Steam poured from the air ducts, pumping out as much heat as the outdated and under-serviced system could manage. “Akari has been hard at work?”
“She’s gotten the heat up and running as much as she could,” Hauser said. “It’s been a full time job keeping it from breaking down.” Hauser flashed an apologetic smile. “I made an executive call that not freezing to death took priority over checking the comms. Don’t blame Akari that you couldn’t get in touch.”
Hep shook his head. “No blame. I was just worried. I knew when we set down that this place was a dump and we wouldn’t be operating at our fullest.”
Hauser let out a disappointed sigh. “You’re too quick to take the blame on yourself.”
Hep stopped short. “No lessons right now, please. Try to cram anything else in my head, and it’s going to explode.”
Raising her hands in defeat, Hauser just nodded and continued toward the back of the chamber. Hep tried to focus on Hauser’s back and not the emptiness around him. He didn’t want to see how few of his crew remained. He only spotted a handful of deckhands in his periphery, bustling about as they snaked power cables through the chamber per Akari’s specs. The rest had jumped ship after Inferni. He didn’t blame them. How could he when he would do the same in their position? He would do the same now if he could.
They arrived at the back of the chamber where they were met with a round metal door that looked somewhat like a manhole cover. Hauser pressed a button beside it and watched the door slide into the wall, revealing a narrow tunnel that receded into the dark. She stepped inside. Hep hesitated. The tunnel reminded him of when he and Wilco lived in the sewers after their families were killed. It was the lowest time for them before joining the crew of their first ship. They hunted rats. They drank sewer water. They got so sick they both thought they would die down there in the dark. Once they crawled back to the surface, Hep promised he would never go below again.
“One side,” a voice said from behind Hep. Wilco pushed past him, seeming to suffer from none of the trauma that plagued Hep.
Hep hated him then. For so many reasons, he hated him, but then it was only because Wilco possessed the ability to move on, to forget. Hep stood like a beaten dog, whimpering at every sound that resembled the unlatching of a belt buckle, but Wilco never stopped baring his teeth. Wilco was a wolf, and Hep hated him for it. He hated even more that no matter how he tried, Hep could not assert that he was the one in charge of this operation. Wilco, like always, did whatever he wanted.
Hauser was no fan of Wilco’s. She quickened her pace to catch up with him. “No one said you could be back here.”
“No one said I couldn’t.”
“I did,” Hauser said. “And so did the captain.”
“No one I care to listen to,” Wilco said without turning back.
They soon came to a bend in the tunnel that ended abruptly at a circular metal door very like the manhole cover door in the beginning. The ore once mined on Shayle gave off a noxious odor that proved toxic in high concentrations. As a safety precaution, after collecting all of the ore from a deposit such as this one, the miner would cap off the tunnel with a door, essentially creating a vault, and would keep the lode there until it was ready to be loaded on a ship and sent off. The door was thicker than the hull of a ship and sealed as tight as any airlock.
Akari was there working on the locking mechanism, adding in redundancies and ensuring it would not open unless someone on the outside wanted it to.
“Open up,” Wilco demanded.
Akari looked past him at Hep. After staring daggers into Wilco’s back, hoping he might drop dead, Hep relented. He nodded to Akari, who then pressed the code she’d programmed and stood back from the door as it slid open. The tunnel shook. Pebbles and dust rained on them.
Hep shielded his eyes from the debris and watched through his fingers as Sig appeared in the opening as the door receded. He sat cross-legged on the floor, watching them as though he was expecting them. He did not move or react or take the time to petition against his confinement. He sat in silence.
Before the doors opened completely, Wilco stepped into the makeshift cell. He paced around Sig, looking down on him as though trying to intimidate him. Something less than genuine permeated Wilco’s posture. The tilt of his shoulders, the tensions in his muscles, it seemed forced, like he was putting on a show.
Hauser entered with the bedside manner of a doctor in a cancer ward. She approached Sig like he was terminal, with a soft voice and slow, easy movements. Hep did not move. The sight of his once friend and security chief still put him ill at ease. He could not stomach the deepening blue tint of his skin and the memory of what he’d done weeks earlier.
“How’s your cage?” Wilco asked, his voice sharp.
“How’s yours?” Sig returned, his voice ringing like a chorus of several voices.
Wilco’s hand instinctively rose to his mask before he caught himself and forced the hand back to his side.
“How are you feeling, Sigurd?” Hauser asked, stooping to eye level. “Any changes?”
“Many,” Sig answered. “None that you would understand, however, Doctor. No offense meant.”
“A little taken.” Hauser waved a topical thermometer over Sig’s forehead. It flashed with a temperature of one hundred and seventy-three degrees. “This one of those changes?”
Sig nodded. He leaned to the side to look past Hauser at Hep. His face, blue and empty of expression, looked dead. Hep took the look as a question—an unasked, “Why are you standing so far away? Why do you refuse to enter? Why are you so afraid?”
Hep answered by walking to Hauser’s side, hoping to convince Sig that he was wrong, hoping to convince himself.
“Why have you come?” Sig asked. “For more than a physical assessment of my being, I assume.”
“Yes,” Hep said. “I need to ask you something.” The words caught in Hep’s throat. “At Inferni, was that…intentional?”
“Which part?”
“The mass murder part,” Wilco said.
Sig stared ahead, unfazed by Wilco’s tone. “I do not act out of emotion, and I am in full control of myself and this body. Does that answer your question?”
Hep nodded, his face a mix of relieved and terrified.
