“As I assumed.” Delphyne pointed to the communications array, the central hub of all communications for the entire ship. “Then I need you to set up a black channel. I have the frequency.”
She had committed the frequency to memory and immediately destroyed the message containing it. For nearly a year, she had kept it locked in her head, repeating it occasionally to ensure it was not lost. She had hoped never to use it, to never need it.
“Done,” Graeme said. “I’ve rerouted the channel through a dozen satellites from three different networks and layered it with three levels of encryption. There is no one in the Systems aside from me who could crack it. Your black channel is ready.”
The bridge was thick with tension. Every second that passed put the crew of the Forager closer to death. What remained of the crew, anyway. Horne was unable to provide a count of the casualties. But judging from the damage he described, Mao estimated that it had to have been at least half of those aboard.
His face burned with the shame of running a cost/benefit analysis, weighing the lives of his crew against those of his fellow sailors. But that was the weight of the captaincy. The burden. He was already regretting his decision to offer aid. That first shovelful of dirt that would soon grow to be his own grave.
“Anything on scans?”
The officer manning sensors did her best to hide her displeasure at being asked the same question repeatedly. However, her best was not very good at all. “No, sir.”
Mao squirmed in his chair. Before he could add anything, the woman said, “I will alert you to any changes, Captain.”
Delphyne stepped back onto the bridge carrying an air of accomplishment. She winked at Mao as she took her place at her station, cementing her status as one who completely lacked in subtlety. Graeme looked like he would be ill. Mao nodded at his comms officer, trying to assure the man that he appreciated his discretion and his trust, but Graeme would not meet his eye.
Mao became suddenly, oddly aware of the captain’s chair beneath him. It seemed to press against him, like it was alive and it wanted to oust him.
Expectation mingled with the tension in the air. After an hour, that expectation bore fruit.
“Incoming communication,” Graeme said. His shoulders slumped with a sigh. “From a salvage ship. Designate: The Bucket.”
Graeme’s sigh carried through the bridge, washing the entire crew in irritation.
Mao steeled himself before saying, “Put him through.”
A face hidden mostly under beard appeared onscreen. He looked to have just crawled out from the guts of an engine—wires coiled around his forearm, hair matted in globs of oil, skin pocked with small red burns.
“Horus,” Mao said. “You’re a long way from anything.”
The glee on Elvin Horus’s face was that of a child in on a secret. He knew that Santa didn’t exist while the other kids in the room looked up at the sky on Christmas Eve night. “I was in the area. A little birdy came chirping through my comms that someone was in trouble. Had I known it was you, I wouldn’t have bothered.”
“It isn’t me. It’s Horne.”
Horus showed no sign that he was in on the joke. He did an admirable job of feigning surprise. “That’s a different story. Horne and me go back a little. A good man. What’s the situation?”
Mao filled him in, though he was already aware of the details. Horus leaned back, more of his body becoming visible onscreen. His time running his own salvage ship had cut him into a hard-bodied hulk. The fat that hung on his bones the last time Mao had seen him was gone. As was the last remnant of the decorum of a Navy officer that was beaten into Horus when he joined after the Ranger wars.
“That’s a right storm you’ve flown into.” He twirled a finger through the coarse, red hair of his beard. “Lucky for you I’ve outfitted my ship with some intense radiation shielding. The Bucket is the greatest Deep Black salvager there is.”
“No, it isn’t,” Mao said.
“Well, it’s the closest, anyway. You want my help or not?”
Even knowing Horus would be arriving to help, Mao was hesitant to accept. He had no choice, and he knew it. Taking the matter to Calibor would only result in abandoning Horne and his crew to die in the cluster. Mao could swallow his pride to save a comrade. He didn’t need to like it, though.
“Yes,” Mao said, jaw tight.
Horus clapped his hands. “Splendid. Suppose we should hash out the details. Your ship or mine?”
6
One would be forgiven for assuming there was a bomb hidden somewhere on the bridge of the Fair Wind. The crew was frozen in the sort of tension birthed from an impending violent disturbance. From knowing that violence was coming and being unable to avoid it. Bracing for the impact.
