The Deep Black Space Opera Boxed Set

by James David Victor

  He began to pace in Riley’s place, following the rut she’d dug into the floor. He was right—waiting was the worst part.

  Suddenly, he was aware that he wasn’t waiting alone.

  “Figured I’d find you in here.” Wilco crowded the doorway, his tall frame casting a long shadow into the room.

  Hep’s heart climbed into this throat, making it hard to breath or swallow. His mind flew into a panic, starved of oxygen and rational thought.

  Wilco stepped into the room, his heavy footsteps echoing off the grated floor and machines. He carried himself with confidence, his typical swagger adding an extra movement to his step, the way a drawl adds syllables to words. “Just don’t know if you’re hiding or actually doing something.”

  “Why would I be hiding?” Hep’s eyes fell to the knife on Wilco’s belt.

  “That’s just what you do.” Wilco’s voice was tight, a contrast to the looseness with which he typically spoke. “Find a corner somewhere and sink into it. Especially when frack’s about to go down.”

  Hep thought he saw Wilco’s fingers twitch as they inched closer to his knife. Maybe it was his mind playing tricks. Maybe it was his mind seeing things clearly.

  Wilco dropped into Riley’s empty chair. He swiveled all the way around before dropping his foot to halt his momentum. “I remember that blockade run we did with Shill a few years back. Promised to be a messy one. High likelihood we’d get blasted, or at least arrested. I had to pull you out of a ventilation shaft so you could work the comm switchboard.” He laughed. “Shill was pissed.”

  Hep remembered. Captain Wex Shill wanted Hep tossed in the brig for deserting his post. “You covered for me, though.”

  Wilco linked his hands behind his head and smiled. “Yeah, I did. I’m a damn good person. True heart of gold.”

  He had the power to put a smile on Hep’s face, at least. But he couldn’t keep it there. Because Hep knew what was coming, and he knew nothing would be the same afterward. No amount of nostalgia would keep that from happening.

  “What are you doing here?” Hep asked. “Come to drag me out of another ventilation shaft?”

  Wilco stood and dug his fists into his hips. He looked around the room, at the machines, the consoles, the intricate system that kept the ship sailing. “I have no idea what any of this stuff does.”

  That struck Hep as an odd observation, but it didn’t surprise him at all.

  Wilco walked the length of the engine, dragging his fingers along the side of it. “I could be locked in here all day, with all the manuals ever written about whatsit dynamics, and I would still never know what any of it does. Mostly because I don’t care. Partly because my brain isn’t wired to understand all the science-y tech stuff. Which is probably why I don’t care.”

  It didn’t seem like he meant to insult Hep, but it felt that way. Wilco noticed how his words fell on Hep, something he only ever seemed to be able to do with Hep. The emotional responses of others may as well have been whatsit dynamics. “I just mean that this is your thing. And I’ve got my thing. We’ve always been different.”

  Hep must have still looked confused because Wilco began to squirm. He may have been more aware of Hep’s feelings than he was any other person’s, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed talking about them with him.

  “Whatever,” Wilco said. “You know what I mean. You’re a thinker. I’m a…” His voice fell off. His eyes drifted down to the knife on his belt.

  Hep finished the sentence in his head.

  A killer.

  Wilco had always been a killer. Hep had recognized that in him even when they were just boys, freshly orphaned, new to the street. Maybe that was what caused it in Wilco, the trauma, the necessity. Maybe they were just the trigger, awakening something that was inside him all along. Whatever the reason, it was the only reason Hep survived. Wilco’s killer instinct kept him alive. But now that Hep had other means of survival—this ship, the crew, his own skills—he saw it in another light.

  Terrifying.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Wilco said, finishing his thought. “I just think, when this is done, maybe you ought to go.”

  Hep wasn’t expecting that. He had thought it. He had hoped it. He wanted to leave. He didn’t want to be in Ore Town, with Parallax, where he could feel the pirate life slowly swallowing him whole. But he never considered that when that time came, he’d be leaving alone.

  “You’re not going to come with me?”

