The Deep Black Space Opera Boxed Set

by James David Victor

  Like a bee in her chest, Ayala could feel the thing buzzing next to her heart. She could feel it ticking, hear the hum of the signal transmitting to the detonator in Tirseer’s pocket. She tried to consciously will her heart to slow, afraid the frantic rhythm would set the device off.

  “Relax,” Tirseer said. “Think about this from an intelligence perspective, Shay. You’re an admiral, for deep’s sake. You have a gift for strategy. Would I go through the trouble of returning you from the brink of death just to kill you in such a fashion? Do you have any idea how much those tiny bombs cost?” She chuckled “No, I’m not going to kill you. Think it through. Why would I do such a thing?”

  Ayala swallowed the bile bubbling up her throat. “Because you’re letting me go.”

  Tirseer nodded. “I knew these long months hadn’t damaged your faculties. That’s right, I am letting you go. You’re going to infiltrate the Byers Clan for me.”

  Now Ayala laughed. She felt the bomb rattle against her ribs. “Of course. Let me just ring Cantor and ask him for a job. We have a wonderful relationship.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find a way.” Tirseer scrolled through her tablet again. She handed it to Ayala. “And though I have all the faith in the world that you will, I’ve also taken the liberty of spelling out exactly how.” She handed the tablet to Ayala. “Give it a thorough read. Commit it to memory. Your mission begins tomorrow.”

  14

  The war room of the Royal Blue looked like a snapshot of years past, with a few notable exceptions. Familiar faces sat around the table, familiar power dynamics, familiar displeased expressions.

  “Well, this is uncomfortable,” Horus said, breaking the minute-long silence. “Let me just be the first to say, Captain Montaine, big congratulations on the promotion. Did you get the fruit basket I sent? No?” He slapped Spetzna on the shoulder. “You forgot to send the fruit basket, didn’t you? Can’t find good help these days, am I right?”

  Hep was abuzz, barely able to keep to his seat. His competitor’s rambling didn’t register.

  “Let’s all just agree to stow any personal baggage we might have for the sake of expediency,” Delphyne said. “The Byers fleet could arrive at any minute.”

  “Is he here?” Hep said, unintentionally shouting. “Is Wilco really here?”

  “How about everyone just ignores what I said? That should keep Byers from destroying us.”

  “Horus told me he’s here, in the brig.”

  Delphyne scowled at Horus. “After I ordered him not to.”

  “To be fair, I don’t take orders from you.” He sank under Delphyne’s unending stare. “But I could. I will. From now on.”

  Hep stood, the act feeling both defiant and desperate. “I want to see him.”

  “No,” Mao answered, surprising the gathering.

  “I’m not part of your crew anymore, Mao,” Hep began.

  “But you are on my ship, so mind the way you speak to me.” Mao rose and began pacing behind his chair at the head of the table.

  “Maybe if you brought Sigurd aboard?” Delphyne said.

  “He requested to remain on the Fair Wind,” Hep said. “Or, at least part of him did. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Try,” Delphyne said sharply.

  “He’s a member of my crew,” Hep said. “I’ll honor his wishes. If he wants to see you, then I’ll bring him aboard.”

  Delphyne’s anger pushed outward, like a bubble of force, very real and tangible. “This isn’t about me. If he’s infected the way Horne was, then we need to see him, study his condition. Our doctors are far more equipped to help him than whatever gutter doctor you picked up while hauling trash.”

  “Enough!” Mao commanded. “We have all been brought back together. Not by any act of will on our part. This is no friendly reunion. There is something at work here that I fear none of us are seeing. None of us other than Wilco, which is the most terrifying thought of all.”

  “What are you talking about?” Hep asked. “How could Wilco engineer this? He’s no mastermind. And what would be the purpose?”

  “I’m not saying he masterminded anything. I’m saying he knows something. He has information about what this is, regardless of how tangential it may be. Considering that, I will be detaining him as an enemy combatant until he shares what he knows.”

  Hep punched the table. “Bull!”

  Everyone at the table rose. “Watch how you speak to the captain,” Delphyne said.