They stared out the viewport as though looking at a wall they were about to slam into.
“Akari?” Hep’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“Two klicks. The source should be visible.” All they could see in front of them was a field of rock and ice, giant chunks, any one of which was sizable enough to decimate the ship on impact. “It must be hidden from view.”
“Can you pinpoint the source? Get us an exact location?”
Akari shook her head. “The field is radiating a strong magnetic pulse. It’s interfering with our scanners. I can narrow it to a certain radius but can’t get an exact location.”
Sig grunted. “Perfect setup for an ambush.”
“Agreed,” Hep said. “How do we mitigate the risks?”
Sig stroked his chin as he paced. “Send a scout? One of the puddle jumpers? It can maneuver through the field more nimbly. If the field is messing with our scanners, then it’s messing with the scanners of whoever might be hiding in there. A single pilot ship should stay hidden. If it does get spotted, it’d be more able to get out of there without taking a hit.”
“I suppose you’re volunteering,” Hep said.
His XO nodded.
Hep considered the proposal. He was reluctant to put his people at risk. The life of a salvager was one of inherent danger, navigating dead ships that got dead sailing treacherous space, but he had a high threshold for what was a necessary risk and what was foolhardy. “Okay. Prep the puddle jumper. You do recon only, don’t engage. And you sail as far as communication allows. The second you lose contact with us, you turn back.”
“Aye.”
The puddle jumper rattled like a bucket full of nails as the techs rolled it into the shuttlebay. Sig tried not to let the sounds rattle him as well. He was typically a man of steel nerves, but something lingered in the air that put him ill at ease. Something about this mission, this place, the signal. Something wrong. Twisted.
Byrne slapped him on the back, startling him from his worry. “Looking a little green there, XO. Never known you to puke before a flight. If you need to, I got plenty of buckets. No puking on my deck.”
“I’m fine,” he lied. “Just get me out there.”
The puddle jumper resembled a torpedo from an old Earth submarine—long and cylindrical, narrow and coming to a point. Small wings jutted out from the side and cut back at sharp angles. The thrusters were mounted on the underside of the wings, small canisters meant for short flights. It was maneuverable, but it had little shielding. A single hit could destroy it.
The prospect of dying in flight never bother Sig. It was something every pilot needed to make peace with. It was the unknown that bothered him. The idea that he could be flying into a nest of pirates, a hunk of space junk or some other anomaly twisted his guts.
The cockpit was simplistic and claustrophobic. With the bulk of his spacewalk suit, Sig could hardly move his arms, only enough to maneuver the joystick and reach the few controls on the panel. Otherwise, they were squeezed tight to his body. He couldn’t even turn his head; he needed to rely on side-mounted cameras and the connected monitors for any view of his periphery. He felt like he was sitting in his coffin. And then he smiled. When the day came that he was place
d in a coffin, he hoped that it would be just like this.
Red lights swirled on the roof of the bay. Techs waved their arms, rushing everyone back and out of the airlock.
“Good to go, XO?” Byrne’s voice sounded over the puddle jumper’s radio.
He checked his harness, oxygen, and fuel levels. “Good to go.”
“Airlock secured. Opening hangar bay doors.”
A sliver of oblivion appeared in front of him. The blank darkness quickly became littered with asteroids and chunks of ice, the perfect nothingness ruined by the chaos of the Deep Black.
“Beginning launch sequence,” Byrne said, a hint of mischief in her voice. Sig gripped the yolk. The puddle jumper lurched forward and shot out like a missile. Byrne liked to jab at those on the crew who had served in the Navy or some official operation like one of the conglomerates or a planet-side exploration initiative. She came from one of the more informal operations that explored the Black. You could say she sailed aboard a pirate ship if you wanted to suffer the gut punch that came with it. The way she described it, “It was a crew that sailed under no flag with the sole intention of carving a living out of nothing and seeing what we could see along the way.”
