“Captain Bayne, I presume?”
Bayne nodded.
Abbaghast’s ghostly blue eyes fell on the swords hanging on Bayne’s hips. “Ranger turned Navy captain turned system’s most wanted fugitive. Yours is a story I would most like to hear.”
“That why you’ve been brokering so many contracts for my capture?”
“Just business, friend.” Abbaghast looked to Bayne’s desk. “For one who values discretion above all, I consider it a cardinal sin to snoop through a person’s home. But it was a long and rather unpleasant trip.” His easy smile turned to a knowing one. “Could I trouble you for a nip of that black rum you keep in your top drawer?”
The broker put Bayne at ease, which, once he was aware of it, made Bayne uneasy. Abbaghast was a businessman. A very good businessman from all accounts, and this meeting did nothing to disprove that. Bayne had swords. Abbaghast had charm. Both were equally dangerous when wielded with skill.
Bayne took the bottle from his drawer. It had dwindled significantly in recent days. He poured two glasses and handed one to Abbaghast. The broker sipped it. His easy smile grew more genuine. He took the rest of the glass in one gulp. “Now, friend, I am in fine spirits.” He presented the empty glass to Bayne. “Provide me some fine spirit, and I think I may be better company.”
Bayne obliged. He corked the bottle and sat at his desk. “I’ve come across five bounty hunters in the previous two weeks. Three of them were sent by you.”
Abbaghast objected. “I do not send any hunters anywhere, friend. I merely connect individuals of particular skillsets with jobs to which they are uniquely suited. I am a middleman.”
Bayne sipped his drink. “That your business card?”
Abbaghast sat in the chair at Bayne’s dining table. “One of them. I have many.”
“Who sponsored the contract?”
“I am a man who values discretion above all else.” He put his hand over his heart. “To violate that principle would be a violation most personal.”
Bayne uncorked the bottle and refreshed Abbaghast’s glass. “Yet you have no qualms about violating that principle when you’re thirsty.”
Abbaghast sipped the fresh drink. “Extenuating circumstances. I’d just been abducted by the most wanted man in the system.”
“You don’t strike me as a man who scares easy.”
“I strike men in a great many ways,” Abbaghast said. “I am not above fear when the situation calls for it.” He sipped and smiled. “I’m not sure this situation calls for it. You don’t seem the most wanted sort.”
“Then perhaps you can help me.”
The pale blue of the broker’s eyes seemed to darken. “I’m afraid that would violate the one principle which I hold as holy doctrine—self-preservation. My business and my body would be ruined.”
“Then the sponsor has threatened you?”
“Nothing so base as an outright threat. It is implied, however. But I am positive that I would never receive another contract if I were to reveal the sponsors to you.”
Bayne’s ears perked. “Sponsors? Plural?”
Abbaghast’s easy smile spread wide over the rim of his glass.
The Navy and Byers Clan were the obvious choices. But if they were each sponsoring contracts, then they were separately searching for Bayne, not coordinating their efforts. Parallax may have been successful in shattering their alliance before it fully formed. He had created a schism between them and focused their attention on finding Bayne instead of breaking Ore Town.
He couldn’t help but be impressed by Parallax.
“Tirseer.” Bayne lobbed the name out like a grenade and waited to see if it exploded. He realized by now that Abbaghast gave nothing away that he did not intend, so he knew the flicker in the broker’s eyes was a signal.
Centel was leading the hunt for him. Bayne had assumed as much. It was Centel that orchestrated the massacre of the Rangers. It was Centel that was orchestrating something in the dark. It was Centel that had the most to lose should Bayne go public with that knowledge. Not that he had anything to go public with, aside from Horus, who was hardly a credible witness; he was complicit then and a drunk now.
But what did the Byers Clan want with him? Simple revenge for Triseca? A forthright motivation would be refreshing.
“Who in the Byers Clan made contact with you?”
Abbaghast set his now-empty glass down on the table. “You are quite persistent. Or dim. I’ve yet to decide.”
