by Drew Avera
She wanted to say something, but as Crase watched, waiting for her words to emanate, the only thing he saw was a tear slide down her cheek. That image said more in the breadth of a heartbeat than anything she could have spoken verbally. That tear was the truth.
Behind her, Nuelar gripped her face, turning her head. She didn't have an opportunity to respond before his steely blade sliced through her flesh. Her blood poured down her shirt, at first trickling and then like a waterfall staining the fabric of her clothes, but that was the least of her worries. Death was cruel mistress, but not as cruel as Crase Tuin who was smiling back at her wickedly, his eyes never leaving hers as her life escaped from her throat.
Crase stood stoically over her; the Greshian mole in a colony she thought was loyal to her people. But loyalty could be bought just as easily with the currency of providing an oppressed people the option to fight back. Those same oppressed people watched as Crase left, unopposed by anyone, while the blood of an ignorant Greshian pooled across the floor behind him.
He didn't hate her. On the contrary, he thought she was quite ballsy despite knowing nothing about her other than that she was an undercover agent and planned to have him arrested. But in order to run a successful business, one had to go to extremes to secure the future of that business. Deception was only one such tool he used to exercise those extremes; death was another. She was right about one thing, though. The myth of his never losing a ship was not based on reality, but no one would ever speak of it; at least not if he ever got his hands on the people who had stolen the warship he called Replicade from him. For them, he had something much slower than Nuelar's blade gliding across the delicate flesh of their throats. No, for them he had something much worse.
2
Anki
Floating in the dark, with an EVA suit as her only source of warmth, Anki winced under the blinding blue light from the welder in her hand. The visor of her helmet darkened automatically, fighting back the searing glare as it radiated from the scorching tip, manipulating the steel hull of the old warship. Each time she released the switch, her helmet cleared up again, allowing her to see the details of her work under the much dimmer work light. A small, distant star twinkled, its light winking at her, seducing her with its majestic beauty from light years away. She paused to stare at it, allowing her eyes to adjust once again to the darkness, where acute details came back into view. I hope I don’t go blind doing this, she thought, narrowly missing some kind of container flying past her head. Surrounding her was a barrage of debris sucked from the hull of the Replicade, a majority of it orbiting the ship like planets around a star. This was the third repair in as many days and she had missed more than her share of sleep out of fear she might wake up to vacuum. She had seen the effects of the dark firsthand and it was a terrifying experience. Sleep deprivation doesn't allow me to do my best work, she thought as she inspected the bead of weld from patching the most recent hole in the skin of her ship. Her ship; that had a certain ring to it, she had to admit.
It had been four months, Luthian time, since she found herself a member of the crew onboard the Replicade. She never had any intentions of being on a ship like the one she was patching up now. Her brief stint as a salvager had put a bad taste in her mouth when it came to floating for months on end, trapped inside such a small vessel. The threat of claustrophobia alone was enough of a deterrent, but running from the destructive path of the Greshian Empire made the anxiety worse. Sure, she knew she could survive on a ship, but that was not her calling, at least not in her mind. The Luthian Navy was supposed to be the answer to that call, especially as a marine. She expected her life to be forfeit for the good of her home world, but she no longer had a home to return to. Everything, her entire life, had been destroyed as the Greshian warship Telran deployed its weapons on her home world. She witnessed the desolation of her planet via video feed from the Telran. They might not have been able to catch the Replicade, but they found her heart and crushed it under their heels nonetheless. Luthia burned for weeks until the atmosphere was devoured by the flames, a devastating death, destroyed by the fires consuming her. Anki dreamt of it every night since the attack, waking in panic, chills running down her spine as she witnessed the horror perched above her world.
The only comfort she found was in the arms of her lover Brendle. The fact he was a Greshian, bearing the same face as the ones who annihilated Luthia, was something she had come to terms with. Through Brendle she was learning to love, to push back the needle of hatred piercing her every time she thought of the war of aggression that rapidly changed everything in her life. The losses still hurt, but she wasn't as alone as she thought she would be, as she thought she should be. To say she was experiencing survivors remorse was putting it mildly, but she had the love and support of the ship’s small crew. The Replicade represented her new family, and there was hope in that at least.
"How's it going out there, Anki? Pilot says you have only a few minutes of air remaining. It might be a good idea to head in," Brendle said over the radio. His voice was interrupted by static, probably from the radiation of the star on the other side of the ship, she thought. The EVA suit could not shield her properly, so the Replicade acted as a barrier of protection to shield her from the radiation. It was a necessary evil to work in these conditions. It’s for survival, she thought.
"I think I'm done," she replied, exhaling softly. Anki had been breathing slower in order to conserve air. The small oxygen tank on the EVA suit wasn't made for long, tedious jobs, but more for aiding the mating of two ships’ airlocks for the transporting of arms. The Replicade had been a scouting craft and gunship prior to being salvaged and coming into the hands of Deis and Malikea. The ship had saved their lives, she was told more than once as she and Brendle ate with the Lechun husbands who had come to their aid on the worst day of her life. She regretted thinking of her meeting Brendle as her worst day, especially considering the joy she found in him now, but between the half-dozen times she almost died only to find her world destroyed and there being nothing she could do about it, there was a shortage of more accurate words to describe the crew's initial meeting. All things aside, she loved the crew. If only the terms of their coming together could have excluded the death of her father and not taken an entire civilization with him.
