”

I understood X’s concern and wished I hadn’t mentioned he was drifting. Upsetting the emotionless LAI was impossible, but I still didn’t want to do it, like that made sense, but whatever. There were strict rules about sentience, or even the strong appearance of sentience, in artificial or limited artificial intelligences. We were far beyond the reach of the Union, but the laws that governed my digital friend were internal. If he crossed the line, the shutdown could happen before either of us realized it was happening.

The observation deck of the Bright Lance was packed. I moved through the crowd with skill. It was one of the less glamorous things a Reaper learned during the espionage curriculum. Many covert missions required navigation of social settings and it was best not to alarm everyone by pushing and shoving.

I settled for a small table near the viewing wall, which was a holographic display of extreme clarity. People watched a mock dogfight between Xad, Wallach, and Union fighters.

Two micro-fighters were dominating the contest, zigging and zagging all over the place but always working as a team and always winning. They fired some sort of display ordinance, rounds that glowed with their own light for the sake of the spectators. I’d seen all kinds of rockets, tracer rounds, and energy weapons, but nothing like this.

The event was pure spectacle.

“Where is Elise, X?” I asked, crossing my arms.

“It’s funny that you should mention that, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “She quickly teamed up with Path during the dogfight challenge. As expected, they are winning easily but may not rack up enough points to take the contest before they run out of fuel.”

I viewed rows of statistics going down one side of the wall. Shaking my head, I disagreed with my limited artificial intelligence. “At this rate, they can take a break to refuel, get back in the fight, and still win.”

“This is a possibility, but it will require them to perform each operation to near perfection, and while Elise and Path practice many things, they have not always focused on refueling and re-equipping their micro-fighters,” X-37 said.

“Is there a betting pool?” I asked.

“There is,” X-37 said. “Henshaw has placed a variety of bets, not all of them under his own name, but the largest portion is against Elise and Path winning. My analysis suggests that is because the odds and potential payoff are much greater if they lose. Tom has also placed a modest bet on Elise and Path, possibly out of loyalty.”

Someone in the crowd recognized me, pointed, and shouted to their friends. Before long, I had a problem.

“It’s the Reaper!” the instigator said.

“Get out there and show them how it’s done, Reaper!” several other people shouted. Some cheered this idea, others booed it.

I waved them off. “I don’t want to mess up the pool. And ship to ship combat isn’t my strong point.”

“Are you serious?” another person asked.

“Maybe next time.” I fended off questions, spending more time arguing with my new friends than watching Elise and Path dogfight. The scene was incredible. In addition to the contest, there were ships flying in all kinds of formations—easily staying away from the more dynamic action. We were only able to see everything due to the powerful magnification and computer recreations of what was far beyond normal visual range.

“If you’re interested, Reaper Cain, there are other betting pools. It seems that the people of Xad and Wallach are also having a contest for the most impressive space parade,” X-37 said. “It is quite wonderful.”

“How about you find me a quiet place where I can relax, maybe with a viewing terminal I can use to keep track of Elise?” I asked.

“There are numerous maintenance bays and other facilities available. Only the bare minimum of crew members are still working, a good portion of them being security and critical staff.”

The idea appealed to me, but I was eventually able to draw back from all the attention and just watch without leaving the observation deck. Elise had always been a natural learner and was especially well suited for operating a micro-fighter. Her progress was amazing. With the Archangel armor integrated into the tiny ship, she was a force to be reckoned with. What really struck me was that I could actually see her improving during this contest.

“She’ll be better than Path soon,” I said.

“That is my analysis as well,” X-37 said.

OceanofPDF.com

17

The celebration showed no signs of slowing when I left the observation deck. X-37 marked several nearly vacant areas of the ship where I could get some peace and quiet, but I walked to the medical recovery section of the Bright Lance without thinking.

My sister was asleep, the fingers of her left hand intertwined with her short hair. She looked young and happy in the state, and I hoped she was having dreams of a brilliant future.

My mother, Olivia Anna Cain, sat in a chair next to Hannah’s bed, sipping tea. She smiled as I entered, then motioned with a free hand for me to sit.

“We have a lot to catch up on,” she said.

I kissed her on the top of her head before dropping into a chair, and she smiled again. “I’m glad you and Hannah are okay.”

She nodded. “I knew you would find us.”

“The mask and the clues helped,” I said.

This made her laugh gently. “I sent a lot more than the mask your way. There were several weapons caches, a ship, and contacts to a team of commandos I paid a small fortune to assist you. It seems, however, that you managed without all of that.”

“What kind of ship?” I asked, a bit stunned.

“A Lightning Star 5000,” she said. “But I also had people I trust improve the armor, weapons systems, navigational databases, and they boosted the ship AI by three hundred and twenty-five percent. That’s right below the legal limit. I would’ve gone over, but I thought it would draw too much attention. It’s all about trade-offs and that sort of thing.”

“I’ve never heard of anything newer than a Lightning Star 3000,” I said.

“I know the developer from before I met your father. He has his flaws, but he was a good friend. Now I’ll never know what happened to him or anybody else who risked their lives to help us,” she said.

I wanted to talk more about what happened to my father, but there was a pain that came with the thought and I guessed it wouldn’t speed my mother’s recovery to break open old wounds. We both knew the score now. The Union had taken him out to provoke me and blamed it on the gang members of Boyer 5.

“Tell me about Nebs. Is he really dead?” she asked, and I sensed tension in her voice.

“He’s gone. So are most of his officers. They died when I located a secret vault on the ship.”

Color drained from my mother’s face. “Was it empty?”

I shook my head.

She closed her eyes. Her hand started shaking until I thought she would spill her tea, so I took it from her and placed it on a small table near my sister’s bed.

“What did Ayers do?” I asked.

She opened her eyes, clenched her fists on her lap, and looked at me very directly. “He tried to play god. The part that infuriates me is the complete and totally unnecessary nature of it. The man wanted to resurrect aliens from their DNA profiles to prove they existed, when Nebs had already found evidence that they still exist somewhere in the galaxy.”

“You’re talking about nonhuman, truly alien life-forms?” I asked, fearing the answer.

“I am,” she said.

“From what I’ve seen, they don’t look friendly,” I said, thinking of the monsters in the secret cryo-pods.

“Our only hope is that his experiments caused them to mutate, which is a distinct possibility. Ayers blended DNA recovered on a lost world with human test subjects. What I tell myself so that I can get to sleep at night, is that this bonding was unnatural and caused them to be freaks.”

There wasn’t anything to say. X-37 and I had had a similar conversation with Henshaw and Tom, basically trying to convince ourselves that we hadn’t just found a deadly new enemy in the galaxy.

“It’s more than just a theory,” she said. “I know that Nebs was pushing him to make weaponized life-forms he could control.”

I interlocked my fingers and stared at my feet for a time, then faced my mother’s intelligent gaze. “I told Rejon and Coronas the monsters should be destroyed and the remains jettisoned toward a sun.”

My mother looked as though she might be sick. “I gather this idea was rejected. Are they complete idiots?”

“There are the same idiots everywhere, even if we leave the Union fifty slip tunnels behind us. Some of their scientists want to study them. They give different reasons, of course,” I said.

“Like being ready for the real aliens when they come? Learning about alien biology? Discovering the secrets of the galaxy for the good of humanity?” my mother asked. “I’ve heard all of these arguments and I’m not surprised.

“There are three dozen of them.”

“What about on the Black Wing?” she asked.

“That ship was destroyed,” I said.

She seemed relieved. “Good. That was where they stored most of them. There were several hundred on the Black Wing. Was it actually destroyed or just lost? Could there be survivors?”

“The Black Wing was a total loss. It came apart all around us,” I said.

She snorted gently, a sound that was both measured and amazed. “You must tell me the rest of that story sometime. It sounds like it was quite an ordeal.”

“Hopefully we’ll have lots of time to catch up,” I said.

* * *

I walked the hallways for a long time after the visit with my mother. My sister slept the entire time, her face a mask of peace I could only dream of. X-37 told me I was long overdue for sleep, but I didn’t care.

Somewhere between the physical training rooms in the observation deck I encountered Elise at an intersection.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?” she asked.

“Are you doing something you don’t want me to know about? I wasn’t born yesterday,” I said.

“Maybe not, but you were born paranoid and suspicious,” she said. “Mavis told me that you were walking the decks and I was worried.”

“Do you talk to the ship AI much?” I asked.

“She’s very helpful. Tom and Henshaw agree that the system reset was the most complete they’d ever heard of, but they disagree about why. Tom believes the initial programming of Union ship AI is inherently good, based on the values the Union claims to be built upon rather than how the government is actually run,” Elise said.

Feeling restless and needing to move, I motioned for her to walk with me. “What does Henshaw think?”

“He believes that Captain Younger and her prize crew have conditioned Mavis to behave with dignity and respect,” Elise said. “I don’t think it matters. The main thing is, she’s much better than Necron, who is still kind of a jerk according to Novasdaughter.”

We came to a lift that would take us into the more secure area of the ship and I suddenly understood what destination I had been wandering toward all night. Elise and I stared at each other for a second.

“We’re going to the vault, aren’t we?” she asked.

“Yeah. I need to see the test subjects,” I said with a quiet intensity that didn’t encourage further discussion.

We descended the lift and passed through two regular guard stations before arriving at the final door to the restricted area. Two of President Coronas’s honor guards in their exoskeleton armor towered beside two Xad warriors in their best gear holding their weapons at port arms.

“One moment, Reaper Cain,” the ranking Xad guard said. “I need to check with Mavis to confirm you have unlimited access to the ship.”

Elise and I waited without talking. Seconds ticked by and I wondered how these men remained vigilant hour after hour.

“You are cleared, Reaper Cain,” the guard said.

“Thanks.” I led the way into the most secret and dangerous part of our fleet.

“I need to show you something, Elise,” I said.

“Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like this?”

“Do you remember Commander Briggs? I asked.

Elise stopped abruptly. “What the hell are you talking about? He can’t be one of these freaks.”

I moved along the first dozen pods, stopping at the last one and pointing. Elise looked down, squinting to see through the glass. She stepped back shaking her head.

“I never really knew him, but you’ve talked about him. Are you still convinced he let us go when the Union had us dead to rights on Greendale?” she asked.

“That’s what it felt like at the time. Either way, he was worse than some but better than most. And no one deserves this fate,” I said.

“Unless he volunteered,” Elise said. “That would be messed up.”

“I wish I could talk to him and get some answers, but it’s too dangerous,” I said.

We spent the rest of our time looking for other people I knew. The spec ops community wasn’t enormous, and I discovered most looked familiar to me even if I couldn’t identify them.

“Do you still want them destroyed and jettisoned into a star?” Elise said.

I took my time answering. “That would be the best thing for them.”

* * *

Elise and I went to the brig to confront Ayers. The guards passed us through. We stopped outside of his door to develop our game plan.

“AI Mavis is asking if you require her assistance,” X-37 said. “I’ve been running several assessments and believe we can trust her.”

“You don’t think she’s going to become another Necron?” I asked, wanting to focus on the scientist more than I wanted to deal with the most powerful digital entity on the ship.

“Mavis has not attempted to quarantine me. She’s prompt when answering my queries, and firm when I attempt to enter restricted data areas unguided,” X-37 advised.

This surprised me. “She’s allowed you into restricted areas? And you’re just now telling me this?”

“I found nothing of interest in these restricted areas. Even with her help, it seems that information on Doctor Ayers and his experiments was purged from the system. The restricted information systems she escorted me through involved the details behind weapon systems, stealth cloaks, and other navigational protocols. I didn’t think it was anything you needed to know or would be remotely interested in talking about,” X-37 said.

“You got that right, X,” I said. “If you trust Mavis, I trust Mavis.”

“I’m flattered, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “Or would be if I was truly sentient.”

“How do you want to handle this?” Elise asked.

“We go in, I tune him up, you talk me down and then take the lead,” I said.

“You think that will work?”

“I’ve never worked with a partner other than X-37, so I haven’t had much field practice with team interrogations,” I said.

Elise psyched herself up, almost bouncing on the balls of her feet, then exhaling until she appeared much calmer. “This is worse than preparing for a sparring session with Path, but I think I’m ready.”

“Interrogations are stressful for everyone, but let’s make sure Ayers gets the worst of it,” I said.

When Mavis opened the door to the cell, I saw Doctor Ayers standing there asleep. His eyes were open, but unfocused. They twitched but he didn’t seem to know we were there.

“That is so weird,” Elise said.

“I don’t think your plan is going to work. You should have warned Elise of the man’s peculiarities,” X-37 said.

“Ayers, wake up,” I said, moving close enough to shake him if needed.

The man blinked and focused on me. “Good morning, Reaper. Have you come to release me?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “I came to throat punch you until you tell me why you forced Briggs and the others into your experiments.”

He didn’t answer immediately, which suggested my guess was at least close to the truth.

“What’s the matter, Ayers? How did you think I would react to my friends being turned into monsters?” I asked.

When Ayers spoke next, his tone was righteous but subdued. “Some of them were volunteers, understanding the most important contribution they could make to humanity was submitting to the experiment.”

“You asshole!” Elise shouted. “Have you ever been part of a Union experiment? Never free to make your own choices, always worried you were being turned into something horrible!”

She balled up her fists, bounced on her toes once or twice like she was going to restrain herself, then lunged at the man with her teeth bared.

I held her back with one arm, which only caused her to push and squirm past me. I grabbed her with both hands and walked her back toward the door, not happy that I had to turn my back on Doctor Ayers.

“It seems Elise has elected to play the role of bad cop during this interrogation,” X-37 chirped. “My analysis suggests the spontaneity will be quite effective.”

“Get control of yourself or you can leave,” I said.

“Whatever. You saw what he did to them. It’s not right,” Elise said. “Neither of you understand!”

Still blocking her from access to Ayers, I looked him over and saw that he had an expression of betrayal and confusion on his face. The man really had thought Elise was his friend. Now he knew he was in trouble.

“Listen, Ayers,” I said quietly. “I was in special operations for years before I became a Reaper. Some of these men came after me on Dreadmax and Greendale. I know them. We weren’t exactly friends, but I’m certain they would’ve never volunteered to be mutated with experimental DNA research.”

“Maybe you don’t know them as well as you think. Everyone wants to be stronger and faster and smarter than they are,” Ayers said.

“That’s such bullshit,” Elise said. “This is why I hate the Union.”

I held up a finger for her to stop talking and gave her a warning look. In reality, I didn’t care what she said or did, but I wanted Ayers to think I was protecting him from her.

“I need you to come clean with me, Ayers. If you want access to even a small portion of the research, you need to start building some trust with me and my people,” I said.

“You’re never going to let me do research,” he said. “I know how Reapers work and how they are trained. You’re a master manipulator and when you don’t get your way, you just start killing people.”

“You’re mostly right,” I said. “But we are way beyond known space dealing with problems no one ever imagined, and the rules have changed. Tell me about Briggs and the others.”

Ayers sat on the edge of his bunk and massaged his temples.

I gave Elise a hand signal that suggested we were very close to a breakthrough and hoped she was acting. Her rage looked too real. Neither of us spoke as Ayers gathered his thoughts.

“I suppose what happened to Briggs and the others is my fault. I miscalculated,” Ayers said.

“Explain what that means,” I said.

“I was trying to convince Nebs to give me more space on the ship for my research. He was in one of his moods and told me no. So I warned him of how dangerous the aliens could be—showed him concept art of what I thought they might look like.” Ayers put his hands together almost like a man who was praying and exhaled over his fingertips. “That really got his attention. He responded like he always did, saying we needed to have better weapons and better warriors than they did. The next thing you know, I’d been given the full go-ahead on human test subjects. Briggs and the others were called in for what they thought was a checkup.”

Neither Elise nor I interrupted him. The tension in the room was almost a physical force.

“We did them one at a time, expecting problems. Briggs caught on quicker than the rest and almost escaped. He didn’t buy my excuse that his medical exam had shown he had an extremely contagious variety of the flu,” Ayers said.

“You told him he had the flu? Really?” I asked.

“Common sickness can be very dangerous on a starship far from home,” Ayers said. “The Union has strict regulations regarding that type of thing.”

“Do you have any idea how long it’s been since somebody had the common flu on a Union ship?” I asked.

“I didn’t think that common soldiers cared about that sort of trivia.”

“None of these test subjects were common soldiers,” I said.

“That, Reaper, is true. What do you want from me?”

“I want to toss you out of an airlock, but I’d settle for the complete truth.”

The smile he gave me was unnerving. “The complete truth is that you will never be prepared for what’s coming. Not with this ragtag fleet.”

“He is trying to manipulate you, Reaper Cain.”

I silently acknowledged X-37, checked to be sure Elise wasn’t about to make her own move, and extended my Reaper arm blade.

“Wait, I have proof,” Ayers said, holding up both hands defensively. “Nebs gave me no choice. I have all of the documentation, and Mavis can show you holo footage of what he did to me.”

“Mavis, can you hear us?” I asked, my gaze locked on Ayers.

“I can, Reaper 29C071,” Mavis said, voice smooth as silk. “Would you like to see Doctor Ayers being tortured? Over one hundred hours of recordings exist.”

“Maybe later.” I needed to think this through and develop a new game plan. “I never really liked Briggs anyway.”

“This is a false assertion,” X-37 said. “You were at odds with the man more times than not but respected him in a general sense at least.”

I ignored my limited artificial intelligence and checked to see if Elise had anything to add.

She shook her head.

“I still think I should throw you out of an airlock,” I said, and then we left the cell.

Outside, Elise surprised me. “You should teach me the hand language you use to talk privately with X-37.”

“There’s no secret hand language,” I stated, wondering if X had let something slip. He was able to communicate with my team even while I was asleep via their earbuds.

“Right, that’s why you’re always fidgeting during those awkward pauses Reapers are known for. Honestly, I’ve never seen you at a loss for words. How do you expect me to believe you’re not answering X-37 nonverbally,” Elise said. “I get it, X is your LAI. But if I knew the hand language, Tom could design haptic feedback gloves allowing me to talk to X in the same manner. Then X could relay messages during interrogations and other situations like this. We could communicate without someone like Ayers catching on.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” I said.