Bayne leaned back and considered his options. He considered the well-dressed man sitting across from him. Charming, sleek, slimy. How was it that he found himself sitting across from people like that so often? The doublespeak made his head ache and his gut bubble with anger. He’d sooner cut the forked tongue out of their mouths than try to untangle what it was they were and were not saying.
The swords hung heavy at his side.
Bayne stood, tapping his fingers on the handle of each sword. Benevolence and Malevolence.
“I respect your dedication to your business principles,” Bayne said. “But not so much as to dissuade me from what I must do.”
The easy smile slid off Abbaghast’s face. “And what is it you must do?”
The sad truth was, Bayne didn’t know. He just knew that he had questions and wanted answers. He wasn’t even entirely sure what the questions were.
“Survive,” Bayne said. That was enough for now. Everything else to follow was predicated on that one simple concept. “And you may be able to help me with that. So, you’ll remain my guest until my survival is assured.”
“Keeping me prisoner will not end the contracts,” Abbaghast said. “There are other brokers. They will still come for you.”
Bayne said nothing else to the man. He left Abbaghast to his fine suits and subterfuge. He returned to the bridge. Mao seemed surprised to see him. Bayne wanted to be offended, but he knew he had been avoiding the bridge. It was the control center of his life—all of their lives—and he no longer wanted control.
“Sir?” Mao said.
“Open a channel,” Bayne said. “Black frequency. I need to talk to Delphyne.”
4
Three months ago…
Triseca was nothing more than a gas cloud. The oxygen pumping through the breath tubes from the filtration system to every room and corridor. The nitrogen and carbon dioxide being processed and filtered. The bodies.
Delphyne watched the scanners, secretly hoping the large yellow dot would flash back onto the screen, signaling the end of some horrific nightmare. The space it once occupied was still empty when they flew out of range.
“Lieutenant.” Bayne’s voice sound far away. She wanted it to be far away. She wanted it to be full of something other than urgency and command. Regret, sadness...something. But it sounded like the voice of a captain. Steady, collected. “Open a channel to Admiral Ayala.”
She didn’t answer but scanned the Navy frequencies. Each one broadcast the same message. An alert announcing the destruction of Triseca and the altercation that preceded it. Parallax’s forces had declared open war. There had been casualties on both sides. Severe civilian casualties.
“Lieutenant,” Bayne repeated for the unknownth time.
Delphyne was lost in the message.
Severe civilian casualties.
She snapped back from the brink and scanned the channels reserved for officers to officer communications. They all broadcast the same message, which ended with instructions to halt all communications and await further instructions.
They believed Bayne was a Parallax mole. They must have assumed that if there was one, there could be others. They wouldn’t risk open communication if it was at all possible their communication network was compromised.
“Frequencies are all closed, sir,” Delphyne said.
Bayne cursed. He had grown increasingly unconventional of late, but he always kept his composure on the bridge. Though, that was the least concerning change in his behavior. He paced a
round the captain’s chair, stroking his chin and staring at his feet. He stopped abruptly, his eyes lit by an idea. “Hail frequency echo-three-echo.”
Delphyne’s fingers hovered over her keypad. “An echo channel? Those are black channels, sir. Reserved for deep-cover communications.”
Her mind raced, like a torrent of water finally broken through a dam, down paths she’d, until now, reserved to let it wander. Moles. Black operatives. Double agents. Centel. And, now, an echo channel typically used by deep-cover operatives to communicate with their handlers. Was Bayne an operative? Was this whole thing a black op? Were the rest of the crew just pawns in a shadow game? Did they know about it? Maybe it was just Delphyne floundering in the dark, searching for something familiar to cling to.
“Ayala and I established a back-channel years ago,” Bayne said. “A direct link to Naval Command. All of the Deep Black captains did in case they ever needed to bypass the bureaucracy in an emergency. I don’t think this is quite what Ayala had in mind.”