  Byrne, who had so far managed to keep from interjecting, no longer felt so compelled. “Watch how you speak to mine.”

  Horus bellowed, seemingly enjoying the chaos. “Feels like home.”

  Mao yelled above them, trying to calm the flaring tempers. “While aboard my ship, you will all maintain some sense of decorum. I assure you, I have every legal right to detain Wilco and his people. Wartime grants me that privilege. Not to mention that he was involved in the killing of a Navy captain.”

  “From what I hear, he saved your life,” Hep said.

  “According to him,” Mao answered. “But he has yet to recount what he was doing in the cluster, how he got there, and what business he had on the Forager. A lot of good people are dead, and he is the only one who can tell me why. He will stay put until I get those answers.”

  Hep steeled himself to fight, but Officer Graeme entered the war room. “Sir, there is an incoming communication for you. It’s Commander Calibor, sir.”

  Mao seemed to sink in his chair. “I’ll take it in my cabin.” He met Hep’s eye. “The sooner Wilco tells me what he knows, the sooner we can sort this out.”

  Awkward, tense silence took the room upon Mao’s exit. Slowly, the occupants seemed to decide there was nothing left to discuss and filed out until only Hep and Delphyne remained. She held her chin up, forcing herself to look him in the eye, though it clearly strained her to do so. The muscles in her jaw flexed and relaxed, a pattern of tension. Her eyes were so focused that she did not blink, and tears formed and rolled down her cheek

  Hep felt the aching desire to look away, but he could not force himself to. Delphyne had her own personal gravity that she could dampen and amp up when it pleased her. She was a black hole now.

  “You bring him back here,” she demanded.

  He waited for the words to form on his tongue rather than spitting out half-formed thoughts. “I can’t.”

  She closed the distance between them with just a few steps, now standing inches from him. He felt the heat of her breath, of her anger on his face. “You can. You’re just being cruel.”

  “I’m not trying to be.”

  “That’s usually when people are at their most cruel.” She stopped at the door and spoke over her shoulder. “If he dies because you kept him from our doctors, I’ll kill you.”

  Hep believed her. He believed that she believed it, rather. He knew that she was the best of them all and would never hurt him. Even if she wanted to.

  Even though he was now alone, Hep did not feel so. He felt crowded, pressed on, a dozen pairs of eyes staring at the back of his neck. Stepping back on the Royal Blue was a nostalgia trip that he hadn’t wished to take. Every step he’d taken since leaving was with the goal of leaving this ship and everything that happened on board behind.

  But there was one person here that he did want to see. Like everyone else, Hep assumed Wilco was dead, incinerated by the blast of the Black Hole. He was suddenly consumed with a sinkhole of guilt. He would have searched for Wilco if he even thought there was hope that he’d survived. Even though their last encounter was less than pleasant. What had Wilco been doing for three years? Who had he become?

  As self-centered as it was, Hep worried who Wilco was now, absent of Hep’s influence.

  Hep looked up to see that he’d arrived at the brig, somewhat absentmindedly. He encountered no resistance on his way there, no guards to turn him around. The path was left open.

  Now conscious of where he was, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to be there.
He had left his old life behind, built a new one. He wasn’t the puppy cowering behind Wilco’s legs anymore. The weakling in need of a shield. He was captain of his own ship. He didn’t need Wilco anymore.

  He opened the door.

  Three sets of eyes followed him as he walked the long corridor. He got the sense that they knew who he was. Maybe that was just more self-centered attitude, assuming he was important enough to Wilco that his old friend would regale his new crew with details of his past family. They seemed as intrigued by Hep as he did with them. Hep studied each one as he passed.

  The first was a woman, about as tall as Horus though not as broad. Her hair was divided into two braids as thick as Hep’s forearms. It was platinum scattered through with strands of purple. Matching purple circles were painted around her eyes. The tattoos on the backs of her hands evoked an ancient, mystical alphabet, but were likely just geometric designs.

