by C. Vandyke
"Which is why you're perfect for the job—you won't take risks that will get her killed. Hell, she'll never recognize you—I almost didn't."
"Then she doesn't know?"
"Like everyone else you ever loved, she thinks you're dead."
Dillinger sighed and looked at the ceiling. "If this goes wrong, I might as well be." He looked back at Inspector Nettles. "Hell, this goes sideways, over a decade of undercover work against Braddock gets flushed along with mine and Grace’s lives."
"Then don't let it go sideways."
"She can't ever know," Dillinger whispered.
"She won't unless you tell her."
"And her captors?"
"Open season."
Dillinger snorted, "That's not the Domino Nettles I used to know."
"The Service has changed in certain ways,” Nettles said coldly. “We've become more... flexible when dealing with these lunatics."
"Who else knows of her... relation to Geoffrey Tellar?"
"You, her mother, and the former Duke. That idiotic kook, Ramnath, might think he does, but there's no evidence left."
"And in the Revenue Service?"
"Only me, now." Nettles’ pause had been almost imperceptible.
"You swear?"
"On my life." Nettles' eyes narrowed. "And your arrangement with the service still stands—you bring down Braddock and the Midnight Scythe, and I’ll let you loose on the bastards who nuked your ship and killed your crew."
"Then I'll do it," Dillinger sighed. "God help me, I'll do it."
"It appears that we have a new patron. Down payment arrived two minutes ago—with completion pay in escrow," Pickering said as Dillinger displaced back aboard the Guttersnipe. "I would also suggest you refrain from using that device in and around Uptown. Displacers are rare and valuable, and the radiation will eventually damage it beyond my ability to repair. Your own constant tinkerings are likely making it worse. Indeed, this one might be experiencing temporal slip from all your abuse."
"Screw temporal slip and your ability to repair the damned displacer," Dillinger said as he shrugged off his jacket. "Transfer fifty percent of the funds to the account marked 'Contingency' and set course for Restless Home."
"I believe you're even more disagreeable when sober," Pickering responded. "Shall I make inquiries into the location of whoever you are looking for in Restless Home?"
"Franx," Dillinger said, opening his liquor cabinet and frowning when he saw how little of the good stuff he had left. "I'll also need you to get me—”
"The latest streaming episode of Booster Jane from New Aegean Broad Stream Service?"
"No, you idiot box, some decent whiskey. Place an order for a case of twenty-one-year-old Glendarjeel single malt."
"This far from Dauntless III, it will be expensive."
"It'll be worth it," Dillinger said. "And it will smooth Franx's ruffled feathers."
"I daresay a case of it would smooth many ruffled feathers."
"Franx ain't worth a case—but if he can give me a lead, a bottle might be worth it." He tried to remember Grace's face from happier days.
How old would she be now? Sixteen?
"There are no cases of the single malt available—will blended do?"
"Have to," Dillinger said as he stood and closed the cabinet.
This kidnapping made no sense. The cult didn't take hostages—or demand ransoms. These days they didn't even make sacrifices of unwilling participants. Something smelled fishy. Every instinct told him to drop the commission and take a few months to lie low. Yet every other instinct told him to find the bastards, gun them down and take Grace home.
"The case will be waiting for us at docking bay twelve," Pickering said.
Dillinger grunted his acknowledgment.
What was going on—and why was Grace involved?
Franx talked incessantly once he was found and enticed with the whiskey—and a promise for a free trip to Trenchfall. Much of what the man said was nonsense—half remembered rumours and the like, but he had provided Dillinger some leads, so it hadn't been a wasted trip.
But the more Dillinger heard about the cultists, the more he sensed something was off. It was just too perfect a set up to blow his cover—had someone gotten to Franx?
No—Franx would repeat only what he'd been told in 'confidence.’ Someone was manipulating him to get to Dillinger.
Taking Franx to Trenchfall had another benefit; Dillinger could check with another source of information—one nearly indecipherable, but at least honest. Trenchfall's Valdian Market tubeway was home to the enigmatic Parson Thrull. The Parson would have some sort of answer to Dillinger's number one question.