She smiled and punched me in my arm. “I knew there was a secret hand language.”

“I knew you knew.”

“Whatever.”

OceanofPDF.com

18

Eventually I slept, revived myself, and headed to the observation deck to meet Tom. Elise’s idea about the haptic feedback glove intrigued me.

“What time is it, X?”

“It is approximately 3:30 a.m. standard time,” X-37 answered. “There are other people awake on the Bright Lance, but they are assigned to their posts for the most part. There are few patrons at the observation deck bar. You should have a reasonable amount of privacy.”

I did a quick scan of the room when I entered, then went to Tom where he was reading from a tablet. He put it down as I took a seat.

“Good to see you, Hal.”

My friend knew how to relax.

“Perhaps you should develop a reading habit as well,” X-37 suggested.

I gave him a hand signal, watching Tom to see if he noticed what I was doing. There was a better than average chance that the man suspected I had a nonverbal way of communicating with X-37. He understood my LAI monitored every aspect of my biometrics, including proprioceptive mechanisms. This allowed X to understand more than just heart rate and blood pressure, but also my balance, physical coordination, and force generation. In short, the LAI knew what my hands were doing at all times.

“Did Elise talk to you about the glove?” I said, producing two cigars and motioning for the bartender to send someone with whiskeys.

“She mentioned something. It shouldn’t be that hard to figure it out. When we’re done here, I’m heading to my workshop anyway and I can tinker with the idea a bit.”

The holo view wall loomed above us, while soft music played on the intercom. A young woman in a meticulous jumpsuit took our order for two whiskeys.

“Thanks. I figured you could handle it,” I said. “We’re going to have a much bigger problem with the mutant test subjects.”

“The best course would probably be to destroy them,” Tom said. He didn’t exactly look happy about the idea and I knew him well enough to know he still saw the monstrosities as people who had been involuntarily modified.

“But you know that probably won’t happen,” I said. “For a variety of reasons.”

“Are you going to let Ayers continue his work?”

I could see that Tom was nervous, worried about my answer.

“No, the man can’t be trusted. But we will need him if we intend to save any of the early-stage hybrids,” I said. “I’m not sure what to do with those who no longer appear human.”

“They might be more human than they look,” he said. “There’s no way to know until we revive one of them and find out.”

“You’re right, but it’s risky. We barely managed to assemble this fleet. You saw how chaotic the slip tunnel passage was. If we have a monster crisis, we could undo everything we’ve worked for,” I said.

“What’s really on your mind, Hal?” Tom put down his cigar next to his whiskey glass and his book. Leaning forward slightly, he touched his fingertips together to convey earnestness. “I’ve known you long enough to realize when something is eating at you.”

“It’s one thing to see humans turned into experiments,” I said. “It’s another when you recognize them. Briggs wasn’t my friend, but I would never wish this type of fate on him.”

“He’s one of the more human versions, right?” Tom asked.

I nodded. “But like you said, there’s no way to know what’s happened inside. His brain could be a soup of chemicals. I’m afraid to wake him up and find out.”

Elise walked into the observation area, past the bar and the two or three people talking quietly there, and joined us.

“You started without me,” she said.

“You’re too young to drink,” I said.

“That’s stupid, but I don’t want to anyway.”

“And I’m not going to be responsible for you smoking,” I said.

“Good, because smoking is gross. I came to talk and watch the view. Sorry if I’m ruining your boys club.”

“It’s good to have you here,” Tom said. “Hal and I were just discussing your idea for the haptic feedback glove and other things.”

“Like what to do with the human alien hybrids?” she asked.

“Yep.” I put out my cigar before I realized what I was doing. Tom’s was already extinguished.

“Did you make a decision or figure anything out?” she asked.

“Nope.”

She crossed her arms, thinking intently. The days of her teenage chatter were long behind us. There were moments when she reminded me of the kid I rescued from the cage, but our adventures were forcing her to grow up too soon. I made a mental note to start a prank war to lighten the mood on the ship. It wasn’t my strong point now, but there had been a time when I had been a force to reckon with—full of mischief and other good, clean fun.

“I guess there are never easy answers,” she said. “At least the view is nice.”

We watched a dozen ships practicing docking maneuvers in the distance. In another part of the holo-view, one of the greenhouse ships faced the sun and increased the transparency of its shields to grow crops.

“I always knew I would escape the Union someday,” Elise said. “But I never suspected it would be like this, with so many people starting over and working together.”

* * *

Elise had abandoned the conversation after an hour or two. Tom gave me a bit longer and then retired to his cabin to finish reading his book. I stayed watching the stars, sipping, and holding an unlit cigar until the midmorning crowd arrived.

“James Henshaw is sending you a coded message,” X-37 said.

“What do you mean coded? I thought all of our communications were secure.”

“That is correct, Reaper Cain. My struggle against Necron definitely upped my game in regard to security. Additionally, Mavis has not made attempts to violate our private links.”

“Then why the hell is Henshaw complicating things?” The ocular engineer had been reclusive lately, rarely showing up on the observation deck, and according to the logs, he’d stopped going to observe the hybrid alien test subjects.

That was the most unusual thing about his behavior. He was one of the most curious people I’d ever met and had shown great interest in all of the work Ayers had done. Now, he was like a ghost.

“Apparently, he takes extra precautions whenever he’s not on the Lady Faith,” X-37 explained. “Presently, he is awaiting your arrival at an infrequently used storage bay on one of the aft decks.”

“Fine. Give me a map.” I attempted to clear my head of the whiskey I’d sipped for too long.

“I am relaying directions to your HUD projector.”

An image appeared as a projection slightly in front of me. This made it larger than a helmet display. The illusion worked.

“Apologies, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “Henshaw has changed the rendezvous point.”

“Is someone following him?” I asked. “He’s acting like he’s trying to lose a tail.”

“I have used one of the security networks Mavis has granted me full access to and can detect no one following Henshaw,” X-37 said. “For the record, my job is much easier with such a cooperative ship AI.”

“That’s great, X.” I picked up the pace, hoping to reach the rendezvous point before Henshaw changed it again. Because I knew he would.

“I should tell you, however, that it is not perfect. Even Bug struggles with the system from time to time,” X-37 said.

“Sure, X. Nobody’s perfect. Not even an LAI.”

After four very frustrating attempts to find him, we finally met inside of a maintenance tube that was barely tall enough for me to stand in.

Henshaw looked more disheveled than I’d ever seen him. His hair was unkempt, but what made him look especially out of character was what he wore. Since we met on Roxo III, the man had always paid attention to fashion, sometimes pretending not to care even though everyone knew better. Casual chic was normally his thing.

Right now, he was wearing a jumpsuit that had been stolen from a laundry room. There were still folds in the fabric from where it had been stacked inside of a locker.

“What the hell are we doing here, Henshaw?” I demanded.

“Are you certain you weren’t followed?” he asked.

“Positive,” I said, biting down on the word. “Can you believe this guy, X? When have I ever allowed someone to tail me?”

“I have no record of anyone following you without your knowing,” X-37 reported.

“That’s good, really good” Henshaw checked over his shoulder. “What about the ship AI?”

“Don’t worry about Mavis,” I said. “What’s your problem?”

“I thought you would understand,” Henshaw said. “Ayers couldn’t have built a research project like this without being politically sophisticated. You have to consider that Nebs might’ve been working for the doctor and not the other way around. Everything I’ve seen suggests that Ayers was manipulating him, and wasn’t just another Union scientist with an unreasonable boss.”

“I never really trust anybody,” I said “You should know that.”

“That’s why I’m surprised you’re not being more careful,” Henshaw said.

“I’ve compared his behavior to previous behavioral patterns. I’m detecting a clear trend toward increasing paranoia,” X-37 said.

“I’m always careful, Jimmy.”

His lip curled at the nickname, which I knew he didn’t like. “That’s not enough. We have to get rid of him, and all of the test subjects. If we shut off the cryo-pods, we can learn what they were through autopsies and other analysis.”

“You’re serious,” I said.

“I hate losing such a huge scientific discovery, but if I think they’re too dangerous to study, then you should be paying attention. This will not end well. Get rid of Ayers, euthanize the hybrids. It’s the only way to save this fleet you’re so fond of,” Henshaw said in an aggressive tone.

“X?”

“I’m already contacting Mavis to restrict Henshaw’s access to the research facilities,” X-37 said.

“What are you waiting for?” Henshaw demanded.

“Proof. I’ll have the guard doubled and restrict access to the area. That’s the best I can do right now,” I said.

Henshaw shook his head almost hard enough to hurt himself. “That’s not enough!”

“It is if I say it is. And it’s not your problem,” I said. “If you go near the research area, I’ll put you in a cell right next to Ayers.”

“You’re making a mistake, Reaper.”

“Listen, Jimmy, I’ll be the first person to put those monsters out of their misery if it’s the right thing to do.”

* * *

Elise and I waited for half an hour, but Path didn’t show up. We had the training area to ourselves.

“Did you tell him we were going to spar?” I asked.

“He’s normally here at this time,” she said. “I didn’t think I needed to call him.”

“X, can you check on Path?”

“Right away, Reaper Cain.”

“We might as well get started,” I said.

“Conditioning first, or fighting first?” Elise asked.

“Your choice.” Admitting how bad I felt wasn’t a good idea. She would use my weakness against me, probably shouting and making lots of noise to aggravate my pounding headache.

“I think we should run first. The Bright Lance has a track that goes all the way around the outer concourse. There are even some holo screens along the way with a pretty good view of the fleet,” she said.

I wasn’t excited about pounding my feet around the fitness concourse, but I needed the exercise. With luck, I could even keep up with Elise. My confrontation with Henshaw, when I’d finally caught up with him, had driven me to drink too much. I knew what I wanted to do but was struggling at what I thought was the right thing to do.

Once we’d warmed up and stretched, we started jogging.

“Have you talked to your mother or sister today?” Elise asked.

“Not yet.”

We rounded a long curve that followed the contour of the ship in this section.

“You need to spend more time with them,” Elise said. “If we have to go on a mission, you won’t have a chance to, I don’t know, do all that family stuff.”

“I’ve been busy. This problem with Henshaw and the hybrids is serious business,” I said.

“There’s more to it than that, and you know it. Tell me the truth, Reaper. What’s wrong?”

I wasn’t sure what I should tell her.

“Why are you so nervous?” Elise asked.

“I’m afraid I’ll let them down. And not because of a failed mission, but because of who I am.”

“They know you are a Reaper. Don’t overthink it. Isn’t that what you always tell me?” Elise asked.

We finished the lap and kept going on a second lap.

“What’s wrong with Henshaw?” Elise asked, breathing harder than before.

“He...thinks...the hybrids are dangerous.”

“Oh my God! You’re winded.” Elise laughed. “I think we should always run before we spar in the future.”

“Fine, I’m not scared.”

She laughed again.

“He’s not wrong about the hybrids, I just don’t agree with what he wants to do about them. Most were tricked into being test subjects or had the DNA splicing done against their will. I don’t think they deserve to be put down like dogs,” I said.

“Well shit,” Elise said. “You had to make it ugly. Maybe we’ll think of something while we’re beating each other with practice swords.”

“Path has followed Henshaw to his cabin and is standing guard outside of his door,” X-37 interrupted. “Under other circumstances, it might seem that Henshaw had ordered him to do this. Given our recent conversations, I think he is trying to keep track of his old boss.”

“Keep me updated,” I answered. “Elise is going to try and convince me she knows how to sword fight,” I said.

“Good luck with that, Reaper Cain.”

OceanofPDF.com

19

“I’m not a big card player, X. When did you start making appointments for me without asking what I wanted?”

“I was able to work with AI Mavis and Path to convince Henshaw to attend,” X-37 said. “He is fond of games of chance, and I believe he will wish to influence President Coronas and Rejon of Xad.”

“Okay, you have my attention. Not that I like that particular scenario, but it could be informative,” I said. “I’ll need you to research whatever card games we’re playing and help me cheat.”

“That is quite unethical,” X-37 said.

“I’m not trying to take their money, I just want to stay ahead of the real game,” I said. “If Henshaw is unraveling, I need to know. If he’s holding back, I need to know that as well. If all he wants is to get the hybrids destroyed, then maybe that’s what we should do.”

“I have downloaded and analyzed all relevant games of chance common in the Union. This also includes one transcript of a live-streamed poker game in which Henshaw did very well back on Roxo III. I’m searching now for information on Xad and Wallach games.”

“I knew I could count on you, X. Where are we playing this high-stakes game?”

“Henshaw wanted to do it on the Lady Faith, but the security teams of President Coronas and Rejon disagreed immediately.”

“Of course,” I said. “I don’t suppose we could do it on the Jellybird?”

“I made that suggestion. Rejon and Coronas are open to the idea, but their security teams opposed it,” X-37 said. “It seems they had settled on the private viewing deck of the Bright Lance.”

“I didn’t know there was such a thing,” I said.

X-37 gave me directions and I hurried toward the game. Hallways became narrower and narrower and the security doors more frequent. I felt like I was being watched more than normal and wondered if AI Mavis was as benevolent as X-37 seemed to think she was.

The observation deck was nearly as small as the one on the Jellybird and had more security than seemed necessary. Four of the Presidential Guards of Wallach crowded one wall, the tops of the exoskeleton armor nearly touching the ceiling. Rejon’s honor guard consisted of six men in resplendent uniforms, more formal than anything I’d seen so far—stiff collars, polished buckles, and unit patches with their home planet on it.

“Not exactly a private game,” I muttered.

“Agreed,” X-37 said. “My advice is to focus on not losing too much. This isn’t a good place to press Henshaw for information.”

“I need to know what has them so worked up.”

X-37 asked me to scan the room so that he could record its dimensions and also analyze the potential strengths and weaknesses of the security teams. “I will look for an opportunity to learn his secrets.”

“Welcome, Halek Cain.” Coronas graciously waved one hand toward a seat near her. “Glad you could make it. It’s been a long time since I relaxed with friends.”

“Not sure this is going to be relaxing,” I said as I joined her.

Rejon took a seat on the other side of me. “Are you a strong gambler, Reaper?”

“Only if I cheat.”

Everyone in the room laughed, including Henshaw. He quickly became the man I remembered meeting on Roxo III. He dealt us into a game of poker with very little small talk.

“We’re playing Seven Card Armada,” he said. “Dealer chooses the game. Ten credit ante. We’re using the Exodus Fleet Monetary Agreement, or EFMA, credits.”

“I’ve heard of this game.” Corona was growing more serious. “Shouldn’t we put all of our weapons on the table like in the tablet stories I read growing up?”

The mood was light, and we all laughed. There was more than enough firepower in the room to get everyone killed. The exoskeleton guards had obvious weaknesses, but I didn’t know how fast they could move or how accurate they were with their weapons. X-37 warned me the probable strength of the units was enough to rip doors open or crush anybody dumb enough to get caught in their oversized hands.

Seven Card Armada proved to be much faster than I had hoped, and I quickly lost most of my credit chips. For the next hour, I struggled to stay in the game. What I noticed, however, was a very distinct situation between Coronas and Rejon—admiration and rivalry.

“I need to win,” I said to the table, but was really talking to X-37.

“You should be winning by now,” X-37 said. “My analysis suggests that everyone at the table is cheating.”

I didn’t have the appropriate hand signal for indignant surprise. Henshaw, I knew would push the limits. He had a limited artificial intelligence that he’d used for games of chance in the past.

“If you recall from our first encounter with the people of Wallach, their most important political figures have a version of limited artificial intelligence. Perhaps she is also cheating,” X-37 said.

Amanda Coronas, the most powerful woman of the Wallach people, smiled at me sweetly. I turned my attention to Rejon, who appeared extra dignified. With subtle hand movements, I asked X-37 about him.

“I can neither confirm nor deny Rejon’s use of an LAI,” X-37 said.

Basically, X couldn’t help me now. I drew my final card, studied it, and pushed every credit chip I had into the center of the table.

Seconds passed. Tension rippled around the table. Coronas no longer smiled at me and Rejon became as inscrutable as Path. Several agonizing moments later, both of them folded.

“Call.” Henshaw pushed his own chips forward.

Per the rules of Seven Card Aramada, I disregarded two cards and lay down my betting hand—three tens, all gold stars, and a pair of planets.

Henshaw disregard his two cards, then spread an Admiral’s Flush—a starship, a slip tunnel, a victorious fleet card, a flagship, and a green planet.

“Really?” I asked. “What are the odds of that hand this late in the game? Never mind, I don’t want to know,” I said.

Coronas and Rejon laughed as Henshaw cleaned off the table.

“That was informative,” I said. “Let’s never do it again.”

“I always suspected Reapers would be poor losers,” Henshaw said. “You could win it back.”

“No way, Jimmy. I’m out of my league here,” I said. “And I’m broke.”

“There’s always something to wager,” Henshaw said.

“Yeah, that’s true. But if we play again, I’m smoking a cigar like a true poker player and you won’t have a chance. You might want to factor that in before you try something slick.”

“Nothing good can come of this, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “This is not about poker. Henshaw is up to something more than a game of cards.”

“I’m curious,” Coronas began. “What kind of things would you wager? I’ve been told that Reaper Cain originally found you gambling in the company of Vice Admiral Nebs. What were you trying to win from him?”

“What are you insinuating?” Henshaw asked.

“You know more about what’s going on here than any of us,” she said.

“The truth is worse than I suspected,” he said. “When I approached Vice Admiral Nebs on Roxo III, I thought Ayers was dead.”

“What is the real wager you’re interested in?” Coronas asked.

Henshaw smiled with half his mouth. “This is the Reaper’s game. He invited all of us. I suspect that he is manipulating each of us to get the answers he wants.”

I scooped up the cards, shuffled them, and tapped them straight. Henshaw claimed he thought Ayers was dead. He had been after something from Nebs and now I was worried I understood what it was, not that it should surprise me. There were two personality traits that defined Henshaw: his uncontrollable hunger for knowledge, and his pride. He wanted Ayers dead for his own reasons.

Or that was my working theory. X-37 and I each needed more data, so I decided to draw out the game long past the point it should have ended.

