The Deep Black Space Opera Boxed Set

by James David Victor

  He disconnected the rest of them.

  His feet pounded out a rhythmic beat on the metal floor. He hadn’t realized he was running, lost in his head. He passed crew without a concern they would try to stop him. None bothered. They were too focused on events elsewhere to notice him, or to care. He was a shadow again. No one saw him.

  “Where are you going?”

  Hep skid to a halt as he rounded the corner to the shuttle bay. Wilco stood like a sentinel between Hep and the shuttle. He was holding their exit, protecting their way off, like Bayne ordered him to.

  “We need to leave,” Hep said.

  “Where’s the captain?”

  “He’s not coming.” Hep stepped forward then froze, surprised to see Wilco draw his knife.

  “Why?”

  “We don’t have time for this, Wil. It’s about to get very hectic. If we plan on leaving, we need to do it now.”

  “I don’t plan on leaving,” Wilco said, tightening his grip. “Not without the captain.”

  “He’s not our captain. We don’t have a captain.” He tried to push past Wilco, but he boy grabbed Hep by the forearm and swung him against the wall. Once again, the edge of his blade was against Hep’s neck.

  “Maybe you don’t,” Wilco growled.

  Pity and shame and disgust mixed in Hep’s gut, all for his friend. But after it boiled over, the pity was all that was left. Wilco had always taken the lead, so Hep always assumed he was comfortable in the front, cutting the path through the dark. Looking back, Hep realized that Wilco was always leading them to a new gang leader or pirate captain, a new person to relieve him of the responsibility.

  Wilco had that now. The best one he’d ever had. A man with some honor. A man with some dishonor.

  “What did you do to him?” Wilco said, eyes wild with rage. “Sell him out to Parallax?”

  “I thought you were coming back here to join Parallax?”

  Wilco growled through his teeth. “Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot. I know Bayne’s always got his own agenda, and that agenda don’t line up with the Parallax. He’s working an angle. Did you hand him over?”

  “Bayne is going after Parallax. He’s going to stop him from destroying everything, from killing everyone. He told me to leave.”

  “And you were going to. Damn coward.” He pushed away from Hep. “Stand on your own feet for once.” He returned Hep’s disgust as he marched away.

  The rage bubbled up in Hep’s gut. Clarity shone everything in a new light. The sadness weighing Wilco’s shoulders down. The bloodlust that always simmered just below the surface. The utter contempt that fell from his mouth.

  “You want me to stand on my own? You used me as a crutch. I held you up as much you did me. I kept you from becoming that thing inside.”

  Wilco spun around to face him. “You kept me from being me. Always had to hold your hand and tuck you in like a damn child. Now that you’re all grown, I’m starting to see how much time I wasted keeping you alive.”

  The rational part of Hep’s mind cleared some of the fog away. “Come with me. We can go back to the Blue. Delphyne and Mao will vouch for us. They’ll get us set up, maybe get us a ship. Or a job somewhere.”

  The thin, carnivorous smile spread across Wilco’s face. “They might vouch for you. They might get you set up on a nice ship with a nice job where you can put those engineering skills to use. Because they like you. Because you’re harmless. They look at me the way they look at Bayne when his back is turned—like a killer. That’s what I am. I’m going somewhere I can put those skills to use.”

  “And you call me a coward.”

  Wilco drove his fist into Hep’s gut. The pain was so fast and sharp that Hep thought Wilco shoved his blade into him.

  What surprised Hep more was that the idea didn’t surprise him at all. He staggered back but refused to drop to his knees as he gasped.

  Wilco’s fist came again, cracking into Hep’s jaw. A sudden flash of light broke into thousands of tiny spots that danced across Hep’s vision. The wall rushed forward to meet him. His back slammed into it, further forcing out what little oxygen was left in his lungs. He slid to the floor.

  “You don’t belong here,” Wilco said. “Crawl back to your ship.”

  Heat and fire rushed through Hep, igniting his muscles. His mind was empty. He shot forward and drove his shoulder into Wilco’s midsection. Surprised by the move, Wilco lost his footing and toppled over backwards. Hep came down on top of him and wasted no time driving his fist into Wilco’s face.