The Parson was never found without his retinue of Lurkers. They were those unfortunates who found themselves indigent in the tubeways and had begun following and protecting the Parson—recording and sharing his words and placing themselves in the path of those who would harm him.
The gaunt alien towered over them, save for when he bent to speak to a petitioner. He wore an ancient environmental suit with a mirrored faceplate. Runic symbols adorned it—most hidden under a ragged cloak. As Dillinger approached, he saw an old servitor robot limp along the tubeway—oblivious to everything as it followed its last order. The Parson stepped in front of it and clicked at it several dozen times before the automaton moved around and went on its way.
"What was that?" Dillinger asked one of the Lurkers. "Why did he say that to that 'bot?"
The Lurker shrugged. "I didn't understand a word of it."
"Of course not," Dillinger said. "Who would?" It had been spoken in binary Ul'mak'len, which was a language only someone who had spent some time inside a Karrak'ul hiveworld would recognize, let alone speak. It had—for all practical purposes—died with the Karrak'ul.
Why would the Parson stop an obsolete servitor robot to say something so flippant like, "A fleet a worlds scuttled. Who asks about the master's madness?” And in a dead tongue?
It was madness. But madness for another time.
He looked at Thrull as the inscrutable creature turned towards him. Dillinger's face was a distorted reflection of himself in the Parson's mirrored face shield. How fitting, he thought. The mercenary put on his game face.
"So, who is trying to set me up, you floating tarot card?" he asked.
Steam hissed out of the creature's helmet grills, followed by its words. "One behind may already be ahead of you."
"Of course," Dillinger snorted. "Completely useless. Thanks, Parson."
The alien stepped closer and bent towards Dillinger. "A single drop from a clear sky delivers no hope," he said before straightening and gliding off.
Dillinger's eyes went wide. "I'll be damned," he whispered. "That makes sense."
If he were being set up, he'd need help. Thankfully, there was a competent and discreet group Dillinger knew was always looking for a contract. While he walked towards his contact, he mulled over the words of the Parson. The first of the alien’s pronouncements indicated someone who was backing him was already ahead of him—could that be Inspector Nettles?
The Parson’s second statement was more worrying—he had produced it unbidden, which usually meant death was to come from it. To Dillinger, it meant someone was using Grace to bait him into a deadly trap.
If that were the case, it would be too dangerous to go after her alone—Franx’s info indicated the initial convoy attack had been by pirate captain Maria Braddock's Midnight Scythe, but that the Duchess had then been handed off to the Kraken Cult in the warrens of Restless Home. Franx, the drunken motormouth, had even provided a map of all things. It had cost Dillinger several more bottles of fine scotch—but it was worth it.
It was never hard to find a Ludanite—they were tall and vaguely canine and always wrapped head to toe in their power armour. Dillinger had generally avoided them, but on a job to Terpiscore he'd worked with one of their people. Deadly. Cold and deadly. They were also a monolithic group; hiring one meant you h
ired whoever their queen felt was best for the job.
They were standing in the central passageway above the Tubes as Dillinger approached. He put on his game face again. And this time, bared teeth. They respected strength—and the feral ugliness of Dillinger's scarred grin was a good show of strength.
"May Ludan bathe in your victim's blood," Dillinger growled.
The expressionless snouted helmet turned toward him. "Dillinger."
"I have a job for you," the mercenary said, holding out a holo of the map and a credit chip transferring his contingency funds to the Ludanites. "Simple package retrieval—a delicate package, to be sure. I don't know the exact location of the package yet, but in these mines. Several dozen unskilled guards."
"Unskilled by Human terms is less than honourable for us to take."
"You know my rep from Terpiscore—I'm unskilled by your measure. These fellows are just as... dangerous to you as I am."
"Offering?"
"On the chip—and this needs to be quiet. Requires stealth."
"Not honourable."
"No—but you'll likely only be escorting me in to get the package. I'll message you, or your agent, once I have the final location. If you need to go without me, I'll notify you."