  Wilco looked at his knife again. “Nah. I don’t think I can. I think this is where I belong.” He looked up with a smile. “But I’m good with that. You don’t need me to protect you anymore. You’ll be fine.”

  Hep wasn’t worried about himself. He never doubted what Wilco did for him. But Wilco seemed oblivious as to what Hep did for him. He kept him on a narrow, focused path. He kept Wilco from indulging those dark desires that seemed to be swallowing him now. Without him, Hep worried Wilco would fully descend into that pit.

  Wilco slapped Hep on the shoulder. “Anyway, enough sappy talk. I’ve got to get to the cargo bay. Captain wants me suited up and ready in case we get boarded.”

  Hep reached for him as he walked away. He wanted to lock him in the engine room, safe from what was coming. But he left, and Hep knew that nowhere was safe.

  “Alpha,” Mao’s muffled voice sounded over Hep’s comm, He sounded like he was whispering. “Begin phase one.”

  Hep removed the small piece of tech from his pocket. It was no bigger than his palm, but what it lacked in size, it more than made up for in power. It could generate a single burst of energy powerful enough to knock out an entire network of computers.

  Or one engine.

  12

  Finding an excuse to leave the bridge moments after taking up position in a battle formation was not easy. Especially for someone as uncomfortable with lying as Delphyne. Though she was more practiced with it now than she used to be. She’d spent time undercover with the Byers Clan, living a lie, but she was never comfortable with it.

  “Sir,” she said, rising from her station. “Requesting permission to leave the bridge.”

  Bayne’s head snapped around so fast he might have snapped his neck. His face flashed with surprise, not anger. Before he could question why, she answered.

  She stepped close to Bayne so she could whisper and remain unheard by the rest of the bridge. “I need to speak with…someone. Before this battle. Just in case it’s…” She looked at her hands. “In case I don’t get another chance.”

  Surprisingly, Bayne took Delphyne’s hands in his. A gentle gesture meant to soothe her. It would have, had she been genuine. But the dishonesty only fueled an anxiety inside her that hurt to the touch.

  “Go,” Bayne said. “But be quick.”

  She nodded, but couldn’t bear to look Bayne in the eye.

  The brig was unguarded. They couldn’t spare the manpower right now. Not that it mattered. It had been unguarded since Bayne handed Jaxwell Byers over to Parallax. The sole remaining prisoner did not require guarding. He had nowhere to go should he ever break free. This ship was his home.

  Sigurd was doing pushups when Delphyne entered. Always so flooded with energy, not even a cell could dampen than. He needed to move.

  He stopped when he saw her, rose to his feet, face red and covered in sweat. He stepped to the bars and opened his mouth like he wanted to speak but said nothing. His eyes were wide, expectant.

  Delphyne slid into the brig like a child into a hospital room, her grandmother in bed, dying, afraid that if she spoke the wrong words, she would speed up the process. She sat on the stool outside Sig’s cell. She stared at her hands awhile, the ones Bayne had just touched as a means of reassurance. She could still feel his warmth on her skin.

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Sig pressed his forehead to the bars, let his weight come forward, off his heels, taking him out of a fighting stance.

  “I should have come to see you sooner.”

&nbs
p; A scoff escaped Sig’s mouth, surprising Delphyne. “That’s what you’re sorry about?” He gestured to the bars separating him from her. “What about these?”

  “I didn’t have a choice.”

  “Bullshit.” Sig kicked a tray of food that sat on the floor of his cell, spraying the wall with mashed vegetables. “I’m so damn sick of that excuse coming from people’s lips. There’s always a choice. Saying there isn’t just makes you sound weak.”

  Delphyne shot to her feet. “Then sorry I’m so weak. Sorry I was too weak to overthrow my captain. Too weak to rout out the conspirators within our own government that tried to have us killed. Too weak to face down the Navy, the Byers Clan, and the united pirates of the asshole of space to keep you out of the brig.”