  After two punches, Hep’s rational mind began to reassert itself. He saw his friend turn bloody. Red smeared across his face with each hit. The split-second hesitation was all Wilco needed.

  He grabbed Hep by the shirt, pulled him down, and slammed his forehead into Hep’s nose.

  Hep fell onto his back and choked on his own blood. He rolled to his side and spit a mouthful of it on the floor.

  “Hell yeah!” Wilco barked through a hyena laugh. “Finally showing some fight.” He hopped on one foot and drove the other into Hep’s gut. He stopped, panting, and stared down at Hep, bloody and coughing. “But it’s the follow-through that matters. Anyone can start something, but only a few can finish it.” He walked away, more determination in his steps now. “Next time I see you, I will finish it.”

  Hep was alone for the first time since his first life crumbled. On his own with nowhere to go.

  20

  The bridge was crowded, but Bayne saw only Parallax. The twisted kabuki mask had lost its allure. It no longer painted the man as a mystery, as an otherworldly figure.

  Bayne saw him as he was. A broken man. A coward. A man in a crowded market with a bomb strapped to his chest.

  The body of Jaxwell Byers was still in a contorted heap on the deck at Bayne’s feet. Parallax didn’t care anymore for appearances. The theater had played out. He was in his endgame.

  “You aren’t supposed to be here,” Parallax said.

  “Would you rather me back on the Blue?” Bayne stepped off the elevator. “What difference would that make? It’s well within the blast radius.” The confused looks on the bridge crew’s faces told Bayne everything he needed to know.

  “Sir, something’s happening,” a bridge officer said, raising the display of the battlefield on the main monitor. “One of the Navy ships has positioned itself in front of the shield opening. It’s not allowing the others to pass.”

  Parallax spun around to face Bayne again. “The Royal Blue, I assume?”

  “Aye,” the bridge officer said.

  Parallax’s hands crept toward the handles of the sword on his hip and dagger strapped to the small of his back. “So clever.” He stepped toward Bayne.

  Lachlan Hix emerged from Bayne’s periphery. At the tip of his sword was Admiral Shay Ayala.

  “Did you come for her?” Parallax’s voice was full of exaggerated pity. “Have you resigned to be a Navy dog?”

  “She’d likely hang me as soon as we returned to Central,” Bayne said, casting Ayala a glance. Her eye was swollen and discolored. “But, yeah, I figured I’d fetch her while I was here.”

  “Pathetic,” Parallax said, drawing his blades. “I had such hopes for you once.”

  Bayne drew his swords—Malevolence and Benevolence, the blue and black blades of the dread pirate captain feared throughout the galaxy. They would cut away that very façade. “And I, you. Until I realized your hopes aren’t worth a damn. Do they know?” He gestured to the crew. “What you’ve got cooking in the bowels of this ship?”

  Even Hix raised his eyebrow.

  “We’re all standing inside a massive bomb,” Bayne said. “Your enlightened leader is sacrificing you to the cause. And the cause is a damn lie.”

  “Nothing about this is a lie!” Parallax shot back.

  “You are a lie,” Bayne said. “This whole persona. Parallax, the scourge of the mighty galactic institutions, the Navy and governments and corporations. You claim they lie a
nd manipulate and enslave, that you want to free these people from that. It’s all bull!” Bayne sliced at the air, telling the few bridge officers that were approaching him to stay back.

  “You’ve lied to all of them,” Bayne continued. “Convinced them to follow you on some grand quest for freedom only to blow them all up so you can go out in a blaze of glory. Was that always the plan? Did you build all this knowing you were going to just burn it all down?”

  Parallax descended the small staircase that led to the command platform at a determined pace. He was done talking. Done with the theater. “The one thing both Navy and pirate captains share? Neither tolerate mutiny.”

  He lunged at Bayne, bringing his sword down in a wicked arc. Bayne crossed his swords over his head, blocking the attack. Seeming to know the move before Bayne made it, Parallax slashed at Bayne’s midsection with his dagger. He cut a long gash along Bayne’s ribs.

  Bayne stumbled back, a sharp burn radiating out from the cut.

  A shocked voice halted Parallax’s assault. “Captain, we’re being boarded!”