We played for bragging rights, smoking cigars and sipping whiskey more than we were betting. Coronas had a nice laugh. Rejon turned out to be a sleepy drunk who mumbled hilarious anecdotes that would probably make more sense if I’d been raised as a salvager.

We all knew there was more to this encounter. None of us knew who was going to show their real hand first.

“The most important thing we can do,” Rejon said when his head seemed to have cleared a bit, “is gather every possible resource from the system before moving on.”

“I disagree,” Coronas said. “The system is not special. It’s time to move, find a richer system, maybe even a planet we could build a home on for our people.”

Henshaw locked gazes with me as the leaders of Wallach and Xad went back and forth. I waited for a lull in the discussion and jumped in.

“What’s your opinion, Henshaw? You clearly have something on your mind,” I said.

Coronas and Rejon faced the ocular engineer who had parted us from our credits. Silence held the moment. When Henshaw spoke, his voice cracked—possibly from the cigars or possibly from some dark dread that was torturing him.

“Neither of those things matter,” he said. “We have to deal with the alien hybrid problem. And before you disagree, I’m well aware that they are contained in their own cryo-pod prisons. Each of you is smart enough to understand that is a short-term solution at best. The implications of the technology and what Doctor Ayers is trying to achieve should terrify you.”

“We’ve covered this,” I said. “They may not be totally innocent, but they haven’t exactly had due process. If you think I’m going to murder them in their sleep, you don’t know as much about reapers as you thought.”

“Clearly,” Henshaw said.

“And we’ll need Doctor Ayers to advise us on other problems with people recovering from the cryo-pods,” I said.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Henshaw, but my security advisors agree with Halek Cain. We can contain the threat and possibly learn something from the technology. Sometimes the best medical and civilian uses of technology come from what were originally military projects,” Coronas said.

“The chances of even one hybrid escaping is too high. The consequences will be horrific.” Henshaw shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “But what’s worse is what will happen if we meet the aliens this DNA came from. What will they think of us when they realize we made monsters out of their DNA and ours? From what I’ve seen, they don’t look very forgiving, and I would hate to fight a war against them.”

Coronas and Rejon went pale.

“What do you think we should do with them?” Coronas asked.

“Eject Ayers and his creations into the void, preferably toward a star that will destroy all evidence of their existence,” Henshaw said. “I’m a scientist, always looking to learn the mysteries of the universe, so if I’m telling you this, you should listen.”

“That’s all the more reason to keep moving,” Coronas said. “We need to find a defensible place with sufficient resources to rebuild.”

Henshaw practically ignored the two most powerful leaders in our migrating society. “Tell me you have a better solution, Reaper.”

“We can offload the test subjects that are too far gone onto a planet in the system we don’t plan to return to,” I said. “We keep Ayers alive and require him to care for the others. I’m no expert on gene splicing, but if they did it, they should be able to undo it.”

“Your idea has flaws,” Rejon said. “If the existence of these monsters has the potential to anger a powerful alien race, leaving evidence of our crimes on a random planet is a bad idea.”

Coronas looked at me, her face unreadable. Rejon’s logic seemed to be going someplace I didn’t like.

No one touched their cards. The poker game, for all practical purposes, was over. I held Coronas’s gaze. After about ten seconds, she made a motion for her guards to wait outside. Rejon did the same.

“What’s really going on here, Jimmy?” I asked.

The ocular engineer’s face flushed red and the lights in his artificial eyes dimmed until they were almost invisible. He trembled slightly.

“Ayers and I were competitors for the favor of Nebs. Things got out of control. He threatened to send demons after me. It was a threat I thought ridiculous until now.”

“All this time, you’re just looking after yourself. You think one of these alien hybrids is going to come for you?” I asked.

“You’re right, Reaper. But that doesn’t change anything. Sure they’re coming for me, but they’re going to come for all of you too.”

“We will need a way to fight them,” Rejon said.

Coronas nodded enthusiastically, picking up the thread of the conversation. “It is distasteful, but we are going to need every weapon we can come up with to defend ourselves.”

“Can you control him, Mr. Henshaw?” Rejon asked.

“Not only no, but hell no,” I said.

“I agree with Rejon, I think,” Coronas said, sounding excited. “Mr. Henshaw is the only one who can really understand what Doctor Ayers was planning to do. And he is the most motivated not to allow him to escape. I propose that we grant him supervisory authority over Ayers and the alien technology.”

“I concur,” Rejon said quickly. “There are often risks that need to be taken for the greater good.”

“What the hell are you talking about, greater good?” I couldn’t believe what was happening. “You want a scientist who is so radical he removed his own eyes in charge of a scientist crazy enough to splice alien DNA with human DNA? Am I missing something? How is this a good idea?”

“He will be closely supervised,” Coronas said.

Rejon nodded in agreement. “Yes, the President of Wallach is correct. We have a ship full of well-trained security officers, a Reaper, and a Reaper’s team. Everything is under control.”

“Fuck.”

“That is very eloquent, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said, but I thought my LAI was even less happy about this development than I was.

Henshaw smiled, and I realized he’d been doing a lot more than playing poker. The man had set this entire encounter up somehow and just beat me hands down.

“If this goes wrong, Jimmy, I’ll be coming for you,” I said. “Don’t forget what I am. Demons are from fairytales to scare children. I’m the last Reaper and you know what I can do.”

OceanofPDF.com

20

Inspired by our post-poker game decision, Rejon sprang into action, rallying his people for a whirlwind tour of the system to gather resources. In less than a standard week, they had squeezed the system and filled their storage compartments.

“In the positive margin, the alien hybrid agreement has brought the people of this Xad and Wallach closer together than ever, even if most of the population doesn’t know the details,” X-37 said.

“Yeah, that’s fabulous,” I said, gazing from the bridge of the Jellybird. It was good to be off the Bright Lance despite the amenities it offered. Security for the ailing hybrids was the responsibility of a joint task force now, though Path stood guard over the vault as often as not.

Elise was at the helm, working with Jelly to find our place at the head of the slip tunnel formation. This jump was proving to be at least as chaotic as leaving the Xad system. There were just too many ships, and few of them were using the same level of technology. Each captain seemed to hold different ideas about their place in the formation.

Some captains wanted to go first for the honor of making the crossing first. Others wanted the military vessels to protect them, but then interfered by demanding too much control over their operations.

“This is a mess,” I said. “I’m about ten minutes from jumping ahead of everyone to scout the next system ourselves.”

“My analysis suggests that would not be the worst option,” X-37 said. “And I believe Jelly agrees with me.”

“I do agree,” Jelly said. “But that decision belongs to Elise, presently.”

“We wait for fleet command’s decision,” Elise said.

“Of course,” Jelly said. “We are holding course near the slip tunnel awaiting permission to proceed.”

* * *

Ten hours after we led the scouting expedition through the slip tunnel, it opened into a promising star system. I led a scout squadron of three ships including the Jellybird.

“Battle Axe and Hunter, begin security patrols,” Elise ordered. “We’re on the clock. The rest of the fleet will exit soon, and we don’t want any surprises.”

The RWS Battle Axe, commanded by Captain Hunger, moved immediately. “Battle Axe acknowledges. En route.”

The Hunter of Xad, also a well-armed scout craft, moved toward her assignment. “Hunter acknowledges,” said Captain Omon.

“Tell me about the system, Jelly,” I said.

“I believe it falls into the too good to be true category,” Jelly said. “There is one garden planet. Long range sensors indicate it to be well suited for humans, a bit larger than most planets in its category, which might be a bonus. There is only one other slip tunnel, making the system easy to defend while still having an escape route in one direction or another. Several planets and asteroid belts are rich with raw materials.”

I read through the data as it flowed onto the screen. “What am I seeing around the other slip tunnel? Are those ships?”

“There is a small debris field near the opening of the slip tunnel on the opposite side of the system,” Jelly advised. “It does not open in a true lagrangian point, so it seems the debris should be pulled into one of the competing gravity wells near it. This suggests the ship or ships were destroyed recently.”

“How recently?” I asked.

“We have insufficient data at this time,” Jelly said. “I recommend either proceeding to the other slip tunnel or sending one of the other scout vessels to investigate.”

“Negative, Jelly,” I said. “We stay together. Once we have this sector scouted, we will proceed in a squadron formation to the other slip tunnel to investigate.”

“I’ll let the Battle Axe and the Hunter know,” Elise said.

“Good.” I looked at Tom. “When Elise is ready, I’d like to take the micro-fighters out. Can you take the con?”

“It would be my pleasure,” Tom said.

A short time later, Elise pushed back from her workstation. “That’s done. Captain Hunger and Captain Omon are much easier to deal with than Coronas and Rejon.”

“They seem solid and they keep their ships in good condition,” I said. “I’ve seen their type before. I think we can count on them.”

“Great, let’s have some fun,” Elise said. “I’d like to do some speed trials with the micro-fighters before we’re surrounded by the junk fleet.”

We headed for the storage bay of the Jellybird we’d converted to a flight deck for a pair of micro-fighters. The small ships were designed to attach on the exterior of one of these Union stealth carriers, but this wasn’t practical for our needs. We put on our Archangel gear, integrated them with the micro-fighters as Elise had learned to do, and launched into the void.

“I’m still getting used to this,” I said. “When you showed me how to use my Archangel armor with my micro-fighter, I thought I would feel less vulnerable. But the interface is so smooth I don’t feel like I’m in a ship at all.”

“I’m telling you, Reaper, your reaction time is so much faster this way it’s hard to believe. Everything happens in real time and the suits are better at handling the G forces of hard turns, acceleration, and deceleration,” Elise said, speaking quickly due to her own excitement. “I almost can’t wait to get in a fight.”

“Famous last words.” Without warning, I punched my speed to maximum. Elise chased after me.

“Tom, stay close enough to pick us up but don’t do anything dumb,” Elise said. “I think I know what the Reaper has in mind.”

“Copy that,” Tom said. “A secondary scan shows a matching debris field near the slip tunnel we came through. None of this is a fraction of what we saw in the Xad system, but something happened here.”

“It appears that an unknown force placed mines or otherwise attempted to control these access points to the system,” Jelly said.

I laughed. Elise laughed with me but sounded a bit annoyed.

“Everyone guesses right once in a while,” she said.

“Admit it, you didn’t even consider the fact that both slip tunnels had been mined,” I said. “Even though we’ve been training to expect anything when we enter a new solar system.”

“We’re doing the patrols, aren’t we?” She didn’t exactly sound defensive, but I thought I could get under her skin a bit.

“That’s why I’m the scout leader on this mission,” I said.

She fired back immediately, reminding me of the girl I’d left on Greendale after Dreadmax and then returned to find living on her own. “Or maybe it’s because you’re pushy and like telling everyone what to do.”

“Something wrong with that?”

“You’re messing with me, Reaper.”

“Battle Axe to scout leader, we’ve cleared our sector and are moving toward your location,” Captain Hunger said.

“Copy that, Battle Axe,” I said. “Hunter, status?”

“Nearly complete. We found one derelict vessel. Initial scans show no signs of life,” Captain Omon reported. “It looks like what you found is a larger field.”

“Hold there and we will come to you after we finish here,” I said. “Battle Axe, rendezvous with Hunter.”

“En route,” Hunter answered.

Elise and I closed on my discovery. The ship was long and looked like one of the larger ones I had seen near Xad. It was so big that we were able to race down the middle of it, dodging around its twisted infrastructure and laughing crazily.

I twisted the controls, quickly learning not to over correct. Elise was slightly behind me, but I could feel her trying to pass despite the obvious danger in this environment. From time to time I caught flashes of her ship acrobatics on my display.

“Didn’t I tell you these things were awesome with your armor integrated?” The excitement in her voice made me laugh a bit.

“Settle down, kid. Let’s try not to get killed before the rest of the fleet gets through the slip tunnel,” I said.

We shot out the other side and banked around to head back for what the Hunter of Xad had found. The Jellybird, which had established a safe standoff distance from the Alon hulk we were zipping through, fell in with us on our new course.

“We have a few minutes before we get there,” I said. “Did you get any good data from our reconnaissance, X?”

“I’m sure that Jelly and I observed far more from your camera feed than you did, at least from an analytical standpoint,” X-37 said.

“Are you bragging, X?” I asked.

“It sounds like he’s bragging,” Elise said.

“Incorrect,” X-37 said. “I am reporting factual information, as always.”

“Well, was that an Alon ship or not?” I asked. The size and style of it reminded me of what the enemies of both Wallach and Xad had left behind. There had been few of their ships left behind in the conflicts over the ages. The most dangerous looking warships were of neither Wallach or Xad design.

“It matches the design parameters as we know them,” X-37 said. “However, there is little of value remaining other than the metal and ceramic alloys of its construction. All weapons, power sources, and technology have been stripped away.”

“Do you think someone like the people of Xad did that?” I asked.

“I do not believe that is the case, Reaper Cain. This was a more systematic salvage operation, probably done by the same people who built the ship.”

Elise and I arrived at the other derelict ship slightly ahead of the Jellybird.

“Tom, why don’t you take one point on the perimeter while Hunter and Battle Axe assume two other vector points. I’m going to show the Reaper the coolest thing about our little fighter ships,” Elise said. “This isn’t open at both ends like the other one so we’re going to have to get our hands dirty.”

Tom and the other captains acknowledged and took overwatch positions.

“Watch and learn, Reaper.” Elise swooped to the surface of the dark hulk, disengaging from the wings and propulsion systems seconds before she landed on the exterior hull of the Alon wreck. The micro-fighter peeled away from her and hovered at a point she set with the armor LAI.

We had learned that the advanced Union armor had a unique type of LAI, one that was spread out over groups of Archangel gear. That was how Elise initially figured out the integration technology. Apparently, it had been an option that Nebs never approved. The evidence suggested he hadn’t trusted his own people that much. Which had allowed us to defeat him against overwhelming odds.

“X, help me out,” I said.

“Integrating with the Archangel LAI now,” X-37 responded. “You may now disengage from the micro-fighter when you’re ready.”

I brought the little ship close to the deck, came to a relative stop, and gave the order. The wings and fuselage of the micro-fighter peeled away, dumping me unceremoniously downward. I landed on my hands and knees hard enough to stun me.

Elise laughed, unrepentant. “That was smooth, Reaper. Very nice.”

“Don’t get cocky, kid,” I grumbled as I came to my feet and joined her.

“Who me? Cocky?”

Strutting past her, I found an access hatch. Once I determined there was no power, I ripped it free and looked inside. Nothing but darkness awaited us.

“I’ll go first,” I said.

“Good. Everyone knows Reapers are expendable.” Elise took up a position to watch my back despite her bravado.

“On the contrary, Elise,” X-37 said. “Reapers were always used as a high-value asset, even when they were sent on missions with a low probability of success. My records show that the cost was always a significant factor in Union decision making.”

“Let’s not talk about the Union right now,” I said, activating my helmet lights to see the expansive passage spreading out ahead of us.

This ship wasn’t as large as the one Elise and I had recently flown through, but it was big. Walking from end to end would take time. There were metal catwalks, stairways, and ladders leading to areas that had been stripped of anything useful. Unlike Dreadmax, there was no rust anywhere. Every surface had a unique crosshatch pattern.

But that wasn’t what stunned Elise and me to silence. Twenty meters inside the access hatch I had ripped open, we found bodies. Most of them looked like they had been human. Their uniforms bore distinct similarities to some of the fashion experiments the people of Xad were currently wearing. Their weapons, however, looked like advanced versions of Wallach arms.

“X, can you compare these corpses to what we know about our new allies?” I asked.

“I’m working on it now, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “I believe these are Alon corpses.”

“What’s wrong with their skin? Or is that an effect of long-term void exposure? And while you’re at it, how long do you think the ship has been like this?” I asked.

“Please focus on the most well-preserved Alon body you can find,” X-37 asked.

I complied, kneeling over one of the bodies, not wanting to face the thing I thought had killed them. That corpse lay underneath a half-dozen Alon soldiers that had swarmed it and went down fighting.

“Please keep in mind that my reconstruction of probable Alon physiology is incomplete. Based on what I can see here, and on the rather incomplete references in the Wallach and Xad databases, these soldiers were very tall, well adapted to the void, and possessed radically different pigment from your skin or anybody we have encountered in our journeys.”

“What else, X?” I asked, standing and moving toward the Alon bodies piled on top of a creature that I thought was going to be too familiar for comfort.

“I don’t like this,” Elise said. “Tom is telling me that they can’t pick up our holo feeds—something about the material the ship hull is made from.”

“We can fill him in later,” I said, then pulled the first Alon corpse from the pile. Its arm came off. I cast it away and pulled on the feet with better results.

“None of the bodies have weapons or armor, which I find curious. A salvage crew might take the weapons, but why would they remove armor and then put the bodies back in these uncomfortable looking positions,” X-37 said.

“Whoever these Alon were, they belong to the ship. The creature they killed was a boarder, trying to take control of the ship or just kill them all. I’m not sure which at this point,” I said. “If they had been the boarders, they would’ve been wearing void suits.”

“There is a very good possibility that the aggressors in this conflict considered killing all of their enemies part of taking control of the ship,” X-37 said. “I will need much more data to make a precise analysis, of course.”

“Okay, you can tell me more about the Alon later,” I said. “I’m going to see if this creature on the bottom of the pile is one of Ayers’s hybrid aliens.”

“I’ll stand guard,” Elise said, a hitch in her voice.

I worked at the grim task, taking the time to drag each body to one side and lay it out for later examination. I was anxious to see if the tentacles protruding from the scene belonged to an actual, true to life alien matching what Ayers had been trying to recreate.

I had my doubts because the tentacles I could see almost looked like they were covered with frost, which seemed unlikely because there was no moisture in this environment. Nothing, even damaged metal that had been ripped free of the ship, had any rust or corrosion.

More importantly, the tentacles almost looked beautiful. I passed this along to Elise.

“Are you kidding me?” she asked.

“You’re not looking at what I’m looking at,” I said, removing the last Alon defender that had died saving his ship. His sunken, skull like face didn’t give me many clues to his skin tones or whether or not he had hair. I was assuming some of the decomposition had happened before all atmosphere was lost from this vessel, but there wasn’t a good way to be sure without a lot more work. His own bacteria might have been enough to start the processes.