  The man in the next cell was thin but fit, the body type of a featherweight boxer. His head was shaved to reveal a scalp crisscrossed with scars. His chest and midriff were bare, but his arms and hands were covered completely by leather sleeves and gloves. An indentation ran from his left shoulder to his right hip suggesting a strap typically crossed there securing something to his back. He smiled at Hep, showing a broken row of teeth.

  The next cell housed a person hidden under a flowing coat and mask that reminded Hep of a cat, a large feline grin spread across the center, punctuated by two yellow eyes. He couldn’t tell if the person was a man or woman, but the feeling that emanated from the person was tangible. Cold, empty, like maybe there wasn’t a person underneath the mask at all.

  Hep held his breath as he walked past the next several empty cells until he reached the very last. The figure inside didn’t seem like anybody he knew. A stranger hidden behind a mask. He sat on his bed, his back pressed against the metal wall, whistling an upbeat tune. He watched the figure the way a visitor at the zoo watches a lion. Intrigued by its potential for power, its ability to kill, but saddened by its laziness, its feral nature stomped out of it by captivity.

  “If you people want someone to stare at, it’d be easier to get a mirror then come all the way down here with us criminal folk.”

  His voice. Unmistakable. Even distorted by the mask, Hep knew it. “What happened?”

  Wilco laughed. “You people have a remarkable talent for asking impossibly vague questions.”

  “To you. What happened to you after Ore Town? How are you alive?”

  Wilco dropped his feet to the floor and pulled his body to the edge of the bed. He leaned on his knees. Hep couldn’t tell where Wilco was looking. Just under the hum of the ship and the whine of the overhead lights, Hep heard something coming from inside Wilco’s cell. A wheezing sound. A robotic inhale.

  And then a laugh.

  Wilco stood suddenly, like a knife pulled from a scabbard, and removed his mask. It seemed a game to Hep until then. The mask, the façade, emulating Parallax, playing at pirate lord. Upon seeing his face, Hep knew how serious it was.

  The companion Hep had known since his rebirth as an orphan—the boy that had kept him alive—was unrecognizable. The skin stretching from the base of his neck over the top of his head and down the right of half his face was scarred. Burned to a shine. Bubbled and malformed. Like a desert landscape if looked at too closely, dunes and divots. Hair grew in a single tuft over his left eye and hung in a braid, a sad attempt to adorn what little normalcy was left to him. The burned half of his face was patched back together with a mix of cybernetics and skin grafts. A thin robotic element replaced a missing portion of his jaw. His right eye was gone entirely, now a cybernetic implant that glowed red where the iris would be.

  Hep wished he could take the horror of his face and squelch the urge to vomit that came bubbling up.

  “You keep asking me how I survived like I pulled off some magic trick. Like I cheated death. I didn’t cheat anything. I did die. And I came back like this.” He touched the bubbled and shiny skin of his face. “You think I’m playing a game. Does it look like I’m playing?”

  Hep stepped back from the bars. He opened his mouth to speak but his tongue refused to work. He tasted ash. He tasted the positively charged air of an engine room, the drive engines, the explosion of the Black Hole.

  Wilco replaced his mask. “Still just a quaking little rabbit.”

  15

  “What the hell are you playing at, Mao?” The holographic projection of Force Commander Calibor over Mao’s desk moved almost comically, like an angry little doll. “I gave you very specific orders. Stand down. Don’t approach the cluster.”

  “I know, sir. But Captain Horne—”

  “Is dead now! At the hands of a pirate.”

  “Not exactly, sir. Wilco—”

  “Don’t even say his damn name.” The little Calibor clenched his fists. Even at that scale, Mao could see the veins in his neck pulse. “That little urchin served on your ship. A pirate with a past connection to the Navy just killed a Navy captain. Under my watch! Tirseer is going to strip me of my rank. Rest assured, Mao, I’m taking you down with me. My head won’t be the only one to roll because of this.”

  “Sir, respectfully, you are missing the most important details of my report. Captain Horne was infected with something. It changed him. Made him more dangerous. I fear that whatever the cause, it could have biological weapon implications. And we’ve recently learned of another case. Furthermore, I believe the Byers Clan is en route. If they get their hands on this biological agent—”

  “You don’t need to spell it out for me like I’m a child.”