"Acceptable."
"Cheers, mate," Dillinger said with a nod. He turned on his heel and headed for Guttersnipe. Could Hope be setting him up? Why would she maneuver her own daughter into this position? None of it made sense.
He needed to talk to Geoffry Teller’s wife—he just didn't know how to tell her he was still alive.
The Karrak'ul Prince towered over Major Geoffrey Tellar, its mouth tentacles writhing as it screeched something to him in Kree'mak'la. The Dauntless III pilot was being held several inches off the floor and for the first time in his life, Tellar realized he was about to die.
He sneered and clicked back some binary Ul'mak'len to his captor that he hoped was sufficiently defiant and referred to the Queen Ram's brooding habits.
There was madness in the Prince's multi-lensed eyes as it began squeezing Tellar's neck in its pincers.
Here it comes, he thought to himself, instinctively tensing his body.
Suddenly, the Prince's head exploded.
Finding himself on the deck-plates, covered in Karrak'ul ichor and wheezing—but still alive—he looked up at his savior.
Standing there was Hope herself.
"Get up, Muffy," she said, grabbing him by the arm. "I'm done saving your ass today." With her help, Tellar stood and immediately doubled over and vomited.
"Heavy breakfast—not good before a drop," Hope said.
"So I hear," Tellar responded, his head between his knees, "I usually fly over things and not drop onto them."
She handed him a repeating plasma pulse rifle. "Now you see how the other half lives."
"And dies," he said, taking the rifle. "Sorry about Kellerman."
"Damn," she said, pushing her stringy blonde bangs out of her eyes. "I didn't know he bought it."
"Yeah, helped me out of the cockpit—before Mister Love Bug there decided he needed only one Human."
"Right," she said. "Tears later. We need to blow the core, drop this bastard into the ocean and bug out."
He grinned at the pun, and she rolled her eyes. "You walk point—I have the detonators so I'll cover our asses. Last I heard on the comms, Sargent Niloos-Ertek was approaching the core from spin-ward. Keep your head on a swivel—and try to kill anything you shoot before it kills you."
"I love you, Hope," Tellar said as he readied his rifle.
"Put a sock in it, Major," she said as they hurried down the corridor.
The Duchess Dowager Hope Caranthem (nee Halsey-Billings), widow of the former Duke and mother to Duchess Grace strode down the hall of her estate on Dauntless III towards her personal quarters. Her elegance and grace betrayed nothing of her background as a drop trooper during the Karrak Wars. Indeed, that aspect of her personal history had been seriously downplayed after she married the Duke fourteen years before. She still held a commission of Lieutenant Colonel in the Defense Forces, but her husband had never let her return to a role so 'beneath' his wife.
She loved him—in her way. After all, he had provided so much support—emotional, financial, physical—after Geoff's death, it would be madness to turn down his proposal. And despite Grace not being his biological daughter, he treated her in every way as his expected heir—Grace knew only that the Duke was her rightful father. Why tell her the truth when it could only hurt her?
Because it still hurt Hope. Bad enough Geoff had died, leaving her with an infant—but to learn later he faked his death to abandon them for a life of adventure or revenge?
The Duke had his rules, and over time marriage and privilege had turned into a gilded cage, and later a prison. Ceremony and pomp stripped away everything she had been—leaving only the Duchess. The Widow. The Dowager. Geoff did that to her.
The door before her swished open, and inside she saw a damaged man waiting for her. She stepped in, the door closing and latching behind them.
"Hello, Hope," Dillinger said.
"Hello, Johnny," she replied, relishing his pained look. "How did you get in?"
"You never changed your code, my fair lady," he lied, slipping his displacer into a pocket out of sight.
"Didn't think I had to, until I discovered my first husband wasn't dead, Geoffrey."
"You found out."
"Only recently," she said, taking off her headdress and setting it on a nearby stand, her hand surreptitiously pressing a comm alert key on the desk. "I mourned you for fifteen years, and the night our daughter was crowned I found out you'd been laughing at me all that time."