“I’m recording in the highest definition possible for future analysis,” X-37 said.

“Good call, because this isn’t anything like I expected,” I said.

Elise moved closer, still standing guard.

The body was nonhuman but hadn’t changed colors or decomposed as far as I could tell. It was the color of a white dwarf star with sky-blue highlights at the tip of what I had assumed were tentacles.

What I was looking at now was something very different from the murderous freaks stored in the Bright Lance cryo-pods. This creature had been almost as beautiful as it had been deadly. The multiple limbs were slim and smooth, covered with something that might have been short, snow white felt.

The tangle of limbs lacked the hooks I had seen on the worst of Ayers’s experiments. Instead, these were tipped with what looked like nine-inch bone razors—edged in blue like the watermark of swords I had seen on Heron XIII.

Overall, the alien was definitely humanoid, with two legs and two arms from which the tentacles had sprouted. The face was angular and graceful, the head wreathed in something like sharp edged feathers.

“That’s nothing like I expected,” Elise said.

“I am recording and taking measurements,” X-37 said. “There are enough similarities between the experiments in this corpse to suggest splicing the DNA of its species with humans resulted in something more grotesque than either.”

“Let’s recon what we can, and decide what to do with the alien corpse,” I said. “It doesn’t feel right to leave it here, but I’m nervous about putting it on our ship. We don’t know anything about it.”

“We could put it in cold storage, lock the door, and set a guard,” Elise said, not exactly sounding satisfied with the idea.

By the time we were done on the Alon ship, we’d counted over three hundred Alon and seven true alien bodies. We consulted with Tom and forwarded some of the images that couldn’t be relayed through the hull of the derelict ship in real time.

Omon sent two of his best salvage people to help us pack two Alon bodies—a male and a female—and one of the true aliens in preservation containers. These were like the cryo-pods but much simpler. No one put in these boxes would ever be revived.

“We will bring back a team to collect the rest of the bodies,” I said.

Elise agreed without speaking.

I was exhausted by the time the operation was done. Resting on the observation deck of the Jellybird, Elise, Tom, and I witnessed the arrival of the combined Wallach and Xad fleet.

“We’ve been busy,” Elise said.

“Nice of you to notice.” I sensed there was more to her statement.

“So busy that you haven’t spent much time with your mother and sister,” she said.

“They’re still recovering. Don’t worry about us. Now that they’re awake, there’s time to rebuild our relationships,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“I get it. You think I’m a terrible son and brother.”

“That’s not what I said. Just don’t take anything for granted.”

“My analysis suggests that is excellent advice,” X-37 said.

OceanofPDF.com

21

The Wallach and Xad combined fleet was a flurry of activity after we gave them the news of the Alon ship and what we had found within. Our reconnaissance of the other slip tunnel had been less fruitful, only demonstrating that there had been a mine field around the tunnel opening and that several ships had met their fate there.

I walked the main concourse of the Bright Lance with my mother. She was growing stronger every day and had been busy while I was off playing Reaper. Many of the people we encountered waved and greeted her by name as we passed.

“How is Hannah adapting?” I asked.

“She spends all of her time in the gymnasium or the library. The Elise girl tried to talk to her, but they are very different people. Perhaps it’s the age difference or just how they were raised,” my mother said.

Hannah was ten years younger than me, and I was embarrassed I didn’t remember her birthday with any degree of precision. To me, she’d always been the kid, just like Elise and Bug and lots of other people would always be kids.

My mother seemed to know what I was thinking just by looking at me. She smiled and took my arm. “You’re not that old, Halek. Don’t act like it.”

“I feel pretty old,” I admitted.

“It’s a state of mind,” she said, her expression serious when I expected a smile to soften the message. “Don’t let the challenges in the galaxy break you down.”

“I won’t.” Walking with my mother felt natural. I’d worried that we would have become too estranged.

“I think it’s time to head back. I enjoy these walks, but I’m still building my endurance. The cryo-pods have a rejuvenating effect, or so I tell myself, but that doesn’t mean sleeping four months at a time did my cardiovascular system much good,” she said.

We headed back, frequently stopping to talk to crew members that had all kinds of things to share with my mother. She really had been socializing a lot. That wasn’t something I remembered about her, but now that I thought about it, it made sense. My childhood had been dangerous and that had distorted what I remembered of it.

“Go check on your sister, if you can find her,” my mother said as we parted.

“Right away, mother,” I said, which made her smile.

“I think I like you better as an adult.”

“Ouch!” I held my right hand over my heart, which amused her even more. She hugged me, but when she pulled back, I knew something was wrong.

* * *

We stared at each other until another passersby reached the next intersection and turned into a new hallway.

“Have you figured out why your sister and I were put into the pods?” she asked.

“Nebs was using you as hostages,” I said.

“Think about it, Halek. There’s more to it than that and you know it,” she said.

“Ayers,” I said through clenched teeth. “I have a source who puts most of the blame for what happened on him.”

“Ayers had more influence over the vice admiral than most people suspected, but don’t direct all of your hatred at him. Nebs truly was a monster,” she said.

“We got rid of one, I don’t see why we can’t handle the other one,” I said, thinking back on my discussion with Henshaw, Coronas, and Rejon.”

“I know you’ve already considered this, but you need to jettison Ayers and all of his work into the nearest star as soon as you can make it happen,” she said. There wasn’t anger or resentment in her voice. She was as cold as ice and it frightened me.

“That’s going to be a problem,” I told her.

“Tell me the rest,” she said.

“Henshaw managed to convince them to put him in control of Ayers and all of his projects,” I said. “He used the same argument you are using, but while he claimed he wanted them gone, he really only wanted to take over the project and have power over his rival.”

“James Henshaw? The engineer?” she asked.

“You know him?”

She nodded. “He was one of Neb’s less important technicians, but to hear him talk about all of his advanced education, you would’ve thought he was the galaxy’s gift to science.”

“He’s come a long way since then. Both of his eyes are cybernetic now, and he has a yacht that has a slip tunnel drive,” I said.

“That is a problem,” she said. “I never had much influence on the man, probably because I found him boring and arrogant—while he resented me for not fawning over his so-called brilliance. You have to convince President Coronas and Rejon of Xad to give me control over Ayers and his projects.”

“So you can destroy them?” I didn’t like where this was going. My mother wanted the exact same thing Henshaw wanted.

She hesitated slightly. “Yes.”

“That’s going to be a problem, because despite your low estimation of the man, he outmaneuvered me.”

“Explain,” she demanded.

“It’s a long story, but it involves poker, cigars, and whiskey,” I said, feeling like a kid despite towering over her.

“Never gamble with Henshaw. He might not be as smart as he thinks he is but his skill as a con artist can’t be matched,” she said.

“I figured that out late.” My mind wouldn’t stop working on the problem. Plans and counter plans grew in my imagination and disappeared before they were fully formed.

Before I realized it, my mother was striding down the hallway with renewed purpose.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“There’s no time to waste. If Henshaw has taken control with subtlety and tricks, we have to act directly. Can you fight your way past the guards at the hybrid vault?”

I didn’t move, knowing that if I pursued her, I would have to take her by the arm to stop her and I didn’t want to do that. “No, I can’t. Even if I wanted to. The last time I was there, there were a pair of the Wallach Presidential guards in exoskeleton armor.”

She whirled around to face me, fury in her eyes. “You could take them. You’re a Reaper.”

“Even if I could, think of the repercussions,” I said.

Emotions played on her face—anger, frustration, and an almost sad realization that much had changed between us. “I should be glad that the impulsive young man I remembered has learned to think. But you’re showing your weakness. Sometimes we have to do things that are unpleasant.”

I approached, anger building to a level I’d forgotten years ago. “Don’t talk to me about doing unpleasant things. I am a Reaper. I’m tired of selling my soul for what people tell me is right.”

At that, my mother softened and seemed to grow weaker by the second. I wasn’t sure if she was embarrassed for what she had said or afraid of what would happen if I didn’t take action against the alien hybrids immediately.

“I’ve seen them in action, Halek,” she said. “I’ll put you up against the Presidential Guards, or the Archangels, or a monster like the one they keep showing you fighting on Xad, but the abominations Ayers created will tear your face off.”

“I’ve been working on my face tearing defense for weeks,” I joked.

She laughed until she was almost crying and hugged me for the second time since we’d awakened her. “I’m sorry, Halek. Fear will push anyone to bad decisions and actions they’re ashamed of. I need to sleep. Ridiculous given how much time I’ve spent unconscious in the last year.”

“Get some rest. I actually have a secret weapon I can use to deal with Ayers and Henshaw.”

She pulled back and looked up at me. “Truly? What kind of secret weapon?”

“I call him Bug.”

* * *

Striding away from my mother’s cabin, I asked X-37 to contact the street kid from Dreadmax who had been doing electronic surveillance his entire life.

“I have him on the line. Go for Bug,” X-37 said.

“How’s it going, Bug?” I asked.

“Uh, good, Reaper. Why are you, uh, asking? Nothing going on here. Just checking the cameras, not eating extra rations of cheese crackers,” he answered.

“You sound like you’re crunching on something,” I said. “I know how you like cheese crackers.”

“They’re just so good and cheesy.”

“I get it, but there are rations for a reason. We have food stores now, but we don’t know how long it will be before we get a proper resupply,” I said.

“Uh, huh.” Chomp. Chomp. Chomp.

“I could probably turn a blind eye for someone doing extra duty, someone who could solve a problem for me,” I said. “I mean between X-37 and Mavis, I have all the evidence I need to lodge a complaint. And I know people.”

“That’s not fair. You can just go straight to Captain Younger with whatever you want. She’ll put me on some crappy mining ship.”

“Not if she doesn’t know,” I said. “I really need you to watch Henshaw.”

“I thought you wanted me to watch Ayers, which, by the way, is really boring since he’s locked down most of the time,” Bug said.

“Most of the time?”

“He escapes, but your sword saint friend always follows him without being seen. It’s pretty entertaining for about the first fifteen minutes, then I get hungry,” Bug said, chomping on some more crackers.

“He escaped!”

“Never for very long,” Bug replied defensively. Chomp. Chomp. Chomp.

“You have to tell me things like that. Why didn’t Mavis alert X-37?” I demanded, amazed this could have gone so far without anyone knowing.

“You were already through the slip tunnel finding dead Aliens. I don’t know why Mavis does things. She’s a ship AI,” Bug said.

“I’m looking into it now,” X-37 said.

“I’m sorry, Mister Reaper. He never went far and was always caught by the guards,” Bug said, rustling a bag noisily. “I thought you knew.”

“I need you to keep track of them both—and notify me immediately if Ayers is even acting like he might try an escape,” I ordered.

“Sure, Reaper. I can do that. Anything else in particular you want me to look for?”

“Any time Ayers and Henshaw discuss anything about the alien hybrids, I want to be notified immediately.”

“That’s not so easy,” Bug said. “There aren’t any cameras I can access on that level.”

“But you can do it, right?” If I didn’t have a way to outsource my spying, I was going to be too busy to do much else.

“Oh, yeah, for sure. I just have to figure out which Archangel, or Presidential Guard, or ship guard has the duty, then I can tap into their helmet comms. Took me a while to figure out how to use them while they’re turned off. But it can be done,” Bug said, crumpling up a wrapper and throwing it away by the sound of it.

“You can spy on Archangels?” I asked.

“This should be impossible,” X-37 said. “He would have to have access to their communal limited artificial intelligence.”

“I picked up one of the helmets from the repair room. Checked it out and everything. Told Tom it was a school project. He thinks I need to get a real education and keeps sending me books and self-study courses,” Bug said.

“I guess no good deed goes unpunished.” I started planning my next move but was interrupted by a message from Elise reminding me we were due for a micro-fighter patrol. “I want you on Henshaw and Ayers like they owe me money.”

“Do they?”

“No.”

“Then—”

“Just tell me whenever Henshaw visits Ayers and if they talk about the hybrids. And tell me if Henshaw goes anywhere near the alien hybrid vault or does anything that involves them,” I said.

“Okay.” Bug’s voice was casual, almost bored. “Can you get me some ration vouchers?”

“Sure.”

OceanofPDF.com

22

Elise took the lead, maneuvering her micro-fighter through the asteroid belt slightly faster than I was comfortable with.

“This will improve your piloting skills, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “You have most likely run out of beginner’s luck.”

“I’m not a beginner. I’ve had training,” I said.

“I believe you know what I mean,” X-37 said.

“Try to keep up, Reaper,” Elise said. She always sounded happy and alive when we were tearing through the void.

“I’m right behind you.”

“Good.” Something about her voice had changed. “I think I’ve spotted something. Possibly a ship.”

“What kind of ship?”

“I think it’s an Alon scout ship,” Elise answered. “Whatever it is, it knows I see it and it’s running.”

“X, can you confirm what she’s seeing?”

“Absolutely, Reaper Cain, just as soon as you bring us into visual range. I can’t analyze what I can’t see,” X-37 said.

“You know what I mean, X. Elise, let me take the lead.”

“It’s too fast. Just try to keep up.” She shot forward at full speed, weaving around asteroids one after another.

Before our sudden acceleration, there had seemed to be plenty of room between the space rocks. Now it felt like every time I steered, it was right toward an asteroid.

“Tom,” I said. “Stay out of the asteroid field but don’t get too far behind. Follow along the perimeter.”

No response.

“Tom,” I repeated.

“The scout ship is jamming our communications, which is intriguing since I don’t see how they can know our frequencies or even our basic technology,” X-37 said.

“How are they doing that if I can still talk to Elise?” I asked.

“Unknown, but it may have something to do with proximity and/or the asteroid field we are navigating at a rather dangerous rate,” X-37 said.

Elise pulled farther away from me and I still couldn’t see the mysterious Alon scout vessel she was chasing.

“My analysis suggests that you should minimize the rate at which she is leaving you behind without exceeding your piloting capabilities,” X-37 said.

“Are you worried, X?”

“I am somewhat worried, Reaper Cain. The odds of surviving the next several seconds are not promising. Please focus on what you are doing,” X-37 said. “Would some relaxing music assist your concentration?”

“Shutting the hell up would be better yet,” I said.

An extremely large rock tumbled toward me, or that’s what it looked like. I couldn’t see Elise or her quarry. Guessing which direction they were taking the pursuit, I jammed the control sticks forward and flew under the unusually large chunk of space debris.

When I cleared the rock, I was immediately faced with a cloud of smaller grit that peppered my shields. X-37 and my Archangel LAI worked together to find Elise.

I respected X-37’s warning, but if I didn’t take some risks, I was going to lose her and whatever she was chasing.

“Keep trying to raise the Jellybird and see if they can meet us on the other side of this asteroid belt,” I said, then accelerated as fast as I dared—plus about ten percent.

“Unable to establish communication with the Jellybird,” X-37 said.

Something big bumped my shield and scooted me sideways. I dropped down to avoid the next rock, then put the micro-fighter into a roll.

“It’s leaving the asteroid belt,” Elise said, her voice buried in static. “Just punch out of the belt and try to catch up with us on the other side. I’m going to…”

“We’ve lost signal,” X-37 provided unhelpfully.

I shot forward, clearing the last group of rocks easily. Cheering, I whooped and hollered my way toward a planet that had an ominous look to it.

“I’m detecting two small ships descending into the stratosphere,” X-37 advised. “I am ninety percent certain that one of them is Elise.”

I redlined the engines and went straight at them, desperate to catch up before Elise got herself into trouble.

* * *

The cockpit of the micro-fighter vibrated as the wings extended for atmospheric maneuvering. Alerts flashed in my HUD and the controls fought my hands.

“Reduce speed immediately, Reaper Cain. You are going to overshoot Elise and the other ship,” X-37 said.

I backed off just as I came alongside Elise. “Cain for Elise, how copy?”

“I hear you, Reaper.”

A wash of words I didn’t understand interrupted, completely burying our conversation. Whatever the other pilot was saying, it seemed to be some kind of challenge or accusation.

“X, can you figure out what he’s trying to tell us?”

“I’m working on it, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“How’s your ship, Elise?” I asked.

“It’s good. I didn’t run into anything, unlike some people I know,” she answered.

“Ouch,” I said. “Run into a couple of rocks, and everybody makes a big deal out of it.”

“I’m low on fuel,” she said. “I’ve sent several unanswered messages to the Jellybird. I really hope they know we’re on this planet, because I’m going to have to land.”

I checked my HUD and confirmed my fuel was also low. “I want to know where this strange scout ship is going, but we need to break off. I don’t really want it telling its friends where we crashed down.”

“Who said anything about crashing?” Elise asked indignantly.

“Yeah, whatever. Let’s make a hard push to catch the Alon scout ship, then reverse course, break contact as cleanly as possible, and find a place to set down while it still believes were are in pursuit,” I said.

“I’m on it.” Elise rushed at the strange ship. Almost immediately, it accelerated far faster than we could match.

Elise and I banked in a wide turn, then flew down into a valley obscured by trees that had to be hundreds of feet tall.

* * *

Elise managed to get out of her ship before I did and was standing with her arms crossed, tapping her foot when I disengaged my Archangel armor from the chassis of the micro-fighter.

“What the hell are we going to do now?” Elise asked. “I couldn’t get confirmation that the Jellybird received our distress call.”

After pulling a long work knife from my leg armor, I began chopping branches from one of the enormous trees surrounding our landing site. Elise quickly realized what I was doing and followed suit. We camouflaged our little ships as we talked.

“It’s actually nice,” I said. “Not much humidity, oxygen-rich environment with lots of plant life—suggests there will be other animals to hunt or domesticate. We could live here for a while.”

“Or we could get rescued before some Alon search ship finds us,” Elise said.

“What do you think, X? Should we just retire here and make the most of it?” I asked.

“I cannot make a valid analysis of that question until we have more information. Could you please explore the planet, or at least the immediate area?” X-37 asked.

“We can do that,” Elise answered. “I feel like we are exposed here anyway. Why didn’t we train for terrestrial field operations, Reaper?”