  Mao resented the implication that he would talk down to a fellow officer, even if he did think of Calibor as a bit of a simpleton who lucked into his position as force commander. “Apologies, sir. I’m simply trying to reinforce the gravity of the situation.”

  “And I’m trying to state the gravity of your situation. Once I inform Colonel Tirseer of your actions, expect to be summoned to Central for an official hearing on your fitness for duty.”

  Mao silently cursed the man. But he would not be silent on other matters. “Can I expect reinforcements, sir?”

  “Of course you can expect some damn reinforcements,” Calibor said. “I’ve already ordered the expeditionary force to rendezvous on your location. ETA ten minutes.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Calibor grumbled as the transmission ended. Despite Mao’s contempt for the man, Calibor wasn’t unfair in his gruff assessment of the situation. Had Mao followed protocol and stayed out of the cluster, then perhaps the situation would be contained. Horne would still be dead, but maybe whatever it was that infected him would not be in play and about to fall into the hands of the Byers Clan.

  Even after taking in the facts, Mao couldn’t see a situation where he acted differently. His only other course would have been to let a fellow sailor die, abandoned. Regardless of the fallout, he didn’t see that ever being alright.

  The atmosphere on the bridge was as it had been for days—tense to the point of breaking. The presence of the newcomers did nothing to ease tensions. Horus was a brute who cared nothing for protocol or respecting the established culture of the ship. He stood too near Officer Graeme, which put the young and already jumpy man on edge. Croft and Byron were relentless in their observation of the large salvager captain. They stood on either side of the bridge, hands never leaving their sidearms, always keeping a clear line of sight. Horus’s man Spetzna behaved like Delphyne’s shadow, moving as she did in contorting movements, casting a darkness over her every action.

  Hep was in a dour mood. Like a pouting child. Mao wished he could be happy to see Hep. He did not dislike the boy. In fact, he had grown to respect him over time, especially after he had left the Royal Blue, but his presence on board fostered no small amount of animosity. Those in the crew who served under Bayne remembered Hep as the wayward whelp the former captain took under his wing only to be brought to ruin because of
him. Now, the boy had returned and brought with him more calamity and a sense of authority. They did not like that Hep had sway in the decisions about moving forward.

  Hep rose to meet Mao as the captain entered. Maybe it was an old habit returning, maybe he was choosing to act accordingly and show the captain his due respect. Maybe he just wanted to be the first to get in Mao’s face. “That’s not Wilco. Not the one I remember anyway.”

  “Unless he gave you something I can use, right now isn’t the time to discuss this.” Mao walked past Hep and sat in the captain’s chair. To Delphyne, he said, “Anything from the Byers fleet?”

  “Long-range scans have them rapidly approaching. Five minutes at most.”

  “Calibor and the rest of the expeditionary force are ten minutes out.” The statement landed like a bomb on the bridge. “Meaning we will be on our own for five minutes. One ship against five. Those are odds we’ve not faced in quite some time, but we are up to it. This ship can handle it, and I know its crew can as well. This ship was made for it. We were made for it.”

  “You’re wrong about that, Captain.” Another bomb dropped. This one by Hep. All eyes fell on him like knives hoping to cut him to pieces. “It’s not one ship against five. You can count on the Fair Wind to fight at your side.”

  Mao’s chest swelled. His cheeks burned hot. He nodded to Hep, eyes grateful.

  Delphyne looked Horus expectantly. When he said nothing, she kicked his ankle. “The hell, girl?” Delphyne cleared her throat. Horus looked about the bridge like he just realized what was happening. “Yeah, fine, I’ll do whatever. Let’s kill some suits.”

  “Thank you, Captains,” Mao said. “Your assistance is appreciated.”

  There was no time for a war council. The captains assumed their mantles aboard their respective ships. The Fair Wind and the Bucket disengaged their docking clamps and broke free from the Royal Blue. Though it was never decided upon by consensus, Mao took the authority of group leadership upon himself.