  Sig’s face turned a different shade of red. “Delphyne, I—”

  She sliced her hand across the space between them like she was cutting a hole through the fabric of reality. “Shut up! I have been put in impossible situations. By people I was loyal to. People I cared about. And I marched into those situations with my eyes wide open and my chin high because I was a soldier following orders. I’m not a soldier anymore.”

  Her voice broke at that. The vocal acknowledgement that everything she ever wanted was now dust. She had become the thing she signed up to fight: a pirate, an agent of self-serving anarchy.

  She fell onto the stool and buried her face in her hands. A firm hand touched her shoulder. She knew Sig’s touch. He reached through the bars, straining his shoulder to reach her.

  “I’m sorry,” Sig said. “You did the best you could. You did the best of all of us. You are the best of all of us.”

  She shook her head as it still hung. “I’m not. Because I’m not done betraying my people.”

  13

  He felt right.

  Firm.

  At home.

  He hadn’t felt that in years. If he was honest with himself, Bayne hadn’t felt that way since the Blue became the property of the United Navy. All the years since, still captain of a ship, but not his ship. Not really. He sailed at the pleasure of a faceless organization that told him where to sail, when to sail, how much fuel to burn, how much food he could carry, assigned him his crew.

  Any man may have looked at him and thought him free. He knew he was not. Now, on the line, facing down a battle that could be his last, he felt freer than he had in ages.

  Still, freer than a slave did not mean true freedom. He may have shed his shackles, but he was still yoked.

  “Report from central command,” Graeme said. “A mass of ships has been detected approaching from sector two. Judging from the signatures, it is a mix of United Navy and Byers Clan paramilitary ships, sir. Approximately two minutes from contact.”

  “Thank you,” Bayne said.

  Graeme projected the map on the large monitor. A mass of red dots moved toward them. Seven ships at least. Four of them Navy. Four captains he’d sailed with, four crews he probably knew. People he swore an oath to fight beside. Not against.

  And the other three ships were hired guns. Loyal to whoever signed their checks. He didn’t give a damn about putting them down. Beside him in the line, pirates. Sailors he’d spent years hunting. Some of them were decent people in search of the same thing he was—freedom, a life their own. The others, vile creatures. Anarchists who wanted blood and chaos and pockets full of money and glasses full of rum.

  The coming battle would see good men die and bad men victorious. But that was every battle. There were no saints in war.

  “Sir? Incoming hail.” Graeme’s face turned a shade of white even paler than normal. His stutter doubled in intensity.

  “From who?” Bayne said.

  When he couldn’t force the words out, Delphyne walked to his console and read the name of the caller over his shoulder.

  Her face drained of color to match Graeme’s. “It’s Admiral Ayala.”

  Bayne’s heart froze in his chest. A hail, not a long-range communication routed through satellites. She was close. She was with the incoming fleet.

  “Put her through,” Bayne said, trying to keep his voice steady.

  Ayala’s face appeared on screen. She looked older than when Bayne saw her last. The wrinkles in her cheeks were deeper. The purple under her eyes was a deeper shade, almost black. She looked tired. The defiant regality she once possessed was gone. Still, the sight of her was enough to give Bayne pause, to put fear in him.

  “Admiral, this is a surprise.”

  She shook her head, like a disappointed mother. “Is it? Did you really think I wouldn’t come?”

  “Why would I? I would think you’d keep to the safety and comfort of Central. The Deep Black is no place for a lady of your stature.”

  “Can the bullshit, Drummond.” Her mouth twisted into a sneer. “You aren’t going to charm me. As far as I can tell, this here is my mess, and I clean up my own messes.”

  “How do you figure, Admiral?”

  “I know you aren’t this dense.”

  Bayne tilted his head.

  “You want me to say it,” Ayala said. “Is that what all this is about? You want me to admit it all? You want an apology? This is all just spite, isn’t it?” She shook head, heavy eyes falling to the floor. “I knew about Welcome Mat. I knew what Tirseer planned to do to the Rangers. And I let it happen. I participated in it. I have Ranger blood on my hands. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

  Blood pounded in Bayne’s ears. His vision narrowed on Ayala like he was staring down a sniper’s scope.