He had the audacity to smile. As her world burned around her, quite possibly lit by a match struck with his hand, he smiled. She keyed up the frequency. It was open. Static. No emergency alert.
“This is Captain Drummond Bayne of the UNS Royal Blue. Admiral Ayala, do you read?” Static-filled silence washed over the bridge. “Admiral, are you there? I’m adrift in the Black here.” The silence stretched further. It felt heavy, like it was pressing Delphyne into the floor.
It lifted with the sound of Admiral Ayala’s voice. “Captain Bayne.” The change in her voice was subtle, but terrifying. Every interaction Delphyne ever had with the admiral could be characterized as nothing but professional, dictated by protocol, guided by her commanding presence. She was steel, always. But there were cracks in her voice now. The most minuscule break in something typically flawless was glaring.
“Thank the stars,” Bayne said. “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make contact. All the channels are down. It’ s critical that we—”
“Silence,” Ayala commanded. She did not yell or even raise her voice all that much. She was a wolf mother snipping at her cub, teaching him his place in the pack, scolding him for stepping out of line.
Bayne waited for something further, but nothing came. Delphyne could almost hear Ayala’s teeth grinding together.
“Ma’am, I—” Bayne’s attempt to speak was again cut off.
“How dare you.” Ayala said. “After everything the Navy has done for you, after everything I’ve done for you, you betray us like this.”
A knife stabbed into Delphyne’s chest. The initial relief at making contact was gone. Delphyne felt like she was being crushed again. Their final lifeline was severed. Now they really were adrift.
Bayne seemed affected in a different way. “You can’t be stupid enough to believe that?”
Ayala’s voice came like a cannon shot, a sudden burst of force, but died just as quickly when Bayne cut her off.
“To believe I’m a Parallax plant? That I’ve, what, been behaving like a model officer to ingratiate myself to Naval Command? Been performing like an ambitious soldier hoping to work my way up the chain of command, put myself in a position of power to topple the whole apparatus? You’re the only one at Central who can stand me. What sense does that make?”
Ayala was quiet. Her breathing was steady but shallow. “The evidence is piling against you, Drummond.”
“It usually does in a frame job,” Bayne said.
“A history of breaking protocol, like at Ore Town. Taking a secret meeting with Parallax, which you’ve never reported. Stealing confidential information from Centel. Your actions on Triseca.” Ayala stopped abruptly, like skidding to a halt at a cliff’s edge.
Bayne seemed intent to push her over the edge. “What actions?”
“You killed an executive officer and kidnapped a Byers Clan employee.”
“Hix killed Valoriae,” Bayne said. “I’m sure he left that out of his report. She was one of Tirseer’s black operatives, too, by the way. Ask the colonel about that. And, if anything, I saved Horus’s life.”
Ayala sighed. “You always have an answer for everything. You can’t talk your way out of this, Bayne. You need to come in. That’s the only way we settle this. If not for your sense of duty, or for me, then for your crew. If you make us hunt you down, I can’t guarantee they all survive.”
Delphyne’s fingers began to ache. She hadn’t noticed her grip tighten on the arms of her chair or her knuckles turn white. She recognized the look in Bayne’s eyes. The fire burning in them. It was an all-consuming flame that quickly spread back into his mind and ate all rational thought.
“That’s a lovely invitation,” Bayne said through clenched teeth. “I’m sure you’d lay out quite the welcome mat.” His emphasis on those words clearly meant something, but the meaning was lost on Delphyne. “The same one you laid out for the Rangers after the war?”
Static filled the bridge.
When Ayala spoke, her voice was tight. “I don’t know what you’ve read in that stolen intel, but I can assure you it is only a partial picture.”
“I learned everything I needed to know before I took that intel.”
The admission made Delphyne squirm.
“I learned it all from people who witnessed it firsthand.” Bayne clenched his jaw again, like he was trying to hold back the rest of what he wanted to say.