"I'll cycle you in through the aft airlock," Brendle replied.
Anki took a few steps back, her magnetic boots keeping her bound to the metallic skin of the ship. She looked across the skin, expecting to find evidence of an air leak. Usually, if the leak was significant enough, the leaking air would resemble smoke billowing from the small cracks in the hull. With none visible, she turned towards the airlock just as the air filtering into her suit began to grow stale. Timing was everything, she thought with a smile as the airlock cycled opened, welcoming her back home. The exterior airlock cycled closed, and her ears popped as pressure filled the void between the inner and outer airlock. That's when she knew it was safe to take off the helmet.
Freshly recycled air filled her lungs as she inhaled deeply. The inner airlock cycled open, the bulk of it looking like the silvery iris of an eye as the door wound counterclockwise to allow her to step into the main deck of the Replicade. She hung her helmet on the bulkhead and stripped off the EVA suit, the tight fabric clinging to her body and not wanting to let go. It was a trait that was annoying when putting the suit on and taking it off, but it also allowed the suit to be made thinner while still keeping the person wearing it warm. At this point, with as many times as she had to skitter out into vacuum to expedite repairs, Anki found herself thankful the EVA suit was as compact as it was, even if it meant shedding the suit sometimes felt like she was taking her skin off with it.
"Anki, Captain Brendle is waiting for you in the galley," Pilot said, the voice eerily similar to that of her late father's. On the night of Luthia's destruction, she had programmed the ship AI's voice to emulate her father's. She had been alone on the bridge; Pilot her only source of company, whe
n the AI suggested emulating her father’s voice so she could hear it once more. Anki doubted it was meant to last this long, and sometimes hearing her father’s voice did more harm than good, but she couldn't find the strength to change it. To Anki, it seemed that changing the voice would be like killing her father a second time. It was a ridiculous notion when she stopped to think about it, which she rarely did, because the wound of loss was still sensitive to the touch.
"All right. I'll be along shortly," she replied as she pulled her coveralls back on after wiping sweat from the bare parts of her body. The sweat was a sign the suit was environmentally sealed, otherwise painful burns from her flesh freezing would be evident, but it also meant that over time it would start to smell. No need to clean it yet, I'm sure there will be another emergency somewhere between a hot meal and a full night's sleep, she thought as she hung it next to the airlock. Thankfully, Pilot was good about alerting them to any potential hazards when it came to hull integrity. If an emergency did arise, she would more than likely have time to act before it reached a point of no return.
She left her EVA suit dangling haphazardly next to the airlock and began walking towards the rest of the crew. The galley was one deck up and mid-ship, just a short walk from the airlock. When she arrived, Anki noticed Brendle standing next to the table while Deis and Malikea sat, waiting for her return. The galley was eerily quiet, which was unusual, considering how much Malikea liked to talk, almost incessantly. Anki kissed Brendle before taking a seat, the growing curiosity causing her to wonder if she was about to have to climb back into her EVA suit yet again.
"What's going on?" she asked, searching for a clue on the faces of the rest of the crew.
"We have a bit of a problem," Deis said, folding his arms onto the table and leaning forward. "We are running low on supplies and need to land."
Anki nodded, "So what's the problem?"
Brendle eased into the seat next to her. "The problem is that the closest world where we can restock our supplies is in Greshian territory. Deis thinks we might run into problems if the Replicade's transponder code has been populated into other sectors. If we show up as a potential hostile, then we run the risk of running into another ship like the Telran."
No one wanted that to happen.
"What are our options?" Anki asked.
Malikea spoke next, "There is a world in Greshian territory that is relatively neutral. It's called Farax, but as I was telling Brendle, neutral doesn't mean it is very kind."
"Kind to whom?" Anki asked. She felt her heart begin to beat a little faster. Her mind was already putting the pieces together. Surviving from a world recently annihilated by the Greshian Empire would be something that made her stand out. It was the kind of thing Deis and Malikea had spent months trying to avoid before they saved her and Brendle months prior.
"He means they aren't kind towards Greshians," Brendle said, releasing a tense exhale he seemed to have been keeping to himself for a while. "Farax is only neutral because it has value to Greshia while also being an outlying territory popular to privateers running less-than-legal shipments through a series of keys in that part of the sector. It might be Greshian owned, but it is far from operated by the empire."
Anki took in a deep breath. She couldn't imagine there being a world defiant against Greshians so close to the empire and yet allowed to continue to exist. There must be something important there, she thought. "In what way is Farax valuable to the empire?"
Deis smiled, "It has the richest mineral deposits in the sector. Farax is worthless, but what is beneath Farax makes it one of the most valuable planets for a military complex as advanced as Greshia. Some of those minerals are instrumental to building their engine drives as well as keeping the keys open. If they lose Farax, their hold on the Alorian Galaxy will eventually weaken."