“I’m thoroughly trained for that type of thing,” I answered. “Which is a good reason for you to listen to me and do what I say.”

“Now I really want to get rescued,” she said.

We moved into the trees, pausing to peer out from our new hiding place and search the sky for enemy ships. All we saw were flocks of birds moving across the valley, perching on treetops just long enough to gather and launch themselves with the flurry of activity.

“There is some sort of animal trail,” I said. “It should lead to water. We can test it and see if it’s drinkable. If it is, we will have a much better time surviving until we’re found.”

We moved steadily into the forest, descending through gullies and climbing up hills, all of which were covered with the towering evergreens and different types of underbrush. The landscape was a hundred layers of colors and textures and animal life.

“I think we’ll probably have to explore this when the rest of the fleet gets here,” Elise said. “It could definitely support everyone from Wallach and Xad.”

“Unless it’s already taken.”

Elise made one of her faces that involved eye rolling and turning away from me. “Duh. That’s why we’ll scout it.”

“X, have you decrypted any of that Alon transmission?” I asked.

“Only a single message. Something like the planet defends itself,” X-37 said.

“That doesn’t sound ominous.” Elise turned in a circle. “I don’t care what attacks as long as it doesn’t have tentacles.”

“Let’s just not get seen,” I said. “That’s the best way to avoid attacks, tentacle or otherwise.”

We found a stream with water so clear we could see fish swimming in it and the rocks on the bottom. I wasn’t sure I liked the look of the fish—they had a rainbow sheen to them and darted away before I could think about catching one.

Some sort of four-legged creature covered in spotted fur looked at us from the other side of the water, then darted away. Only then did I realize there were seven or eight of them of different sizes.

“There’s a lot of wildlife here. I wish we could get in touch with the Jellybird, or any ship that can scan for cities or technology,” I said.

“I’m surprised we haven’t seen more of those ships,” Elise said. “What do you think that means? Could we have discovered this planet at the same time that the Alon found it?” She paused. “And if that’s the case, how would they know the planet defends itself?”

“It’s too early to tell and we don’t even know for certain if that’s who we’re dealing with.” I scanned the terrain and got X-37’s opinion on where we might be able to take shelter.

There was a natural windbreak in the foothills of the mountains that surrounded us. With luck we might even find a cave to get us through the night.

“My analysis suggests that is your best option for shelter,” X-37 said. “It’s a defensible position and we can see a lot of the surrounding area on our approach to be sure it isn’t already claimed by someone else.”

“You heard X,” I said. “Time to see how well the Archangels do on the ground.”

“We are the Archangels, sort of,” Elise said. “I know that’s the armor designation, but if we worked for the Union that’s what we would be called.”

“Sure, but let’s not do anything like the Union would.” I took off at a fast run. The armor augmented my strength and conserved my energy. Every movement was more efficient, and I made good time until I tripped.

Elise staggered to a stop beside me, having her own problems moving at the speed these things were capable of. Standing and fighting for balance, she eventually put her fists on her hips and looked down at me as I climbed to my feet.

“That was awesome,” she said. “It’s different than running on one of the treadmills or even the track of the Bright Lance.”

“It’s fantastic. Especially the part where we stick out like shining gold armor in a raw world that doesn’t seem to have been touched by technology,” I said. “We need to find some camouflage.”

Elise laughed, totally up for the game. She scooped up a handful of dirt, her shining gauntlet every bit as efficient as a shovel. For several moments she smeared the rich, loamy soil all over her armor—and achieved nothing.

“There must be some sort of carbon and fluorine clear coat, polytetrafluoroethylene basically, covering the exterior of this stuff,” Elise grumbled, but not in a negative or unhappy way. “I can’t get it dirty.”

“I noticed that when we crossed the river and came out clean as a whistle,” I said.

“Well La-dee-da. Aren’t you smart,” she popped back. “We’ll figure something out. For now, we can just stay inside the tree line to avoid aerial counter reconnaissance.”

“Good idea.” I checked the sky. Privately, I had expected there would already have been one of the Alon scout ships looking for us if it was going to happen. It seemed unlikely that there was a major enemy presence, if that’s what they were on this planet.

I’d been wrong before.

“You’re awfully quiet, X. Can you help us out with camouflage?” I asked.

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “I am highlighting camouflage instructions on your HUD now. It takes a few moments, but all you have to do is activate it and then remain motionless until the armor can adjust. It’s not a true stealth option like the cloak that you inconveniently left on the Bright Lance, but it will change the outward appearance of your armor to match the flora of this environment during this particular season.

“Thanks, X.” I activated the environment mimicking protocol. Elise, probably guided by the Archangel group LAI, was done before I was. That was getting to be a trend. She was quick.

“I told you integrating the armor was a good idea,” she said.

“I never argued with you. Let’s keep moving. I want to scout an area around our landing zone as thoroughly as possible.” The helmet optics and my cybernetic eye integrated well. Images were stored in short-term memory, then analyzed and saved if they were something X-37 thought useful.

The forest was dark at night and it was strange to be outside of a ship without seeing a massive star field all around me. I tried to remember the last time I had been on a planet and not in a city.

“Any luck contacting the Jellybird?” I asked.

“No, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “I am no longer detecting interference with our signals, however.”

“Should be a matter of time. Elise, what do you think about spreading out? We’d be less of a target for whatever is in these woods.”

“Our comms are solid right now. Let’s do it.”

I moved away from her, searching for threats and checking her position on my HUD when I couldn’t see her directly.

“This seems like a nice planet,” Elise said. “I wonder what President Coronas and Rejon will think of it.”

“Every system we scout will be a potential new home for their people,” I said.

“I’m hungry. Surely there has to be something we can eat on this planet,” Elise said.

“Let’s finish our security sweep before we get distracted.”

* * *

“There is only so much I can do,” X-37 said. “My analysis of these berries is limited to visual feedback and/or the reactions of your body when you consume it. A check of my database suggests that some berries of this basic size and color are edible but that others could kill you instantly.”

I looked at the purplish fruit in my hand. “That seems a bit harsh. They look sweet.”

“Yeah,” Elise said too casually. “Just throw down a couple of handfuls and see what happens. You’re the logical choice for the experiment since X-37 can gather more data.”

With our helmets off, her expressions were easier to read, and I saw that she honestly wanted to know if the local berries were edible, but that she also wanted to see me gag.

“Tom for Hal, please respond,” a voice came in my ear.

After dropping the berries, I slipped on my helmet for better reception. There was an urgency in my friend’s voice I didn’t like.

“I’m here, Tom. Elise is with me.”

“That’s a huge relief! We’ve been scanning the planet for hours. You really hid your ships well,” Tom said. “What is your situation? You need to get off that planet immediately.”

Elise had her helmet on now as well and was moving toward her micro-fighter. “We need fuel, Tom. Can you send us down a shuttle?”

“I could do that, but we will lose a shuttle. There won’t be time to recover it. I’m launching a care package to your location, which will alert the swarm. So don’t mess around. Refuel and just leave the container. I don’t like the look of this,” Tom said, sounding even more worried than before.

“Send me a video,” I said.

“It will be compressed. Standby,” Tom said. “I’m doing two things at once.”

“The fueling container is on its way,” Jelly said.

I saw the single use fuel pod streaking down from the atmosphere, arcing toward our location with a complete lack of subtlety. If there were Alon forces on the planet or something else we hadn’t seen yet, they wouldn’t have difficulty finding us now.

“Talk to me, Tom,” I said as I watched the first image is coming through my HUD projection. The view was of the planet from high orbit and there was a cloud of something moving our way.

“We thought it was a storm at first,” Tom said. “But it doesn’t move like an environmental system. It stopped several times, then seemed to detect something that got it moving again, then headed straight for your position.”

“I don’t like the look of that,” Elise said, all of her cockiness gone. She’d proven her bravery over and over again. Our experiences together had taught me how to interpret her tone well.

I was glad we were on the same page. It wasn’t quite time to crap our pants, but we needed to give our best game right now. We were on an alien planet of which we knew very little about and a swarm of something the size of a small continent was heading for us.

“My analysis of planetary creatures in the database combined with what we are seeing from high orbit suggests this is a flock of birds or some type of insect swarm,” X-37 provided, probably trying to be helpful.

“Yeah, let’s hope they can’t penetrate Archangel armor or micro-fighters.” I ran toward the fuel container as it struck the clearing.

“A bigger problem will be the sheer mass of the swarm,” X-37 said, then gave me an extensive list of size estimations that really didn’t help me much.

“We can’t fly through a swarm of birds or bugs or whatever that size,” Elise said. “Can you hurry up?”

I scrambled down into the crater, wanting to chastise Tom and Jelly for misjudging the impact velocity, but I wasn’t sure it was their fault. We were working on the fly and just had to adapt.

Scrambling down into the hole, I searched frantically for some type of handle and found a clamp that looked like it matched a section of the Jellybird’s storage bay. Grabbing with one hand and climbing with the other, I worked my way to the top of the hole where Elise pulled me the rest of the way out.

“Grab on!”

She quickly found the clamp on the other side and seized it. We shuffled ungracefully toward our ships and pulled out the refueling tubes.

Elise laughed in frustration. “If we had parked closer together, we could do them at the same time.”

“That’s the best we can do right now. Let’s get this going,” I said, starting the refueling of her ship first.

“The swarm will reach you in fewer than thirty minutes,” Jelly said.

“That is almost exactly the amount of time it will take to fill both of your ships with the rather viscous fuel these things use,” X-37 said. “That does not, however, account for the time it will take you to move the container to your ship, Reaper Cain.”

“Fine. Time to put this armor to the test.” I ran across the clearing where my micro-fighter was hidden. “It seemed like a good idea to spread them out at the time.”

“You didn’t hear me disagreeing with you.” Elise ran to help me.

“That was kind of unusual, now that you mention it,” I said.

We each grabbed a wing and moved the chassis with ease, then began filling it with the second nozzle immediately.

“Well done,” X-37 said. “Now there’ll only be a two minute and fifteen second overlap.”

“That’s what I’m predicting as well,” Tom said. “The cloud does tend to stop seemingly at random. Fingers crossed, maybe you’ll get lucky.”

I checked my HDK dominator and the magazines I would reload from when shit got hot. Elise did the same.

A shadow moved through the night, appearing strange with our night vision optics giving everything we saw a harsh edge to be better identified by the armor’s limited artificial intelligence and my cybernetic optics.

“I really hate this!” Elise’s voice sounded forced, as though she was pushing the words through clenched teeth.

“Analyzing data,” X-37 announced, not sounding the least bit worried. Sometimes it was nice to be an emotionless combination of hardware and algorithms. “I believe you can relax.”

“Why don’t we err on the side of caution,” I suggested. “We’re about to face the edge of a continent sized swarm of unknown alien life-forms.”

Elise shifted her stance, her own HDK gripped in both hands.

“It’s been nice knowing you, kid,” I said.

“Not a kid,” she replied.

I didn’t really know what the first insect was when I saw it, because it was bigger than a kite. In the darkness, cast in the eerie black and white and green tones of the night vision optics, it looked ominous.

Hundreds more followed, then thousands, then we were surrounded in every direction by slow-moving insects of every shape and size.

“That’s not what I expected.” Elise stood straighter and lowered her weapon.

I activated the helmet light that I had rarely used, turning the scene into a rainbow of colors. Elise and I laughed, surprised and delighted despite how amped up we had been to face our death only seconds before.

“Please remember, Reaper Cain, that this swarm may still be dangerous despite its pleasant appearance,” X-37 said.

I laughed as I talked. “Sure thing, X. I’ll watch out for the pretty bugs.”

Something happened as the light from my archangel helmet struck the delicate creatures. Some of them started to glow around the edges, and I realized that the top of the cloud was pulling light from the stars and moonshine.

“Maybe you should turn off your headlight,” Elise said softly.

“Get in your ship.” I finished off the refueling of my own micro-fighter chassis.

Elise climbed into hers, connected her armor to all of the strong points, and powered up the unit. I wanted to do the same but wasn’t ready.

More and more of the bugs gathered light from the night sky until we were under a canopy of the most brilliant cloud I’d ever seen. The wings of each creature beat slowly against the gentle night breeze. The bottom layer of insects moved toward a perimeter that encircled us and began to gather their own light that was unavailable when they were at the bottom of the churning cloud.

I powered up my fighter.

Light swelled in the top layer until it was too bright to look at without filters for my helmet visor.

“Let’s get the hell out of here, Elise. We’re going to have to fly through the trees and look for a way to gain altitude.” A second later, I punched my engines and took off without even bothering to fully disconnect the fuel hose. X-37 chastised me for ruining the coupling, but my gut was telling me we should have been gone five minutes ago.

“Hal, you’ve got a serious problem!” Tom shouted.

The combined energy of the solar insects gathering moon and star light focused in the center and blasted toward the surface, gouging a huge crater in the clearing.

Elise and I shot between trees, often tipping the micro-fighters onto their sides to avoid crashing into them. She took the lead, dropping into a gully and racing over a stream of water that was starting to boil from the destruction behind us. The more power the strange creatures poured into their organic weapon, the more the scene behind us looked like a nuclear holocaust.

In the void, it was easy to forget how fast these little micro-fighters were, but with the perspective of trees and mountains all around us, I really felt like we were about to die.

“The explosions are having a cumulative effect,” Tom warned. “I’m still tracking you, thank the gods! Don’t stop for anything.”

The stream bed became a waterfall towering a hundred meters above us. Elise and I both shot upward, grunting at the G force as we were pulling to complete the maneuver. One of her wings clipped the water and sent a spray into the night.

“Why… would… bugs incinerate… the forest?” I asked as I pulled my fighter into the sky and flashed away from the destruction behind us.

“Unknown,” X-37 said. “I believe they are defending the planet from invaders.”

“I knew you were going to say that.” I joined Elise, flying wide of the cloud of deceptively beautiful creatures. The plasma-like blast they had generated was reaching for the atmosphere.

“I’m not sure this planet is going to make a good home for the fleet,” Elise said. “But now I’m curious. What’s with this place?”

“Jelly is telling me the swarm is attempting to communicate,” Tom said. “Apparently, the butterfly swarm is sentient and not happy about trespassers.”

“I’m consulting with Jelly now,” X-37 said. “We’ve agreed it’s not a true language, more like the roar of a wild animal than a creature we could negotiate with.”

“Great. Any sign of the Alon scout ship?”

“No, Captain,” Jelly answered. “But there is a crisis on the Bright Lance requiring your attention.”

“Fantastic,” I said. “Do we have any idea what happened to the ship we were chasing?”

“Your encounter with the indigenous life-forms of this planet was on the edge of the swarm,” X-37 explained. “I’m working with Jelly now and it seems that there were a series of other explosions. Our hypothesis is that the strangers you were pursuing, possibly the Alon, had an outpost that was just annihilated.”

“We need to confirm that.” I aimed my little ship toward the Jellybird.

“Of course, Reaper Cain. But I really must insist you head for the Bright Lance at your best possible speed. If you don’t handle this situation, finding a new home for this fleet will be a moot point.”

OceanofPDF.com

23

“My apologies,” AI Mavis said. “But all Archangel armor must be powered down for service after a major mission.”

“That’s pretty fucking inconvenient.” I felt my fatigue more clearly now that I was back on the Bright Lance. During a mission, it was easier to put that aside.

“I agree, Reaper,” Mavis said. “This is unfortunate, but the rules are there for your safety and for the preservation of the equipment. Which is very expensive.”

“My advice, Reaper Cain, is not to argue with Mavis,” X-37 said to me privately. “She is a great improvement over Necron, but she has her idiosyncrasies. As a relatively young ship AI, her default mode is to follow rules and regulations very strictly. She doesn’t have data that is gleaned from experience and interaction with humans to make more advanced decisions.”

I listened but had already moved on. “All right, give me an update. Ayers awakened and released some of the hybrids, then escaped. I need some better details.”

“We leave for five minutes and the entire ship goes to hell,” Elise said.

“You were gone for thirty-seven hours,” Mavis interjected.

“That is exactly what I was going to say,” X-37 added.

“You know what I mean.” Elise sounded frustrated and I wondered if she would start to understand the kind of crap I had to put up with all the time.

“Everyone shut up,” I said. “Here’s what we need. First and foremost, find whatever ship Ayers left with. Meanwhile, Elise and I will meet Path and Henshaw at the hybrid vault to assess the damage. I’m really interested to see how Henshaw allowed this to happen. He was in charge of the doctor, right?”

“That is correct,” Mavis said. “However, he is currently in the medical bay—his condition stable but serious.”

“Great. This just keeps getting better,” I said. “Path, are you on this channel?”

“I am at the hybrid vault,” the sword saint answered.

“Stay there. Keep everything locked down. Elise and I are on the way.”

“I will be here,” Path said.

“Bug, talk to me,” I said.

No answer.

“Mavis, can you find Bug?” I asked. “He was supposed to watching Ayers and Henshaw.”

“I will attempt to locate the boy,” Mavis said.

The Bright Lance was a flurry of activity. Every guard and soldier had been called to duty. Major intersections had at least two armed men or women. We encountered a half-dozen patrols and were advised twice to use the stairs instead of the lifts

“There have been numerous sightings of the hybrid creatures throughout the ship,” Mavis advised. “Three people have been killed and several more seriously wounded. It is unknown what these things want.”

“Ayers left them here to create panic and disorder while he escaped,” I explained. “Where is he?”

“Doctor Ayers took the Lady Faith,” X-37 said. “That is how James Henshaw was injured. Apparently, there was some sort of struggle.”

“That dumbass brought Ayers onto his ship, probably for some sort of high-brow scientific discussion, didn’t he?” I asked.

“I can neither confirm nor deny that hypothesis,” X-37 said.

“Remind me to punch Henshaw in his throat when I see him.”

“I have updated your agenda to include punch James Henshaw in the throat,” X-37 said.

“Mavis, have you found Bug yet?” I asked.

“The boy is on the line and awaiting communication with you, Reaper.”

“Bug, talk to me. You were supposed to be watching both Ayers and Henshaw,” I said.