Silence filled the bridge again. Bayne paced, seemingly having a conversation with himself. When he finally spoke aloud, his eyes were red, his voice wavering. “Everything you’ve done for me?” he said, echoing Ayala. “You systematically dismantled my way of life until I had no choice but to abandon it. Then you massacred my people. As far as I’m concerned—”
The line went dead. No, not dead. Muted. Neither party could hear the other. Bayne’s burning eyes fell on Delphyne.
“Lieutenant,” he snarled. “What the hell did you just do?”
She swallowed hard. She didn’t know what she just did. Well, the technical aspect she knew of course. She was the one who pressed the button. Buy why she did it, that was an instinct. She knew in her bones before she knew in her mind that Captain Bayne was about to cross a line for all of them that could not be uncrossed.
“Sir,” she said, a tremble in her voice. “I think you should take a break.” That came out wrong.
Bayne closed the distance, half the bridge, between them in just a few steps. “Come again?”
“That’s not... I didn’t... What I meant was...”
“That you need to take a breath,” Mao said. He nodded to Delphyne, reassuring her that it was okay for her to do the same. Then he spoke to Bayne again. “We are in a delicate position. It’s clear the admiral believes us, or at least you, to be traitor. We have found ourselves in the middle of something that we don’t understand. Something deep and complicated. If we thrash and struggle, we may find ourselves further entrenched in it.”
Bayne paced between Mao and Delphyne. “What do you suggest, XO?”
Mao studied Bayne. He knew the captain better than anyone. The subtleties of his body language, the things he said by not saying them. If anyone could guide Bayne through this, it was Mao. “We need to keep communication with the admiral open. We can only tell our side of the story if she’s willing to listen to us. It does us no good to antagonize her further.”
Bayne tensed. “And how do you suggest we do that?” His tone suggested that he already knew the answer.
“Surrender.”
Bayne said nothing. He looked at no one, taking no counsel now but his own. “Delphyne,” he said without looking at her. “Unmute the admiral, please.”
Mao nodded at her so that Bayne could not see. She unmuted the call.
“Admiral,” Bayne said.
“Thought you hung up on me, Drummond.”
“You can’t guarantee the safety of my crew if we run. Despite your assertions to the contrary, I don’t believe you can guarantee their safety
if I surrender. Some members of my crew have seen things that Tirseer won’t risk getting out into the open.”
“Bayne, if you’re serious about this conspiracy, I can—”
He cut her off. “Your house is infested, Admiral. I will not step foot there again until it’s taken care of.”
A beat passed between them, then the admiral responded. “Am I to take this as a declaration of your defection?”
Bayne looked at each member of his crew, looked them each in the eye. He lingered on Delphyne. She squirmed under his gaze but did not look away. The fire in his eyes had burned down to reveal of bed of red-hot embers, glowing like suns.
“Until you get your house in order, until you can ensure that my people will be safe, you can consider it a declaration of independence.” He reached across Delphyne and ended the call.
5
Present…
Opening a black frequency wasn’t as easy as pressing a button. It was intentionally difficult. The level of difficulty could range depending on a set of parameters decided upon while establishing the connection. Delphyne had explained all of this to Hep before she left. He had a working understanding of it, which was hopefully enough to establish contact. He had yet to test his working knowledge.
He’d learned his way around the communications room. When the comms officer left, Delphyne had the most experience with the comm equipment. When she decided to leave, it was an equal split between the remainder of the crew who had the best chance at learning to operate it. Hep volunteered, hoping to find a way to make himself useful.
Delphyne was a good teacher. Patient, understanding, able to communicate complicated concepts in a simple manner. Hep missed her. She had a calming presence on the ship. She was also one of the few people he genuinely liked talking to besides Wilco. And he had seen less and less of Wilco since Triseca.
Wilco found a way to make himself useful. He was willing to get his hands dirty. All too willing. And that was rapidly becoming an important asset.
The Deep Black Space Opera Boxed Set Page 20