"I don't see why they would be hostile to Greshians if they are valued so much," Anki said.
Brendle cleared his throat. "The world is valuable, not the inhabitants," he said. "Farax originally served as a prison world for war criminals. This was before the keys played a role in traversing the galaxy. Instead of destroying those worlds they conquered, Greshia stood up new governments and exiled the previous rulers to Farax. As you can imagine, as the generations passed, the contempt for the growing empire grew."
"Well, that makes sense," she replied, brushing a tuft of hair behind her ear. "So what kind of persecution do Greshians receive there?"
Brendle looked up at Deis who nodded. "Apparently, the flavor of the day for Greshians on Farax is death."
3
Crase
The blood hadn't finished pooling on the floor of the bar before Crase stepped out into the Farax sunlight. He squinted, coming into the light from the dark bar as the dead woman lay leaking against the now soggy floor. The cleanup crew would be called soon enough and the body discarded as easily as the daily trash. She should have known better than to come here to confront me, he thought, remembering the look in her eyes as the gaping wound in her neck opened before him, spilling her life, gurgling blood bubbling and frothing as she struggled to keep it in her body. It was futile, the cut clean and mortal. He knew she would wind up ushering in some kind of search party when she missed enough rendezvous with her chain of command, but he would be long gone by then.
The nearby sun was already setting behind the horizon, bringing with it the swift chilling of the air tickling the bare skin on the back of his neck. The short daytime, and even shorter nighttime, put Farax in a vicious cycle of continuously screwing with a person's internal clock for those who had grown up on larger worlds' time cycles. Even the locals struggled to cope with the irregularities of daytime activities while coordinating with otherworld industries. Farax was its own world, failing to adhere to the design of normalcy; its purpose was something harsher, depending on who you asked. It was useful because it was held in such condemnation. Farax was where the shadows met the darkness and all was good when your business relied on the cavernous depths of the indelible night.
Crase had grown accustomed to Farax and all she had to offer. Having spent much of his time hiding out in the badlands of this inhospitable world, he learned not to trust those who had only their own skin in mind. The world, the galaxy, was full of the kinds of people who would turn on their own in order to stand out. It was a harsh lesson to learn early in life, but it paid dividends for his future. The badlands was where he took his first life, and with it leveraged a place for him to influence change within the criminal underworld billowing forth on the rocky planet and out into the dark and beyond. Despite a challenging childhood, he had a lot to show for the sacrifices and hardships he had endured, even the skills he had honed lacking the need for death’s decay could be used as influence. A skill such as manipulation, the verbal leveraging of a weaker mind to conform to his own desires, that was the most profitable tool in his trade currently. The problem was that often the usefulness for those weaker minds dwindled to nothing and he was left to sever his ties and move on, recruiting the next in line for his bidding. Luckily, the current help hadn’t lost the imprint of his touch yet and, as much as Crase hated to admit it, the man was growing on him.
He retrieved the com-unit from his pocket, dialed a single digit using the touchscreen, and brought it to his ear. On the other end was an associate, one whom Crase did not trust, yet one he found himself getting rich from. A normal person would shudder at the thoughts of what Belwa intended to do with the smuggled refugees he’d ordered Crase to obtain, but Crase was far beyond giving it any thought. His long career meant he had disassociated himself from the evils of his work. Instead, he focused on the money and power that financial independence gave a man such as himself; not to mention the loyalty it could afford when he needed it.
None of the contacts on his com-unit were labeled. Even the method for reaching out to them was untraceable, going through a series of one-time-use transmitters to make the connection. It was all part of the way he committed his busine
ss to memory; and his use of unknown, stolen technologies that protected even his harshest investors. There was only one rule when it came to the trafficking trade: protect the money. It was the only rule Crase abided by, because the truth was, there was no such thing as honor among thieves, only a hearty dose of bloodshed.
His eyes witnessed that fact countless times before his blade found the throat of his first victim. Bearing witness to death softened him to the ideology of taking a life; he saw the purpose, the reward. The means of provoking the loss of life came out of necessity and not design, but it set in stone a hardened future for the young smuggler turned murderer. It was with steel he claimed that first life. And it soon became his favorite way to enact such transactions. It was personal without needing to be. It was his signature, even if it wasn't his hand in play. He never explored the origins of his practice. There were too many demons in that closet.
A husky voice answered the call after several moments. Crase knew not to take it personally. Every data transfer was monitored by the receiver. The stupid ones in this business were the ones who got caught. His reputation preceded him because he had never been caught; even at the worst of times he faded into the dark, untraceable and undetected. Regardless of how much heat was raining down on his business, there was always another trick up his sleeve. He might not always cash in on a profit, or maintain a stolen ship, but at least he was free to take the next contract. That had to count for something, he thought.
"My suspicions were correct. She was a mole for the Greshians. I still have the shipment, but it's a lot hotter now, which means I want more for it," Crase said as he picked at his teeth, waiting for the colorful response he knew a demand such as his would illicit. Belwa had a reputation as the kind of man to not cross. Crase thought it was fitting that he had the same reputation in the many circles he’d found himself in over the years.