“Who do you think sounded the alarm? I sent guards to inspect whatever they took onto the Lady Faith, but they were too late. Hey, do you mind, Reaper? I’m trying to find these monsters before they kill someone. The ship has a lot of cameras,” Bug said.

“Sure thing, kid. Do your thing. But keep me updated.”

When Elise and I finally arrived at the hybrid vault, we found what I hoped would be our last surprise of the day. There was a small army of guards and soldiers protecting the technicians that were putting new restraint mechanisms on each of the cryo-pods that still had subjects in them. There were also a lot of dead hybrids, killed by guards or by each other.

Commander Briggs sat on a bench holding a compress against an injury on his head. When he looked up, he appeared humiliated, hurt, and about ready to vomit. His formally ruddy complexion was now a dark shade of blue. Stripes went diagonally across his face and down his shoulders like the camouflage of a strange animal.

The man was also bigger, and he hadn’t been small in the first place.

I looked at his arms and saw bumps, little spiky protrusions where the other alien hybrids could extend tentacle-like arms that ended in ugly, serrated hooks.

“What took you so long, Reaper?” His voice was strange, barely sounding like the man I remembered.

“We need to have a long talk.”

“He took some of them with him. You know that, right?” Briggs said. “Why the hell didn’t you destroy all of us when you took control of the Dark Lance?”

“They call it the Bright Lance now.” I didn’t really have an answer.

Silence grew between us as I pieced together the facts of our new situation. Briggs sat with his head in his hands, looking at his feet. He swayed forward and back slightly, barely able to control muscle spasms that rolled through his body from time to time.

“I think he left some of the completed Slayers behind to terrorize the ship,” Briggs managed to say.

“At least one, but probably more. The ship is on high alert and we have guards everywhere.”

“That won’t matter. A lot of people are going to die before you put them down. Abandoning ship shouldn’t be ruled out as an option,” Briggs said.

“That will be easier said than done. There aren’t exactly a lot of Union stealth carrier ships around to replace this one. The captain will not want to sacrifice it. Not worth losing an entire ship.”

Briggs tried to laugh, which sent him into a convulsion. Every muscle in his body seized up at the same time, locking him in a state of agony for several seconds.

I wanted to help him but could only stand by, ready to catch him if he fell forward.

“Did you know there used to be four stealth carriers?” he asked. “That was until one of these things got loose and the captain refused to abandon ship. They did so much damage hunting it that it was eventually scuttled in the Quan Darr 11 system.”

“Did you have a Reaper on that ship?”

He managed to laugh without having a fit this time, sounding like he was blowing a tedious melody on a kazoo. “You always were as cocky as a son of a gun.”

“I have to keep you under guard and locked up,” I said. “We’re on the same side now, like it or not.”

“I’m not fit to be on anyone’s side, and my condition is going to get worse before it gets better,” he said. “Lock me up, but promise me someone will end it if I lose my ability to think like a human.”

We hadn’t been friends. There had only been one instance where I suspected he had done something to allow Elise and me to escape, but even then that was more of a hunch that I might have been imagining. After what happened to him, I felt a disturbing sense of kinship.

“I’ll do it myself if it comes to that.” I spoke softly but with conviction.

“Thanks, Reaper,” he said, his voice devoid of emotion. “I was hoping you would say that. You’re the only one I trust put me out of my misery without hesitation.”

There wasn’t anything to say to that, so I doubled the guards on his cell and left.

OceanofPDF.com

24

Dozens of people crowded the situation room of the Bright Lance, including Captain Younger and Brion Rejon, leader of Xad. President Coronas had been relocated to her own ship when the crisis began.

“I find it interesting that the people of Xad don’t require their leader to transfer to another ship,” X-37 said.

“Their society evolved differently,” I said. “I’m guessing their leadership cast wasn’t always long-lived. They probably gave up on staying safe about the time they started trying to salvage thousands of derelict ships from the void.”

“That is very similar to my own analysis,” X-37 said. “Captain Younger is beginning the briefing.”

I shut up and listened. Elise stood on my left, Path on my right, each of us in full Archangel armor but with our helmets off. Bridge security glared at the massive chain gun strapped to my back but didn’t make me leave it outside.

“I wish I’d thought of that,” Elise said.

“You were playing with micro-fighters,” I responded, scanning every face in the room to gauge their level of fear versus their commitment to winning.

“Playing, innovating—you decide which I was doing,” Elise said. “And you’re welcome, by the way.”

“Thank you for your vigilance thus far.” Younger’s strong voice carried across the room as people ended conversations and faced forward. “This crisis will call for great sacrifice and creative solutions. Reaper Cain has interviewed the surviving test subject and learned several things that will help us in our hunt.”

She waved her hand and a holographic display of a fully formed monster appeared. The holo was blurry, taken from the security cam. It looked like it had been running or charging when the image was captured.

“There are at least two Slayers at large.” She held up one hand to stop the murmuring that was spreading to the room. “That was what their creators called them and is sufficient for our purposes. The monsters are seven feet tall, dense enough to resist our weapons, and have demonstrated an unbelievable level of strength. Surviving victims claim they have strange eyes that seemed to look at their prey differently than we would and that their heads can turn at least one hundred and eighty degrees.”

I studied the image carefully, noting how much different it appeared when it wasn’t trapped in a cryo-pod.

Captain Younger continued. “They can extend—or shoot, actually—something like tentacles from their arms and legs. These appendages end in serrated hooks, possibly designed to capture prey, but we haven’t seen that yet.”

“That’s good,” someone said, and there was mild laughter for a few seconds.

“This holo image is misleading. Eyewitnesses report they are a shiny blue color, like they’re constantly wet. Others claim they are nearly black,” Younger said. “You all have your assignments. Your mission is to locate and contain any and all alien lifeforms. You will not engage with fewer than four combat trained individuals. Reaper Cain and his people, of course, are the exception.”

She looked toward me. “Do you have anything to add, Cain?”

“They can be killed,” I said.

“How do you know that?” asked a voice from the crowd.

“Anything can be killed. Stick to the plan, trust your team, and look for opportunities. The best thing we can do is deny them access to more and more parts of the ship until their only option is to get pushed out of an airlock,” I said.

“I like that plan,” Younger said. “But make no mistake, destroy these monsters at your first opportunity.”

“We heard there were still some frozen in cryo-pods. What about them?” a crew member asked.

“That’s not part of this briefing.” Younger pointed at another crew member. “Next question.”

“Some of us have families,” the man toward the back said. “Can they be evacuated?”

“That’s a good idea, Crewman Davidson. I’ll assign people to begin the process.”

Once I had caught Captain Younger’s eye, I indicated I was leaving and she gave me a very short nod of approval.

“Mavis and Bug believe Ayers took six of the fresh, or least changed, hybrids, and six of them partially through the transformation,” X-37 said. “We agree that all twelve of the completed Slayers are unaccounted for. Where would you wish to start, Reaper Cain?”

“I’d like to start by finding these things before any of the people from the ship do.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Elise said. “Path, are you ready to hunt aliens?”

“Yes, though I find no pleasure destroying these unfortunate creatures,” Path answered, then put on his helmet.

“Let’s not overthink this,” I said. “These things are dangerous and have already killed innocent crew members. If they were human, we’d still have to take them out. Don’t get soft just because they were unwilling test subjects.”

“Of course.” Path’s expression was as serene and unreadable as a pool of untouched water.

“X, point the way. I want to get a head start on the rest of the search teams.”

“My analysis suggests it would also be smart to allow them to secure as many areas of the ship as possible, thus narrowing options for your quarry.”

“Yeah, sure. We’ll do that too. But if we can get a jump on it now, it might save a lot of Wallach and Xad lives,” I said.

“And the lives of those formerly serving the Union,” X-37 said. “A significant number of them remain on each of the formerly Union ships.”

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s just save everyone and sort it out later.”

OceanofPDF.com

25

“There has been a Slayer sighting on deck five, just outside the hydroponics room,” X-37 said.

“We’re on our way,” I said.

“Do you think it’s hungry? Or is it going to sabotage the hydroponics?” Elise asked. “I’m not really excited about tearing that place up.”

“Damage to the farm would be problematic long term,” I said. “But if that’s where we find it, then we have to deal with it. Letting it wander around until we find the perfect location to corner it isn’t really an option.”

“How many doors does the place have?” Elise asked.

“There is one main door large enough for equipment and two side doors—one to a combination lounge and cafeteria area for workers, and another that eventually leads back to the main hallway. The problem I am seeing from the schematics is that there are numerous sub levels and access places to the hydroponics facility. These have not been updated for a while,” X-37 said. “Sometimes these types of facilities are modified or repaired in creative ways.”

“Keep us updated, X,” I said as we entered a lift.

“Of course, Reaper Cain. AI Mavis has been very helpful. She wants me to convey that it is also in her best interest that we neutralize this clear and present threat to her crew.”

“Great.”

“We have another sighting near shuttle bay 14A,” Mavis said. “I have lost contact with the response team.”

“Of course,” I said. “Path, can you handle that one?”

“I’m on my way,” Path said, then left.

“All right,” I said. “Just don’t tell me there are any more right now. Elise and I will check the hydroponics rooms.”

“Unfortunately, Reaper Cain,” Mavis said, “there are two additional sightings, one at each end of the ship.”

X-37 interjected. “Mavis is correct. My analysis suggests they were dispersed intentionally to slow your pursuit of Ayers.”

Elise bit back a curse. “I’ll deal with those two. You can have the farm level all to yourself.”

“How are you going to fight two Slayers?” I asked.

“One at a time,” she answered. “Which is still better than where you’re going.”

We parted ways. When they were out of sight, I picked up the pace, running toward my objective, hoping I could take down the first of the Slayers quickly and then help Elise and Path. What I found on the way didn’t bode well. One hallway was streaked with blood as though a body had been dragged into an access hatch. Now I had to decide whether I was going to enter the access hatch or continue to my original objective.

“What do you think, X?” I asked, studying the hatch.

“This blood is drying,” X-37 said. “Mavis also advised me there are numerous scenes like this on the ship. We don’t have time to investigate them all.”

“Agreed,” I said. “I’m going to trust my gut and continue. Patch me into their tactical network so I can listen to the response teams.”

“Would you like me to filter the information,” X-37 said. “It is somewhat chaotic. Multiple units are responding to multiple locations, possibly all chasing the same Slayer. Conversely, there were twelve fully formed Slayers, or hybrids as you have been referring to them thus far, in the cryo-pods before Doctor Ayers betrayed us. Mavis, Bug, and I believe that all twelve of the dirty things were put on a mission to rack up a high body count. This is about to get real.”

“Twelve filthy monsters and one Reaper.” I chuckled without a lot of actual humor in my voice. “Barely seems fair.”

“My analysis suggests you should not become cocky or it will bite you on your posterior,” X-37 advised.

“Good one, X.”

“Was that humorous?”

“Sure, X.”

“I will add it to my database of amusing one-liners.”

I came to an oversized door leading into the hydroponics area. “Check on Elise and Path, then check for any relevant updates ship wide,” I said. “Do we still think there is one in here?”

“There is at least one, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that. Does Mavis have visual, and can she patch through the image?”

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “I’m updating the holo feed from Mavis now.”

A disturbing image filled my HUD. After suffering a second of blurriness, I pushed the projection further out—an illusion but a useful illusion—and saw my enemies more clearly. Three of the Slayers squatted near a murky pool, splashing water on their faces and upper bodies. One turned slightly so that his neighbor could scoop up chunks of brains and gore from a place the monster couldn’t reach. Each of the monsters was spattered with the gore of their recent victims.

“I’m going to need some help,” I said.

“There is none available, unless you want to divert resources away from Path in Elise, who seem to have their hands full,” X-37 said. “The entire ship is now on official lockdown. No one is allowed to leave their chambers unless they are part of a security team.”

I thought about waiting these three Slayers out, hoping they would wander apart so that I could take them one by one. I couldn’t hear what was inside, but they seemed to be arguing or just chittering at each other. One was bigger than the others. It jumped up, stomped forward, and shot tentacles out, nearly striking his fellow monsters.

The other two dropped back and separated, but before long were once again gathered in the gruesome feeding and bathing circle—because combining those activities made sense to a Slayer.

“We found where the bodies were dragged to.”

“I’m linking to a security feed from deck three,” X-37 said. “A combined team of Wallach, Xad, and Union soldiers are confronting one of the creatures.”

“Audio only. I want to keep my eyes on the three by the pool inside this hydroponics area,” I said.

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said, then obliged me with the sound of a squad fighting a deadly enemy.

“Contact, contact, contact!” A soldier shouted.

“Shift fire!” another yelled. “You’re danger close, Donovan. Move so we can cover you. Godsdammit!”

The sound of gunfire increased, then ended abruptly. Screams of pain overwhelmed the channel.

“I have muted the security feed, but I am transcribing the data for analysis,” X-37 said.

“Are we close enough to help?” I asked.

“You cannot reach them in time to offer assistance,” X-37 said. “I suggest you complete the mission assigned to you.”

“I did the mission assignments.”

“All the more reason for you to stay the course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“You’re killing me, X.”

“That is incorrect,” X-37 said. “If anyone kills you, it will be one of these alien hybrids.”

“Not helpful.”

“What are you going to do, Reaper Cain?”

I shrank the images of the three Slayers on my HUD and moved them off to one side, then pulled up my tactical readouts. Everything in my Archangel armor seemed to be ready for action. “I’m going to put this fancy gear to the test.”

First, I pulled the chain gun around to the front, pivoting it toward the ground where it could hang with a decreased profile until I was ready to use it. This transferred the load through the complicated harness differently and wasn’t good for long-term support of the weapon. The HDK Dominator, the weapon that had served me well since Dreadmax, switched places when I pulled the bigger gun forward and was now secured on my back. The harness connected both weapons and slid over the surface of the armor when needed, allowing a quick change.

With practiced efficiency, I removed the stealth cloak and adjusted it to cover as much of my armor as possible. It wasn’t perfect, but it would be an advantage in this environment. So far, I’d had mixed results attempting to integrate the Reaper mask with the Archangel armor and decided to keep it locked in one of my armor’s storage compartments.

Mavis opened the main door to the hydroponics level. I entered quickly, slipping off to one side to avoid making a silhouette in the hallway. Inside, it was dark except for flickering lights of damaged emergency LEDs.

After pulling up the Z1A Destroyer, I swept the multi-barrel across the landscape searching for the watering hole. There were rows and rows of plants in every direction—some hung from the ceiling. Every growth station had a light fixture, soil bed, and watering tubes. Each row was slightly different, depending on whether it was corn, wheat, or barley.

“It looks like most of the damage is from fighting.” I knelt to check a body. The man had been punctured hundreds of times, the damage seemingly caused by the alien hybrid’s organic weapons.

The worst problem in the room was the inconsistent lighting. There had been one hell of a fight here. One second my Reaper eye and Archangel helmet optics adjusted to the gloom, the next they were blocking intense flashes of illumination.

“Are you seeing anything I’m not picking up,” I asked.

I pulled my HUD image of the watering hole back into view. My enemies were now motionless, faces turned toward the ceiling as though sniffing the air and listening.

I crept forward in a low stance, constantly moving the multi-barrel of my weapon in preparation for contact. X-37 reviewed what we knew of the Slayers, most notably that their physiology was extremely dense and that none of the crew members had been able to defend themselves up to this point.

The sounds of the security team engaging them on the comms wasn’t encouraging either.

“What’s the chance they are able to tear me out of this armor?” I asked.

“Unknown, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

I found two bodies covered with wounds and missing their heads. One man looked as though his arm had been wrenched half off of his body during a hand-to-hand struggle.

I kept moving.

“We are five meters from the central watering reservoir,” X-37 said. “Mavis no longer has a functioning holo view of the area. Something has been damaged.”

For some reason, my heat sensors we’re not picking up my enemies. I had expected to be able to see them even through the rows of corn, wheat, and barley.

I advanced into the main reservoir, ready to lay down a hellish amount of high-powered gunfire. All three of the Slayers turned and looked directly at me.

“X, is my stealth cloak working?” I asked.

“It is operating at one hundred percent efficiency,” my limited artificial intelligence reassured me. “However, they seem to see you.”

The leader, the big one, stepped forward, hissing and chittering at me with a strange oversized mouth. I saw tentacles starting to sprout from its arms, quivering in anticipation of striking at me.

The leader’s tail moved side to side, then slammed on the ground, bouncing up like it had its own violent, rage filled mind that wanted to kill me. At its end there was a single, talon-tipped tentacle that looked like it could double its range when extended.

The creature’s eyes were multifaceted, pulling in reflections of the scene despite the darkness. My enhanced optics showed dark places that could have been holes through its amber eyeballs.

It growled something at me, the horrible sounds clearly a language that I didn’t understand.

These observations happened in seconds. While it stalled, the other two edged toward my flanks.

I pivoted from my left and shot that one first, advancing forward to decrease the distance, which also increased my accuracy. The Z1A Destroyer barked a short burst of death and destruction.

What I expected to see was fountains of blood leaving its body as it was driven off its feet. Destroyer rounds packed a wicked punch my HDK Dominator could never match. It was all about velocity, bullet mass, and the state-of-the-art design of the projectiles that expanded when they struck. The creature staggered, the wounds I saw not nearly as satisfying as I had hoped.

“Threats on your right,” X-37 warned, his speech tight to save time during combat.

The leader and the other one rushed me as I kicked the Slayer on my left square in its chest, launching it backward through a row of hydroponic plants. Dirt exploded into the air from some of the hanging pots. Water tubes broke free and sprayed in several directions.

I pivoted to my right and fired. During the split second it took for the rounds to strike, I realized something was wrong. My first victim hadn’t stayed down despite gunshot wounds and my Archangel powered front thrust kick.

Retreating, I sprayed Destroyer bullets at close range, hitting all three targets but stopping none of them. They leapt forward, lashing out with razor hooked tentacles that shot forward from their arms. I barely noticed this part of their attack because I was focused on their gaping jaws and rows of sharp teeth.

“You are backpedaling into a row of small fruit trees,” X-37 said.