  “How?” Parallax spun to face the bridge officer.

  The tech officer answered, “Our trackers have been jammed.”

  “Hull breach in corridor one!”

  Parallax cursed. Barely had it flown from his lips before Bayne’s blue blade slashed his shoulder. Parallax swung around with enough force to lop off Bayne’s head.

  The two entangled in a knot of muscle and hate and blades. Blood sprayed into the air and painted the floor around them. They danced across the canvas.

  The bridge crew didn’t move. Hix ordered a tech to scan the ship for explosives, shaken by Bayne’s accusations. The scans didn’t detect any ordinance, but realization flashed across Hix’s face.

  “The engine cores,” he said. He grabbed the closest bridge officer. “Take a team to the bottom level, engineering. Inspect those cores and report back.”

  “Belay that.” Parallax untied himself from Bayne. He came away bloodier. His mask had begun to slip.

  “It’s true, then?” Hix said.

  “Call it plan B,” Parallax said.

  With Hix distracted, Ayala saw an opening. She chopped down at Hix’s wrist, knocking the blaster away. She drove her palm up into his face, turning his nose into a red smear.

  The sound of blaster fire rang in the corridor outside. Like a starter pistol for the chaos that followed.

  A team of familiar faces stormed the bridge: Sigurd, Delphyne, Horus, and Calibor. They opened fire on the bridge crew, killing several before needing to take cover from returning fire.

  “Return to Ore Town,” Hix shouted to the nav officer. “Dock immediately.”

  “Belay that,” Parallax ordered. “This is my ship. Charge the Royal Blue. Ramming speed.”

  Hix pressed his blaster to the back of the nav officer’s head. “Dock.”

  Ayala ran to Bayne’s side. She looped her arm under his and helped him to his feet. “Discord follows you like a plague.”

  “I don’t sow it. I just shine a light on it.”

  She pulled on his arm, trying to direct him toward the exit. He resisted. “Our ride is here. Let’s go.”

  “Your ride, not mine.” He yanked free of her grip.

  Hix didn’t see Bayne charging from his blindside until it was too late. He turned, taking his aim off the nav officer and hoping to put a hole in Bayne’s chest. Unfortunately for him, the black blade sliced down through Hix’s wrist, separating his gun hand from his arm. Before Hix could draw his secondary weapon, Parallax’s dagger sunk into his chest.

  Hix fell onto his back. He spit blood as he tried to speak, and then he died.

  The moment of unity was fleeting.

  “Charge the Royal Blue,” Parallax ordered, his eyes now set on Bayne. “Not the course I would have thought for you,” he said to Bayne. “You could have allowed Hix to take us back to Ore Town.”

  “So you can blow the ship there? Those people in Ore Town don’t deserve to die for you any more than those sailing under Navy and Byers flags.”

  The Black Hole hefted its considerable bulk forward, beginning its collision course with the Royal Blue.

  “Establish alpha protocol administrative lock procedures,” Parallax said. “Authentication: fair winds.”

  A robotic voice answered, “Alpha protocol administrative lock established.”

  “You can go,” Parallax said to the nav officer. “The main functions of the ship have been locked down. No changing course. And it can only be unlocked with a voice activation. My voice. You can still tell your ship to move. Let me pass. Save your people.”

  “It’s not my ship anymore.” Bayne raced forward and clashed with Parallax. The two became entwined again, one indistinguishable from the other, just flashes of steel.

  Calibor appeared at Ayala’s side. He hoisted her effortlessly off the floor as Sigurd and Delphyne provided covering fire. The bridge crew had concentrated on the starboard side and taken refuge behind the comms station.

  Horus charged forward, smashing through equipment and a sturdy-looking pirate who tried to stand between him and Parallax. Horus flattened him. Parallax saw the big man approach from his periphery. He parried Bayne’s attack and positioned himself as to use Bayne as cover.

  Horus, like a runaway bull, slammed into Bayne, the man he’d come to save.

  In the confusion, Parallax shoved his sword into Bayne’s side, just below his ribs.

  Bayne fell like dead weight into Horus’s arms.

  “Sixty seconds to impact,” a robotic voice said.