Hep had dug into her background before bringing her on board. No warrants. She didn’t appear on any blacklists. She had been credited with charting some of the more recent discoveries in the Deep Black. Rumors circulated of some of her captain’s more illicit activities, but there was no proof to corroborate.
Her mischievous attitude irked some, but it didn’t bother Sig. Unless she was launching him straight into an asteroid. He plunged the puddle jumper, diving just below the rock and narrowly avoiding collision. “Was that intentional?”
“Just keeping you on your toes.”
The surge of adrenaline cleared Sig’s head of anxiety. All that mattered now was the flight. He maneuvered the ship like it was an extension of himself, moving through space like walking through a field of grass.
The chunks of ice and rock remained steady. Gravitational readings were constant. No fluctuations. Sig weaved around them as he moved inward, further into the field, toward the general location of the beacon. He encountered no resistance.
“Approaching the edge of the comm radius.” The red blip that was the puddle jumper on Sig’s nav screen reached the yellow field, the boundary that separated a world that made sense from one that did not. He held his breath as he crossed the boundary, not sure what to expect.
Nothing. He crossed and found nothing but more rock and ice and nothing. “I’m in. I’ll poke around and see what I can see.”
He continued along an open trail of space, almost like a road cut through the field, an intentional design.
Sig’s heart tightened. As he moved down the open avenue and studied the peripheral cameras, he noticed several more open lanes, all spaced evenly, like a grid. “This isn’t right. Once I crossed the outer layer of the debris field, the layout changed. It’s too neat. Organized. Like it was built. I’m pulling out.” He pulled the yolk to the side, but the ship did not respond. “Fair Wind, my controls are dead. Fair Wind? Byrne? Do you copy?” The radio remained silent.
Sig tested the limited controls of the puddle jumper. Nothing responded. All systems were down. He drifted along like a leaf in a stream. Less than a klick down the stream, he saw his way blocked by a wall of rock. He yanked on the yolk again, punched the controls, shouted in the vain attempt to make the ship listen. With only meters before collision, he reached for the eject button, hoping that it wasn’t dead too. Before he could press it, the ship turned. Like it was caught in the current of some unseen force, the puddle jumper turned to starboard, making a perfect ninety-degree turn down another open lane.
Before he had time to react, he saw that this lane had a clear ending. Straight ahead lay a pulsing blue light, the beating heart at the center of the debris field. Sig froze. Until all the electronics on the puddle jumper reactivated, and a piercing shriek blasted through the comms.
7
The Bucket was not an ironic name. It was wholly accurate. The guts of the ship were solid, according to Horus, though one would need to look beneath layers of grit and grime, shove the piles of trash and scrap aside, and then rip away some rotting floor panels in order to confirm. But it was the outside of the ship that mattered. The Bucket was equipped with some of the strongest radiation shielding available. Horus beamed with pride.
“This stuff isn’t available on the open market. It’s proprietary tech. Still in the R&D phase of development at Byers. I’ve got some friends over there who owed me a favor.” He put a hand to his mouth to feign a whisper. “Just kidding. I stole it.”
Mao squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Don’t tell me that.”
Horus let loose of bellowing laugh as he slapped Mao on the back. “Relax, Captain. Way I see it, this here must be so off the books, we’d all see the inside of a brig if any of it reached the ears of that brain-dead moron running things.”
The secondhand insurrection sent a wave of heat flushing through Mao’s face. “You are a Deep Black salvager who happened into the area. Your ship is uniquely outfitted to function in the presence of the cluster. The interference prevented us from communicating with force command. Given our options and newly presented resources, I thought it best to attempt the rescue of Captain Horne and the Forager.”
Horus’s belly would have shook with the force of his laugh a year ago, but he was solid now, forged by the harsh nature of his new line of work into the muscular man he must have been in his youth. “Keep rehearsing. You’re delivery’s a bit stiff.”
Delphyne pressed past Mao and glared into Horus’s eyes. The big man sank back. “This is a time sensitive operation. People are dying, and red tape is tightening around our neck. That leaves little time for you to be cute.”