"Inspector Dom Nettles?" Dillinger asked, incredulous.
"Of course—he was drunk. I'm not sure he'd even remember that first time—but I confronted him later in Trenchfall and he confirmed it." Her eyes narrowed. “You’re both lying pricks—I know that now.”
Dillinger stood and approached her, his arms open, his hands splayed in supplication. "I never did this to hurt you or Grace."
"How could you think it wouldn't?"
"Look at me." Dillinger touched the ruined left side of his face. "How could you love this—gargoyle?" He frowned. "And even if you could—who could love the rage that keeps me alive?"
"You could have come to us—asked for help."
"I had to find the people who killed my crew."
"As close as you were to them, they weren't your family."
Tears glistened in his eyes. "They were—as much as Elden, Declan, Blain, Rapinder and Pabs had been yours."
"They were ours," she said defiantly. "We all took down the hiveworld."
"And I saw it finished at Karkane," he said. "The only one of us there."
"I was pregnant!" she shouted. "Should I have risked our child to finish fighting the war?"
Her anger seemed to drive all passion from Dillinger. "But you risked her now—just to flush me out. You set up her kidnapping so you could... what? Yell at me?"
A wall panel slid aside quietly, and a man stepped out. He held an ugly looking street-sweeper pointed right at Dillinger.
"No, Geoff—so we could kill you," he said.
"Inspector Rollo," Dillinger said, putting his hands up. "An execution instead of an arrest? Surely trespassing isn't that serious a crime in this sector?"
Rollo, however, wasn't wearing his Revenue Service uniform. "This is personal, Geoff. You betrayed a lot of us, and now it's payback. Hope herself said 'that traitor has got to die.'"
Something clicked in Dillinger's thoughts, and he turned to the Dowager. "Let me guess, he told you I was working with Captain Braddock as a mole in the Service—helping the pirates."
Hope shook her head. "How could you?"
"I didn't," Dillinger spat. "I was investigating the real mole after the Corvax Pipeline bust." He glared at Rollo. "You were in on it, weren't you?"
"Please—don't try to ev
ade your responsibility," Rollo said. "Hope's seen your last message to Nettles—you were meeting Braddock."
The Dowager frowned and looked at Rollo. "You couldn't know that—only Inspector Nettles knew that." Her eyes grew wide. "You were spying on Nettles' messages! It was you—and not Geoff all along!"
Rollo just shrugged with a cold laugh. "Always were too smart for your own good, Hope." He looked back to Dillinger. "And you—Kord and I were sure our little bomb had eliminated you and your nosey crew. It's a shame it had to end like this—you should have stayed dead, Geoff."
"Rollo—don't." Hope stepped between them.
"No Hope, you were right the first time—this traitor deserves to die." Rollo's finger moved on the trigger.
It was the fastest draw Johnny Dillinger ever made—fifteen years as a mercenary should have given him the edge.
It didn't matter.
"No!"
The scream was ripped from Dillinger's soul as the last vestige of Geoff Teller was gunned down.
Dillinger's plasma snubber had turned Inspector Rollo's head into a canoe. The street-sweeper fell from nerveless fingers as the corpse collapsed to the deck. Dillinger should have been happy—sweet revenge for his murdered crew.
Instead, the man who had once been Geoff Teller knelt on the deck, holding his dying wife in his arms.
"When... I met Dom Nettles the second time—in Trenchfall," she said to him, pain etched on her face, "After Nettles confirmed you were alive—the Parson Thrull approached me as I was leaving. He said, 'Two cannot be made one without giving life.'"
"What does it mean?"
"I thought it meant I had to kill you—I had to take your life to be my own person again. Now I know I was wrong."
"Wrong?"
"Do you remember that night beneath the orchard lights when we made love—when we became one? Before the Hiveworld Alpha drop."
"How could I forget?"
"We made a life that night. I was pregnant when we dropped on Alpha. Now the Parson's words make sense: Grace was always the best part of us."