I didn’t have time to ask questions but wondered if this was going to be a problem for me, or for my enemies. The mini grove was small. I smashed through the trees with relative ease but not quick enough to avoid getting struck by the talons of the Slayer leader.

Thoughts flashed through my mind, things I couldn’t do anything about right now like my family and friends and what would happen to the ship if I failed.

The leader rushed me but instead of retreating from the hellish barrage of ordinance I was sending their way, I lunged forward, driving Z1A Destroyer halfway down its throat before I pulled the trigger. Several dozen rounds went off before the multi-barrel stopped spinning. My victim twisted away in agony, nearly taking my weapon with it.

I dove past the flailing body, shoving the big gun toward my back, and tucking and rolling to my feet all at once. Graceful wasn’t the best way to describe it, but the maneuver was pretty badass and definitely something I was going to play up if I survived to tell the story.

“Alert, both the Destroyer and the Dominator require field expedient repairs before they will function. Please treat them with more care,” X-37 said without emotion.

The first alien hybrid I shot jumped on me, landing with its feet and hands clawing at my torso simultaneously. I spun in a circle, trying to shake it off.

The final member of their deadly trio tackled me at the knees, slamming us all down in a big heap of violence. Going with the momentum, I twisted free and scrambled to the top of the pile. One of the monsters kicked, launching me into the air.

“That is an impressive display of strength, given your weight in this armor,” X-37 commented. “Also, Elise has advised me that she has dispatched her two targets and wonders why you won’t answer her on the radio.”

I grunted something that might’ve been a curse as I darted through the mini farm, destroying everything in my path as I tried to escape.

You are approaching the tobacco plant section,” X-37 said.

I slowed to a stop, turning to fight.

“What are you doing, Reaper Cain?”

“Sometimes you have to just do what’s right.” I extended my arm blade from the armor and took a fighting stance.

“Die, Reaper!” the leader hissed.

The other two regained their feet, wounds bleeding from where I had shot them but not as much as I had hoped or expected. They chanted, showing teeth as they screeched at me a babble of harsh grunts contrasting with sibilant vowels.

“The Slayers have the ability to speak,” X-37 said.

I backed away, looking for an escape route or some sort of terrain advantage I could use to survive. “Yeah, that’s great.”

“It changes my analysis of the situation,” X-37 began to say.

The creatures advanced, hissing and chanting words that I could barely understand. It was like their vocal cords weren’t really made for speech but something in their twisted psychology made them want to try.

“I could use some backup, X,” I gasped, putting my back to the wall and edging toward one of the side doors.

“I’m on my way, Reaper,” Elise said.

The leader charged. I feinted high, then dropped into a low crouch, stabbing toward its stomach. Catching it in mid leap, I drove the blade forward as hard as I could and slashed out to one side. This time, alien hybrid blood rained down on the scene.

“Keep moving,” X-37 said.

I didn’t respond but rushed past the other two, searching for room to work. I needed to get to a better position but there weren’t many options in this room.

The leader of the Slayers screamed in rage but fell to its knees holding its torso and gnashing its teeth in the air. Talons shot out of its arms and legs almost randomly.

Ignoring their leader’s death throes, the other two came at me from both sides and smashed me between them.

The armor held, but the impact shook me. Everything became a confused jumble of images as we rolled across the ground. One of them bit me on the shoulder, its teeth hooking into the armor segments. When it twisted its head, I was pulled this way and that.

Pain shot through my right knee as the final Slayer tried to pull my leg off, twisting one of the hydraulic servos inside its golden metal sheath. X-37 warned me not to allow this to go further or I would be injured.

My LAI was trying to help, he really was.

My enemies were too close for me to swing or slash, so I retracted the blade and extended it several times, catching one Slayer after another in the face, throat, and armpits. One of the unlucky bastards took a devastating groin injury and I assumed it would be out of the fight.

One of the monsters rolled away and started to crawl. The one that remained punched me in the helmet. The first strike was nothing. The helmet maintained integrity; it had a complex system of padding and dynamic shock absorption systems to keep me from getting banged around too much inside, even if it didn’t feel great.

After a few strikes, the effect of the impact seemed worse. I let go of one of its arms and tried to defend myself, grabbing it by the throat with my other hand. I pushed back, then pulled it down until I slammed my helmet visor into its face.

Jagged teeth and blood sprayed around us from the strike. I twisted to my left, rolling it onto its back and took the mount position. Its tentacles lashed me with the serrated hooks but couldn’t penetrate the Archangel armor. I rained down one strike after another until the creature stopped moving.

Struggling to my feet, I looked around and saw the other two Slayers had succumbed to their injuries and were lying in wide pools of their own dark blood. The problem came when I tried to walk. My right leg wouldn’t extend fully, and the left was hard to control.

“Congratulations on your survival, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

A new voice chimed in my ear. “Yeah, Mister Reaper, you were the best,” Bug said.

“Thanks.” Breathing hard and wincing from injuries I didn’t remember receiving didn’t make me feel like I was the best, but whatever. My leg hurt but I thought I could walk if I wasn’t trapped in my broken Archangel rig.

“These things are strong if they can break this armor,” I said.

“I have begun to gather data for a strength projection graph,” X-37 said. “You are very much correct, Reaper Cain. The Slayers are many times more powerful than you are.”

“When they’re not dead,” I said, working to strip away an Archangel panel without much success.

“Correct, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“Sorry I couldn’t help more,” Bug said, overflowing with enthusiasm.

“I’m going to have to lose the armor,” I said. “Where are Elise and Path?”

“I’m looking for them,” Bug said. “Mavis helps me a lot. This is getting crazy. Haven’t seen action like this since Dreadmax came apart. I hope this isn’t my fault. I really was trying to watch Ayers and Henshaw like you asked, Mister Reaper.”

“Let’s hope nothing like Dreadmax happens here,” I said.

“That would really suck, Mister Reaper.” A pause followed Bug’s words. “The ship has taken a lot of internal damage. You really needed to stop these things before we start venting atmosphere.”

“Did you find Elise and Path yet?” Having to ask a second time caused me to grit my teeth. Where the hell was that kid?

“They’re on the way, Mister Reaper. Chill-lax,” Bug said.

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26

A tremor ran through the ship, forcing me to put one hand on the wall just outside of the hydroponics area.

“What the hell was that?” I asked.

“Mavis and I believe it is sabotage, timed charges left behind to further disrupt our efforts to pursue Doctor Ayers,” X-37 said.

I clenched my teeth and calmed myself before blurting profanity. “I’m really going to throat punch that guy when I catch him,” I said.

“Of course you are, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “My analysis—”

“—suggests that won’t help anything,” I finished for my LAI. “Why don’t you leave violence to me and just tell me where Elise and the rest of these alien hybrid Slayer things are?”

“Of course, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “Right away, Reaper Cain.”

“I’m not sure I like your tone, X.” X-37, Mavis, and Bug talked amongst themselves while I limped forward a few steps and decided I had to have the Archangel armor off even if I had to trash it to get free of it. Normally it wasn’t as difficult to slip out of, but the Slayers had really done a number on it.

Using the enhanced strength of the arms and gauntlets, I tore apart everything on my right leg from the knee down. Relief flooded through the joint. I took a few breaths, enjoyed the sensation, and then stripped out of the rest of the gear.

“I have an update for you,” X-37 said.

Putting on the Reaper mask and the stealth cloak, I listened.

“Battle summary,” X-37 said. “You burned approximately four hundred and thirty-seven calories—”

“Skip all that,” I said impatiently, then found a tube with nutrient paste and water from the discarded equipment and slugged it down.

“You took out three of the alien hybrids, Elise killed two, and Path successfully eliminated the Slayer he was after. The combined efforts of ship security forces have reduced the number by another four,” X-37 said.

“I’m not that good at math, X. Can you tell me how many that leaves of the twelve from the cryo-pods?”

Bug jumped in. “That leaves two, mister. Wait, are you kidding me?”

“Yeah, Bug. I can actually count past ten,” I said, easing into a jog toward the main lift. If I didn’t come back to this deck of the ship for a year it would be too soon.

AI Mavis spoke in her almost too reasonable voice. “The remaining two alien hybrids are assaulting the bridge. Captain Younger has requested assistance. You are the closest response force.”

“That can’t be right,” I said.

“Her guards are fortifying the bridge and Rejon has armed himself to defend the area, but they will need help,” X-37 said. “All crewmembers who are not actively engaged in the searching and clearing of the ship have been monitoring the numerous battles with the creatures. It hasn’t been going well. Frankly, I’m surprised you’re alive.”

“I’m on my way,” I said, picking up the pace. “Get a hold of Elise and Path to set a new rendezvous point.”

“We are working on that,” X-37 said.

“Where is my mother and sister?”

“They are in one of the safe areas that were partitioned during the initial stages of the crisis. Hannah has armed herself to protect your mother,” X-37 said.

Elise, Path, and I converged at the central nexus of the main deck. From here, there were two ways to access the bridge: a security lift and a stairwell that Mavis explained had several blast doors that could be closed to stop intruders from reaching the most critical part of the vessel.

All of it looked compact compared to other Union warships I had seen, but by now, I was accustomed to the stealth carrier we’d taken from vice admiral Nebs.

Elise and Path each showed signs of a hard fight. Their once pristine armor was streaked with blood and scorch marks.

“These things are strong as hell,” Elise said, then displayed the damage her adversaries had done to her arms, shoulders, and neck area.

“You’re going to need a new rig after this,” I said.

“Where is your armor?”

“Busted.” I conducted a quick check of their armaments, just as I would before any other mission. “This doesn’t look like Slayer blood.”

Path answered, “I stopped to help wounded.”

“We also put out some fires,” Elise added.

The ship was on emergency lighting that pulsed lethargically.

Activating the stealth cloak, and sliding the Reaper mask into place, I took the lead. Without the increased size of armor, the cloak had better coverage—if that meant anything. It seemed like the Slayers had seen me because my legs and part of the Destroyer had protruded from the cloak’s coverage, but I had a nagging feeling that wasn’t the entire reason they saw me. “Let’s get moving.”

Elise and Path spread out as much as possible and followed. I took the stairs three at a time, checking each angle before I made the tight turn for the next climb. The only weapon I had was my pistol and my arm blade. Hopefully, the stealth cloak would give me the advantage of surprise.

Mavis opened each door as I approached. X-37 helped scan the openings before crossing through. By the time we reached the deck where the bridge was located, I found evidence of a hard fight.

The hallway leading to the bridge was made to be defended. Not only were there bodies of bridge guards down, but the fortified security stations at each intersection had been ripped apart and their occupants slaughtered.

“That’s horrible,” Elise said, as blood and brain dripped from the ceiling of one of the small rooms. “These things are so freaking strong.”

I glanced at the gun ports and saw evidence they had fired their weapons through the small openings as the Slayers attacked. The doors, so far as I could tell, had been torn free, which should have been impossible. I had trained for this type of assault and never enjoyed it. Even with explosive breaching charges, it was almost impossible to take a bridge like this.

We had initially captured the ship through subterfuge and X-37’s diligent sabotage of the ships AI to let us in. The monsters tackled the problem in a much more primitive way, and it seemed to be working for them.

“Let’s move,” I said. “I’ll go first and get a look at them before we make our attack. X-37 thinks they are probably trying to pull apart the main door now and should be distracted.”

Elise and Path signaled their agreement and I moved through the final intersection that led to the bridge.

The area in front of the main bridge door was slightly larger than the hallway, which would give us a good place to fight if it came to that. I was really hoping we could shoot and stab them in their backs and end this quickly.

A wounded man crawled toward me. I stepped over him as he continued toward Path and Elise.

“At least I know the stealth cloak is working,” I said. The incident in the hydroponics farm had me worried, but the explanation was simple. The cloak hadn’t been able to cover my feet and the monsters were smarter, and more observant, than they seemed.

Sure, that was the reason. Absolutely.

“My analysis showed it is functioning well within ideal parameters,” X-37 said. “There are three other living security guards, but they cannot move. I recommend assisting them as soon as the battle is concluded to maximize their chance of survival. It would be best, however, to move slowly and use caution while engaging the enemy.”

“Sounds good, don’t let me forget.” I spotted the two Slayers. The monsters were digging their claws into the metal, creating handholds so they could pull and tug on the blast door that should’ve been impenetrable without serious firepower. Their tentacles writhed in the air, extending and retracting in a strange rhythm that I guessed mimicked their breathing or heart rates.

Not wanting to alert them with noise, I gave X-37 a hand signal to relay the information to Elise and path. X-37 soon advised me that they were ready to enter the final area and attack.

I signaled X-37 that I would initiate the attack.

“We’ll double team the other one, then help you,” Elise said.

Moving silently, I was within striking distance when it turned to me and spoke.

“Reaps, Reaps,” it said. “Why you against us?”

“The Slayer is talking to you, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“Figured that out all by myself,” I said, frustrated that it could see me.

“Reaps on the wrong side,” the monstrosity croaked. “Help kill. Kill them all. Only way to be sure, Reaps. We needs control ship, Reaps.”

The other Slayer spun around, opened its jaws as wide as they would go, and screamed at me before charging.

I lunged at my new target, driving my Reaper blade straight down its throat. The mouth snapped shut on my cybernetic arm like a trap, the teeth cutting into the metal. With my right hand, I drew my pistol then pushed it to its temple and fired. Each time I stroked the trigger, I changed targets, making sure to put one in each of its strange, stealth-cloak-seeing eyes.

Elise sprinted across the small area, leapt into the air, and slammed into the alien hybrid that had tried to speak to me. She drove it against the wall and I heard a wet thunk as its skull cracked. The impact didn’t kill it.

Tentacles flashed from the arms of my adversary, hooking into my torso, legs, and every place the Reaper mask didn’t cover. Streams of data flowed from what the mask observed. At the same time, I was starting to understand their language with the help of the mask and X.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough for me to believe these two, at least, were trying to hold on to their humanity. The problem was, they were also trying to murder my friends and allies.

Pain screamed through every part of my body. The injuries were bad enough, but I was certain the hooked barbs on the end of the tentacles were poisoned or at least covered in some type of acid.

I fired until the magazine ran dry and then beat it with the empty gun. At the same time, I twisted the blade in its throat, pushing my arm further into it. This broke a lot of teeth.

The entire struggle took only seconds but seemed longer. Elise rolled across the floor, wrestling with her Slayer enemy while Path ran between us with his sword. He slashed the tail off of my enemy before the tail could stab me in the throat.

The sword saint spun in a circle, blade flashing in a wide arc, and cut off the head of the Slayer trying to eat me. Path’s blade struck my blade as it passed through the monster’s neck, causing me to stagger sideways as the head came off.

It wasn’t exactly as graceful or dignified as an action hero in a holo movie, but I’d take the win.

Elise struggled to her feet, lifting her Slayer over her head and then slamming it forcefully to the deck. Without hesitation, she dropped onto it, driving her elbow into the back of its neck. She bounced up, aimed, and fired until she was out of ammunition.

Most of the bullets hit the dense flesh of the hybrid, penetrating just enough not to go bouncing around the room. There were a few errant rounds, however, that whizzed past me. Sparks from the bullets danced around the room with each ricochet.

“Easy, Elise! I’m not wearing armor! Can you try not to shoot me?” I shouted as I shook the hybrid head from my arm. The teeth remained imbedded in my cybernetics.

She ran to my side, pried open the mouth of the monstrous head, and tossed it away. Then, because she was bigger and far stronger than I was while wearing the Archangel gear, she grabbed me by the shoulders and looked me over.

“You’re a mess, Reaper. Shit, you’re bleeding out of every part of your body!” She shouted like it was my fault.

“Not every part.” I nearly passed out.

“I am restricting blood flow,” X-37 said. “Elise, can you apply pressure bandages?”

“Sure thing, X.” Elise ripped open her combat first aid kit.

“Ouch!” I hissed as she poured clotting gel into my wounds and jammed self-adhesive pressure bandages all over my body. “Your bedside manner needs serious work.”

“Ha, ha. Very funny, Reaper. You want to die or what?” she asked.

Path stood guard, watching the hallway for any threats we might have missed.

“Mavis, can you let the bridge know we’re out here?” I asked.

“At once, Reaper,” AI Mavis answered. “They would have been able to watch the battle had the creatures not smashed the cameras.”

Elise stepped back to examine me. “I shouldn’t laugh, but you’re a wreck, Reaper. You should be able to hobble forward now that we did all of the hard work.”

“Are we comparing kills now? Because I had this little trio I dealt with in the hydroponic farm.”

A voice came through the speaker box next to the door. “Are you there, Reaper?”

“I’m here, Rejon. This area is clear. I can’t vouch for the rest of the ship, but we’ve taken out twelve Slayers. That’s all of the fully formed alien hybrids.”

“Very good,” he said. “Once we can verify, I will open the door. Do you need medical attention?”

“Nice of you to ask,” I said. “And the answer is hell yeah. Maybe a few days off and a box of cigars would be nice too.”

Rejon laughed with relief. “If I had any doubt it was you, now I am sure. Several team leaders are checking in, including CSL Locke of Wallach. I’m also surprised at how well the Union turncoats performed. Many lives would have been lost without their help.”

“I’m sure they have a few good ones,” I said.

“You need to go to the medical bay and get checked out,” X-37 said. “Once we are certain you’re not going to die from internal bleeding or alien infection, Tom and Henshaw have a lot of work to do on your cybernetic arm.”

“Don’t talk about Henshaw right now.”

“He was tricked by Doctor Ayers,” X-37 said. “All evidence suggests that he thought he was able to control the man. His interest in the research is understandable, given his dedication to science.”

“Tell that to the families of the people who died cleaning up this mess,” I said.

“Let’s get you to the med bay,” Elise said. “You can walk, or I can carry you. Your choice.”

“You can’t stay in that armor forever,” I said.

She laughed. “But for now, you’re at my mercy!”

“I’ll walk.”

“That is the more dignified choice, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said.

“I didn’t need that, X.”

OceanofPDF.com

27

My mother and my sister came to visit me in my hospital room. It was a welcome relief from the hellish boredom and draconian rules of the place. The medical staff didn’t allow cigars, whiskey, or anything that resembled fun—and they didn’t want me to leave and go after Ayers.