  Parallax spread his arms, welcoming his victory. The Navy and Byers ships had rushed the Blue, hoping to pressure Mao into moving, which, being the stubborn bastard that he was, he did not. The explosion would take out the entire fleet, just as Parallax had intended.

  “Take solace in knowing you had front row seats,” Parallax said to the gathered resistance, “to the end of—”

  Something slammed into bow of the Black Hole. Everyone who wasn’t knocked off their feet by the impact was by the sudden loss of pressure due to the gaping hole in the hull. Pressure was returned seconds later with the establishment of an emergency airlock.

  Another ship had boarded the Black Hole.

  .

  21

  He liked to think it was a heroic act, but it was mostly out of spite. For Bayne. For Wilco. For all of them. For their hypocrisy and bull-headedness. Whatever the reason, Hep needed to act before his act of spite got everyone killed.

  The mining vessel he took from the shuttle bay had a bow-mounted drill that could punch holes in asteroids. Punching a hole in the Black Hole’s hull wasn’t difficult. As soon as he pierced the ship, he backed the miner out and extended the airlock.

  He boarded the Black Hole to a slew of confused faces and a lot of blood. Delphyne rushed to his side and handed him her sidearm. “Good to see you. You’ve got less than a minute to hack this ship’s nav system and alter its course.”

  “Sure,” Hep replied. “No big deal.”

  She provided cover as they ran for the nav computer.

  Parallax moved to intercept. Bayne pushed away from Calibor, mustering all the strength left in his body. “Get everyone into the miner,” he ordered Calibor. “And get them off this ship.” He threw his body forward and slammed into Parallax just as the pirate lord was bringing his sword down on Hep.

  The boy dove toward the nav system, landing hard on his belly. He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the sudden loss of breath. Delphyne knelt at his side, her blaster raised to protect him.

  A blaster bolt hit the panel just to Hep’s left, close enough that he could smell the heat of the scorched metal. He pushed the battle raging behind him out of his mind. Bayne and Parallax waged a personal war. Sig, Horus, and Calibor exchanged fire with the bridge crew and a slew of new pirates entering from the corridor.

  “Voice-activated security locks are great and all,” Hep said. “But they’re
deceptive. A robot says something, and people forget how easy it is to manually override.” Hep kicked the large panel on the side of the nav station, knocking it free. He crawled in so that the top half of his body was unseen.

  A familiar voice sounded over the Delphyne’s comm. “What’s the plan here?” Mao said. “You’re getting awfully close.”

  “Just give me a sec,” Hep said as he pulled some wires free. Sparks shot out of the panel. “There, that should—”

  The lights died and cast them all in darkness. Emergency lighting kicked on and painted the bridge in a dim light. A few seconds later, the lights returned.

  “Nav system unlocked,” Hep said. “Auto-nav system permanently disabled.”

  Bayne answered by driving his fist into Parallax’s face.

  Delphyne took the helm. “Where to?”

  “Down,” Bayne said. “Just keep us moving. Hep, contact Ore Town. Issue a planetary evacuation. Keep the shield up as long as possible to provide the evacuating ships cover. Once it’s down, they need to burn like hell out of here.”

  Parallax was a squirming mess on the floor. The display of his mask had cracked. He looked like a jigsaw puzzle.

  “You,” Bayne said to the remaining bridge crew. “Lay down your arms and get to a shuttle.”

  The crew didn’t act. They stared wide-eyed at Bayne. Then their eyes fell to Parallax. They dropped their guns and ran off the bridge.

  “I guess the ship is ours,” Sigurd said.

  “Not for long,” Bayne said. “Once the shield goes down, the fleet will fire everything they have. Nothing Mao says can stop the Navy from acting out its orders, or Byers from avenging the slight against him.”

  Bayne gripped Sig by the shoulder. “Get Ayala onto the miner. Then get them all back to the Blue.” He tried to distill his respect for Sig into a look, a tilt of his head, a squeeze of his shoulder.

  Sig returned it with a nod and a grunt.

  Ayala swatted Sig’s hand away, insisting she could stand on her own. She was nose-to-nose with Bayne. “You are wanted for treason, desertion, probably piracy and some other things.”