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.”