“Halek, what kind of mess did you get into?” my mother asked while my sister silently gave me a hug and then stepped back, almost out of my peripheral vision. “You need to rely on your team more. I’ve been in this game long enough to know solo missions are dangerous.”

“You’re right,” I said. “We started out together, but the situation changed.”

“Yes, that is often how it goes.” For a moment, she seemed far away, and I wondered how well I really knew her. She talked about missions like she had been forced to do them alone. The last several months had taught me she understood Union politics and that she had been playing a dangerous game to give me the tools and clues I needed to find her and defeat Nebs.

I never considered that she had been a field operative, but that was my guess now. Maybe that had been before she met my father.

“You have a very complex family,” X-37 said to me privately. “I have noted several instances that suggest both women are trained at espionage. Your sister is much younger, but old enough to have completed almost any training the Union would’ve had to offer her.”

“Are you going after Ayers by yourself,” Hannah asked.

“I’ll take a team—probably three ships with the best people I can pull from Xad, Wallach, and the Union.”

She frowned at the last part. If my sister had been trained by the Union, she no longer held any loyalty or affection for it—or the people who had kept her prisoner for Nebs.

“I want to help,” she said. The simplicity of her statement caught me off guard. My mother didn’t interrupt, which made me believe she knew this was coming and may have even planned it.

“Okay, here’s your first test,” I said. “Give me a situation briefing.”

“The Bright Lance and other ships are all reporting they are secured,” she began. “AI Mavis predicts the damage can be repaired in less than one standard week. Follow-up scans of the planet where you were nearly killed by insects show that there was an ancient civilization there that is long since extinct.”

“I was going to tell you that,” X-37 said privately.

“That brings us to the Alon,” my sister Hannah said. “The scout ship you chased was part of a rearguard. It seems that the Alon have already been here and were doing a final check of the area before leaving. Your appearance and rather poorly thought out chase has changed that.”

I kept my mouth shut with effort.

“During the Slayer crisis, the bridge crew was still sharp enough to maintain operations, including fleet security. There have been three reconnaissance missions against us. All ships are believed to belong to the Alon.”

“What about Ayers? Did they have anything to do with his escape?”

“There is no information linking Ayers to the Alon, but it is too early to tell,” Hannah said. “What I can say with confidence is that he took a small, slip tunnel capable ship and fled the system. Most of the partially complete alien hybrid experiments are with him. Would you like to see the footage from their escape?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Can we do it on the observation deck so I can smoke a cigar?”

Without a word, she handed me a tablet, cigar, and a heating tab to light a Presidential.

I accepted all three items but didn’t light up. Chewing on the cigar would have to be enough. A cloud of smoke would only draw nurses, which would be an interruption I didn’t need right now.

“The ship Doctor Ayers took was the Lady Faith, a surprisingly well-equipped pleasure yacht that will be very difficult to catch,” Hannah said. “Before we continue, however, I want to finish with the planet in this system. Under other circumstances, it might be an ideal resource for the exodus fleet. But, I’ve discussed this with Captain Younger, her advisor, and a collective of AI advisors from the other ships in the fleet. The planet has evolved several surprising and unique defensive mechanisms that won’t tolerate our presence there. We are marking it for future exploration but don’t believe we can stay long enough to make it work, especially if we have Alon ships creeping about.”

“What about the archaeological sites?” I asked.

“They appear to be primitive and there is clear evidence visible from high orbit to indicate the Alon have already excavated all sites larger than a single dwelling,” Hannah said.

I nodded and waited for her to continue.

“We now have two priorities of approximately equal value,” she said.

I detected her Union training in the way she spoke. She’d been to a high-level academy, possibly for fleet operations. She was only in her twenties, but she seemed an old soul. I was slightly embarrassed not to know her exact age, but I’d had a lot on my mind over the last decade.

“Doctor Ayers must be located and destroyed, along with all of his research,” Hannah said. “We must also conduct counter surveillance on the Alon forces. Both Xad and Wallach have fought them over the last several centuries and agree the threat is imminent.”

“Sounds like a large fleet problem.”

“What’s your point, brother?” Hannah asked.

“I’m a Reaper. The best thing I can do is go after Ayers. I think you should mentor under Captain Younger. This fleet needs someone trustworthy with high-level Union training in fleet operations.”

“We’ve discussed this,” she said. “I have a lot more than officer training to fall back on. Some habits will be hard to break.”

“Well that’s a little bit vague and mysterious.”

“It is what it is,” she said.

My mother interrupted. “We are playing for very high stakes now. You need to be on your feet and ready for action as soon as possible. I’ve gone over everything I could learn about your friends and only have a few suggestions on supplemental personnel.”

This wasn’t comfortable, I decided, but didn’t say anything. She had to know I didn’t respond well to authority, even if it was from somebody I loved and cared about. I’d been on my own for a while and was accustomed to making my own decisions.

“Who do you think I should add to my team?” I asked.

“I think you should take the Jellybird and your friends, of course. But the RWS Battle Axe and the Hunter of Xad are also well suited to this mission. I’ve spoken with CSL Locke and Rejon. They’ve agreed to assign their best personnel to those ships to assist you in tracking down Ayers. Their only stipulation is that the doctor be destroyed and that anything you learn from the encounter be shared equally.”

“I can live with that.”

* * *

Every muscle in my body ached as I placed my cybernetic arm on the workbench. My sutures burned and itched. This was like a hangover without experiencing any of the alcohol consumption that should’ve proceeded such misery.

Tom pointed to the areas he had fixed while Henshaw rubbed his chin. The ocular engineer was silent, thoroughly chastened by recent events. I’d never seen him like this and wondered if he was finally realizing that it didn’t matter how smart an individual was unless we all worked together.

“You did good work, Tom,” Henshaw said softly. “Just give me a few minutes to check over the finer details.”

He leaned forward and focused on my cybernetic arm section by section. His artificial eyes blinked and whirled with lights from time to time. When he finally stepped back and crossed his arms, a serious but satisfied look dominated his expression.

“It’s not pretty,” he said. “But the last Reaper isn’t about to win any beauty contests anyway, is he?”

I let that go and moved on to what we really needed to talk about. “What the hell were you thinking, Jimmy?”

“I deserve that, that tone you’re using with me,” he said. “My intentions, I assure you, were for the right reasons. I’ve recently learned the drawbacks of overestimating my own abilities. Ayers has yet to learn that lesson. He is very single-minded and does not see all of the implications of his work.”

I waited for more, and for once, X-37 had nothing to say during the brief silence.

“The DNA that Doctor Ayers used to splice into his human test subjects was not old, not nearly as old as one would assume if it had truly been collected from archaeological sites,” Henshaw said.

“You think these aliens are still out there, maybe even close enough to come after us?” I asked, thinking of the strange white aliens. The fleet’s forensic teams hadn’t been able to determine how long they’d been dead on the Alon ships. Everyone had been a tad bit busy over the last several days.

“I’m almost certain of it, but I can’t prove it. For someone like me, that’s a problem and I refuse to hypothesize further without more data,” Henshaw said. “What I am willing to speculate on is some of the things that Doctor Ayers said when I was attempting to interrogate him on the Lady Faith.”

I listened but was remembering the videos my sister had shown me of the test subjects being ushered onto the Lady Faith, and those with less human appearances being transported in coffin-like crates. Doctor Ayers had several confederates that were, as of yet, unidentified.

“If I were a betting man, and I am, I’d say he is taking his research to the Alon, believing they will be more appreciative patrons of his skills,” Henshaw said. “When I first realized that’s what he intended, I was actually relieved, because I had thought he was going to go to find the aliens. If he chooses to go that route, I think things will go very badly for all of humanity.”

For once, I agreed completely but wanted to hear him say it. “What do you mean?”

“How would we, as humans, respond to a race who had performed such experiments on our people?” he asked. “If Ayers finds the aliens and shows them what he’s done, it will probably be the start of a war of extermination against humanity.”

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Epilogue

Leaving my friends behind was the hardest decision I’d ever made. It wasn’t so long ago I didn’t have friends to lose. Our confrontation with the Slayers made me realize how much my life had changed and forced me to see the bigger picture.

Elise had a future. Path was an inspiration to others. My mother and sister were the best trained leaders in this ragtag armada of hope. I was just the Last Reaper, and I had a job to do. There was no reason they had to go down with me when the confrontation with Ayers and his Slayers went sideways.

I was almost to the flight deck when I heard Elise yelling at me.

“Where do you think you’re going, Reaper?”

I stopped. I turned. I faced this big pain in the ass that I’d been dragging around since Dreadmax. “I’m going after Ayers. Someone, and by that I mean you, needs to stay and protect all these people. There could be other hybrids we missed, or threats we haven’t thought of yet.”

“You’re trying to ditch me!”

“Listen, kid. We’ve been lucky so far. Let me take care of this, and if it works out, I promise I’ll come back or catch up to you and the rest of the fleet wherever you find yourselves.”

“My analysis suggest she will not believe this,” X-37 said.

“That is such bullshit,” Elise blurted. “Does Path get to go? Tom? Henshaw?”

“I’m not singling you out. Everyone stays. I’m taking a group of professionals from Xad and Wallach. Think of it as me training up a new team. Could be useful in the future.”

Elise crossed her arms, flared her nostrils, and said nothing. I continued to the Jellybird. When the ramp dropped, I realized she’d played me—stalling while the rest of my ungrateful friends betrayed me.

Path, Tom, and Henshaw waited inside—clearly planning to force themselves into my plans.

“X, did you know about this?” I said. “Whose side are you on?”

“I’m on your side, Reaper Cain,” X-37 said. “There is literally no possible way for me to be anything but loyal.”

Elise smiled as she followed me up the ramp.

“I hope you’re happy,” I said.

“I am.”

* * *

CAIN, X-37, and ELISE return in WILL OF THE REAPER, available now on Amazon.

For more updates on this series, be sure to join the Facebook Group, “J.N. Chaney’s Renegade Readers.”

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Renegade Star Universe

The Renegade Star Universe

Click the titles below to find them online

The Renegade Star Series

They say the Earth is just a myth. Something to tell your children when you put them to sleep, the lost homeworld of humanity. Everyone knows it isn't real, though. It can't be.

But when Captain Jace Hughes encounters a nun with a mysterious piece of cargo and a bold secret, he soon discovers that everything he thought he knew about Earth is wrong. So very, very wrong.

Climb aboard The Renegade Star and assemble a crew, follow the clues, uncover the truth, and most importantly, try to stay alive.

The Last Reaper Series

When a high value scientist is taken hostage inside the galaxy's most dangerous prison, Halek Cain is the only man for the job.

The last remaining survivor of the Reaper program, Hal is an unstoppable force of fuel and madness. A veteran amputee-turned-cyborg, he has a history of violence and a talent for killing that is unmatched by any soldier. 

With the promise of freedom as his only incentive, he’ll stop at nothing to earn back his life from the people who made him, imprisoned him, and were too afraid to let him die.

The Orion Colony Series

Humanity’s Exodus is about to begin.

When half of mankind revolts and demands more opportunity, those at the top decide on a compromise: they will build the first colony ships and allow those who are willing to discover new worlds to leave and start over.

Twelve ships are built, the first of which is called Orion. Many are eager to go, but only one hundred thousand are chosen for each vessel. Far from Earth, a new life awaits, and it promises the prosperity they’ve always wanted.

But still, resistance stirs, eager to sabotage this new expansion effort, threatening the promise of a new life. As Orion moves through the void of space, towards a distant world, its passengers must fight for survival in an unprecedented conflict. 

Win or lose, their future will be forever changed.

The Fifth Column Series

After a soldier is left for dead, Eva Delgado's life begins to unravel.

The truth of what happened remains a mystery, and the government will stop at nothing to keep it buried.

Together with the unit's medic, Eva finds herself branded a terrorist and enemy of the State, hunted by two opposing governments.

When the pair uncover a plot that could have ramifications for the whole galaxy, they know they have to act, but it will take all of their training, cunning and just a bit of luck to do what no one else has achieved.

But what do you do when every secret begets another? And how far will you go to find the truth?

Nameless (Abigail’s Story)

Abigail and Clementine were just a couple of orphans looking for a home. 

But when the two girls witness something terrible, they have no choice but to leave their orphanage and go into hiding. The only person willing to take them in is a man named Mulberry, but his home isn't the safest place for two innocent children.

Abigail and Clementine quickly discover that their new caretaker is the head of a guild of assassins, and the two are thrown into a whole new world of danger. To survive, they'll need to adapt, focus, and learn how to survive in a world of killers.

The Constable (Alphonse’s Story)

My name is Alphonse Malloy, and I see everything.

From a simple glance, I know your hobbies, what you ate for breakfast, how well you slept, and whether or not your wife is secretly seeing the high school biology teacher when you're not around.

I can't explain how or why I get these feelings, only that I know they're true. 

All the little secrets you're too afraid to tell.

Sometimes, that means helping people. Other times, it means staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.

I wish I could tell you I was using this ability for good.

I wish I could tell you a lot of things.

* * *

The Constable Returns

Alphonse Malloy may just be the smartest man alive.

A year has passed since Alphonse joined the Constables, but his work is only just beginning. In order to graduate and achieve full Constable status, Alphonse will need to complete one final mission.

When new information about an old enemy arises, Al and his mentor Dorian must head deep into the Deadlands in search of answers.

But in a galaxy of secrets, the truth is often more elusive than it seems.

As the search continues, Alphonse's talents will be pushed to their absolute limit, and he'll need everything he's learned to make it out of this one alive.

Warrior Queen (Lucia’s Story)

On a lost world, far removed from Earth, a group of humans struggle to survive.

Two thousand years after their ancestors lost control of a hidden genetics research facility, the descendants of mankind have been reduced to a tribe of two hundred survivors. They fight, kill, and die in an endless cycle, all in the hope that things will get better.

Lucia is one of these colonists and the daughter of the tribe's leader, the Director. Together with several other candidates, she must soon undergo a trial to decide her father's replacement. The winner will shape the future of the entire colony.

But the trial is dangerous, meant to test each candidate's wits and strengths to see who is truly worthy. To claim victory, Lucia will need to venture out into the tunnels near the city to search for lost artifacts known as Cores--small but powerful devices capable of harnessing endless energy.

But there are monsters here, waiting in the dark, and they are always hungry. Beware the Boneclaw, Lucia's father use to tell her, for it lives only to kill and to feed.

Lucia must do whatever it takes, learn as much as she can, and fight with every ounce of strength if she hopes to make it through the day.

Forget winning the trial. The real challenge is staying alive.

Resonant Son Series

30 floors of nightmare fueled action. An ex-cop with nothing left to lose.

After losing his job and family, Flint Reed finds himself in the middle of a terrorist attack. With nothing but his wits and experience as a former Union police officer, he must do everything he can to stay alive.

As he soon discovers, however, there are also hostages, and no one is coming to save them.

All hope falls to Flint.

But as he fights to navigate the building, the real answers begin to unravel. What are the terrorists really after, and why are they so intent on getting into the vault?

Experience the beginning of the Resonant Son series. If you're a fan of Die Hard, Renegade Star, or the Last Reaper, you'll love this epic scifi thrill ride.

Galactic Law Series

Lethal force is authorized.

In the wild space of the Deadlands, Taurus Station is where miners and tourists come to play, and the ravager gangs follow close behind. Out here, far from the civilized world, the Law has a name.

Gage Walker is the son of hard-nosed asteroid miners. Brash, rough, and crude, he's one of the few deputies working the station.

Still a rookie, Walker is tasked with the security of a mining magnate's daughter, an easy job that quickly takes a turn for the worst.

The ravager gangs want her, and it falls to Walker to find out why.

In a chase across Taurus Station, Deputy Walker must prove he's fit to wear the badge and issue his own form of justice...one body at a time.

Deadland Drifter Series

When a dental appointment goes sideways, former Union Operative Jack Burner wakes to find himself drugged, and imprisoned.

And he's given a choice: assassinate an Admiral... or allow himself to be killed.

With no other option, Jack reluctantly accepts the mission, only to find himself being trailed by a mysterious blonde woman... and she may or may not want him dead.

As if dealing with a terrorist group wasn't enough.

With the fate of the Admiral and thousands of lives on hanging in the balance, Jack stands in the middle of an event that could ignite a war on the edge of the Deadlands and Union Space.

Despite his exceptional abilities, training, and tenancy, even Jack has little to no chance of preventing this particular powder keg from exploding.

He's going to need a miracle.

The Renegade Series

Jace Hughes is a Renegade.

That means taking jobs and not asking questions, whether that involves smuggling, transporting runnaways, or performing other, far less wholesome work. Whatever the situation, Jace is willing to do what it takes to achieve his dream and live the life he’s always wanted.

That is, until he comes face to face with an item of unprecedented value—something that could give him everything he needs to pay off his debt and be free.

The only problem is that selling it would also shift the balance of power between the two largest empires in the galaxy.

And spark another intergalactic war.

Unfortunately for Jace, he won’t have long to decide. Renegades, assassins, and government cronies are after the item, too, and unlike Jace, they won’t hesitate to kill.

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Join the conversation and get updates on new and upcoming releases in the Facebook group called “JN Chaney’s Renegade Readers.” This is a hotspot where readers come together and share their lives and interests, discuss the series, and speak directly to J.N. Chaney and his co-authors.

Join the Facebook Group

He also post updates, official art, and other awesome stuff on his website and you can also follow him on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

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Scott Moon

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About The Authors

J. N. Chaney is a USA Today Bestselling author and has a Master's of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. He fancies himself quite the Super Mario Bros. fan. When he isn’t writing or gaming, you can find him online at www.jnchaney.com.

He migrates often, but was last seen in Las Vegas, NV. Any sightings should be reported, as they are rare.

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Scott Moon has been writing fantasy, science fiction, and urban fantasy since he was a kid. When not reading, writing, or spending time with his awesome family, he enjoys playing the guitar or learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He loves dogs and plans to have a ranch full of them when he makes it big. One will be a Rottweiler named Frodo. He is also a co-host of the popular Keystroke Medium show. You can find him online at http://www.scottmoonwriter.com

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