“No more cuteness.” Horus produced a palm-sized tablet. “But we will need to settle up before we get underway.”
“Despicable.” Delphyne snatched the tablet. Her eyes went wide at the sight of the figure. “Disgusting. Are you serious?”
“Hauling an intact ship out of a dense star cluster? Yeah, I’m serious. I run a skeleton crew. Meaning there’s a few people doing a lot of dangerous work. Plus, the bonus for me keeping my mouth shut.”
Mao caught Delphyne’s wrist as her hand reached for her sidearm. “Transfer the credits from my personal account.” She began to protest, but he cut her off. “Just do it so we can be done with this.”
Delphyne tapped on the tablet, scowling at it like it personally offended her, and then handed it back to Horus.
Horus inspected it and smiled. “Let’s get to work.”
Mao returned to the Blue, leaving Delphyne in charge of a small away team consisting of Graeme, an engineer named Natalia Roker, and two security officers named Croft and Byron. The two were a unit, a pair since their days in the Naval Academy. Both men served tours as tactical specialists before transferring to the Blue last year. They were an efficient and deadly combination. More importantly, they were discreet. Neither operated with the bluster so common of grunts and security personnel. They got the job done and never felt inclined to brag. Graeme and Roker were by-the-book types. Playing fast and loose with regulations made them uncomfortable, but they wouldn’t skirt the chain of command.
Horus’s crew was loyal to a paycheck. They were working stiffs. As long as they got paid, they would keep their mouths shut about the mission, and Horus, for all his abrasiveness, seemed to treat them well. They moved about the ship like pieces of a tuned, if rusty, machine. Each knew their task and required no oversight and prodding to complete it.
Delphyne was reluctantly impressed by the cohesion. She knew only the Navy way—orders trickled down from on high, no autonomy, little trust that things would get done without micromanagement. Horus hardly spoke to his crew. They just did their job. And did it well. The ship was ready to move within the hour.
“Impressive, right?�
�� Horus leaned back in his captain’s chair, a gaudy piece of furniture that looked to have been pilfered from the throne room of an old Earth kingdom, sitting in stark contrast to the mess and metal that covered the rest of the bridge. Delphyne did not respond. “Come on. Just say it. You’re impressed.”
“I’m surprised that this ship can sail at all, let alone do so efficiently. You have an able crew.”
A satisfied breath seeped through Horus’s lips. “Impressed. I knew it. Yeah, I’ve done pretty good for myself after that whole debacle you all dragged me into. You remember how you kidnapped me from a high-paying gig with the biggest conglomerate in the galaxy? Then dropped me in the middle of life-threatening situation after life-threatening situation? Suppose I owe you all some gratitude. If you hadn’t, I’d be stuck in the middle of someone else’s war. Again.”
“You’re welcome.” Delphyne hoped to punctuate his monologue.
“Of course, here you come when you need something, dragging me back into the mud. I’ll reserve judgment as to whether this is positive for me or not.”
“Perhaps we could discuss the plan?” Roker’s timid voice barely cracked the hum of the engines.
Horus stared off, his mind seemingly on something else. Delphyne kicked his chair, drawing laughs from some of his crew. “Plan,” Horus said, snapping back to the present. “Right. Should probably have one of those. Kidding. Of course I have a plan.” He pointed to the ship’s main display, a monitor with a crack running from floor to ceiling through the center of it. It sputtered to life and showed a scan of the cluster. “Spetzna, you want to run through the thing?”
A wiry man stepped out of nowhere, like a vampire emerging from the dark. His skin pulled tight over jagged cheekbones. Dark clouds circled his eyes. He stood in front of the display, the light casting him in silhouette, making him seem even more sinister. “Inferni is a rare triple star cluster. A radiological and gravitational anomaly. Deep-range sensors cannot penetrate it, and it scrambles normal scanners. I’m impressed that you were able to make contact with the ship inside.”
The Deep Black Space Opera Boxed Set Page 41