  “I don’t pretend to be okay with it,” Ayala said. “I was never okay with it. I objected from the beginning. But I followed orders. That doesn’t make it right, but that doesn’t make any of this right, either. What you’re doing here, you’re going to send the entire system spiraling into anarchy. As big a rift as there is between us, I still know you, Drummond, and I know that’s not what you want.”

  “You don’t know me, Admiral. You never knew me. You knew a captain who thought he had no other choice. All he wanted was to sail and he thought joining you was the only way he could keep on doing it. The man you knew was naïve. I’ve got my eyes wide open now. I know exactly what I’m doing. I’ve made my peace with it.”

  Ayala flashed a sad smile. “You aren’t at peace, Drummond. This isn’t peace.”

  Bayne looked around the bridge, at his crew, their heads down, like they were trying to ignore the conversation happening around them. “Not for you,” Bayne said.

  The silence that followed felt infinite. It was full of alternate futures. Ones where Bayne laid down his arms in surrender. Maybe he’d be pardoned after they exposed Tirseer’s manipulations. Maybe he’d get dumped in a black site and never see space again. Maybe Ayala would take him back. He could sail on the right side of the law again.

  A lot of maybes. And all of them put the shackles back on.

  “You knew what Tirseer was planning then,” Bayne said. “Do you know what she’s planning now?”

  Ayala tilted her head and narrowed her eyes.

  “She put a contract out on me when I was still active-duty Navy. She filtered it through contacts in the Byers Clan.”

  Ayala’s face gave nothing away. If she was aware, or if this caught her completely by surprise, Bayne couldn’t tell.

  “She’s a shadow, Admiral. And she’s spreading. If you aren’t careful, the darkness is going to swallow you.”

  Graeme muted the transmission. “Thirty seconds to contact, sir. Parallax has issued the order to ready battle stations.”

  Bayne nodded. Delphyne issued the order ship-wide.

  Graeme unmuted the call.

  “There’s no stopping this now, Admiral,” Bayne said. They exchanged a look and in it, everything they never said to each other. “Fair winds, Shay.”

  Ayala opened her mouth to speak but paused and motioned for someone on her end to cut the transmission instead.

  An acidic feeling bubbled in Bayne’s gut. Something
inside him died. But as that thing melted in the fires within, it left more room for something else. That feeling of freedom he’d been searching for. He’d just broken another chain in his bonds.

  Now, to break the rest.

  “Contact in ten seconds,” Graeme said.

  Parallax’s visage appeared on the monitor, communicating with all the Ore Town ships. “Sentinel group,” he said, addressing the squad of ships on the front line by their code name. “Stand firm. Remember the plan. What we lack in firepower, we more than make up for in ingenuity. Our unpredictability is our sword. Creativity, our spear. Wield them well.”

  He vanished.

  “Contact,” Graeme said.

  The monitor, a view of endless, black space, suddenly became crowded with ships. Just as Graeme predicted, there were three Byers Clan ships—a frigate, a destroyer, and a carrier. The frigate carried more firepower than any of the Ore Town ships on the line and was an equal match in speed and maneuverability to the lithest of the pirate ships. The destroyer was a tank, all armor, and forceful enough to punch its way through. The carrier was packed with at least three dozen single-pilot fighters. Those alone would have proven enough of a fight.

  But the addition of four Navy ships tilted this battle one hundred percent against Ore Town. Especially considering which ships they were. The Forager under the command of Captain Horne. The Illuminate under the command of Captain Jeska. The Glinthawk under the command of Captain Bigby. And the Esper under the command of Captain Hix.

  Something sparked in Bayne’s mind. A sudden realization. “Graeme, from which ship did that transmission originate?”

  “The Esper, sir.”

  Bayne’s stomach tied in a knot. Ayala was on the Esper with Hix. She was in the middle of a viper’s nest and had no idea. That thought made him ill. Shay Ayala was a warrior, a woman of honor in a universe severely lacking in honor. To think of her dying with a knife in her back and not at the helm of her own ship… There were few things that seemed more unjust.