“I will ask you a question,” Sig said. “Why do you wish to know?”
“Because we plan to take you somewhere with lots of people,” Hep said. “A research facility in Central. There’s a scientist there, someone Dr. Hauser knows from years ago who might be able to help us. Help you.”
“I don’t need help.”
“Well, we do,” Hep answered. “I just wanted to make sure you were in control, that you wouldn’t pop off and wipe out a hundred thousand people.”
“Aren’t you concerned that I will do so intentionally?”
Yes, Hep thought but didn’t say. Instead, he said, “Why did you kill those people at Inferni?”
Hauser and Wilco both seemed alarmed by the directness of the question. Maybe they were alarmed that Hep was the one to ask it. Sig showed no emotion at all.
“They were a threat to my mission.”
All the attention snapped back to Sigurd. He had yet to give them any indication that he was acting with a purpose in mind, let alone a guided mission. So far, he was a complete mystery. They figured that he was possessed by something, but they had no idea whether that something was an intelligence or a mindless parasite driving Sigurd insane.
“What mission?” Hep asked.
Sigurd’s face tightened in a quick and unsettling expression of pain. When the muscles relaxed, he was no longer emotionless. He scurried backward across the floor, eyes darting from one face to the next, looking for some sign of recognition. “What… Where…? Where am I?” The chorus was gone from his voice. He was a singular person again.
Hep dropped to his knees and tried to get Sig to focus on him. “Sig, it’s me. Hepzah. You’re safe. You’re someplace safe.”
&
nbsp; Hauser rushed in to take more readings. Sig swatted her away like she was a swarm of bees. “Who are you? Get the hell away from me!”
Hep grabbed Sig’s wrist. His skin was cold. “Look at me. She’s a doctor. She’s here to help. We’re all here to help you.”
Sig tried to pull away, but he couldn’t. Months ago, Sig could have snapped Hep’s wrist with little effort. Weeks ago, he’d destroyed an entire fleet of warships in seconds. Now, he couldn’t free himself from Hep’s grip. The fight left his body. The surge of adrenaline, the rush back to his mind after having been removed, pushed down by whatever had taken its place, was too much for him. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he passed out.
The mine administrator’s office was the most dismal room in the entire facility. Dim lighting, tattered inspirational posters pinned on the wall, knickknacks on the desk—the previous occupant hadn’t bothered to pack up before leaving. He couldn’t wait to leave.
Hep sat on the edge of the desk. Hauser, Byrne, Horus, and Akari stared at him, waiting for him to speak. “I have no idea,” was all he could say.
“What about you?” Horus looked to Hauser. She shrugged. “Well, that’s a lot of damn help. What the hell am I supposed to do with that?”
Hep bristled at the attitude, a defensive anger flaring in him. “Why do you think I’d have any clue about what to do here? I’m the captain of a scrapper ship, not a scientist or an explorer or an admiral. A scrapper. I don’t know the first thing about any of this. I’m getting sick of people directing their problems at me.”
“Then you’re sitting in the wrong chair,” Byrne said. “Sir.”
“It’s not that kind of chair,” Hep said.
“It’s always that kind of chair,” Horus boomed. “Doesn’t matter what kind of ship it’s on. If you’re captain, it’s your responsibility. Personally, I think you’re in way over your head. Just saying.” He shrank beneath Byrne’s unrelenting stare. “Way in over our heads. We’re a team. In it together. Until the end.”
Byrne dismissed Horus with a huff. “What the idiot is trying to say is that this is a massive cluster, and there’s no way we’re getting through it unless there’s someone giving orders, keeping us moving in the same direction. Whether you like it or not, that someone is you. So, where are we going?”
Hep walked around the desk and sat in the tattered, ergonomic desk chair. It occurred to him how ridiculous it was to have a chair so concerned with your posture in a frozen hole in a rock made of poison. “The priority is the same: we need to get Sig to someone who can figure out what’s wrong with him. You still think this expert you know is the best bet?”
Hauser nodded. “I do.”
“Of course, he’s at Central,” Hep lamented.
“He’s a contractor for a private lab, though,” Hauser said. “The Navy commissioned his lab to run studies on new microbes being harvested in the Deep Black. He’s got no loyalty to the Navy or to Colonel Tirseer. His loyalty is to the science.” She quieted abruptly, like she was being cut off.
“What?” Hep prompted.
“I’m not sure Sig is stable enough to take to Central.”
Hep pressed his thumbs into his eyes until bursts of color danced across his vision. “Because of what just happened? I get that. What do you propose we do with him then?”
“I’m not saying we don’t bring him to see Dr. Sykes, he’s the only man I can think of who can help, but to take Sigurd to Central with all those people, it doesn’t sit right. He reacts when pressed, reverts to his human persona and is immediately agitated. If he lost control…”
“I know,” Hep said. “Then we need to establish contact with Dr. Sykes and set up a rendezvous somewhere else.”
“Sure thing,” Horus said. “I’ll just ring the evil headquarters of the evil mastermind and ask to speak with her top scientist so that we may find a way to thwart her evil plans.”
Byrne elbowed Horus in the gut. She continued as if he’d said nothing. “Any way to set up a black channel?”
“Not from the outside,” Akari said. “Central has the toughest firewalls in the systems. Its comm channels are layered in the most sophisticated encryption protocols that exist. Trying to breach them from the outside would alert their relay system. We would be pinged within an hour, and a fleet of destroyers would be on us in two.”
“Then we make contact personally,” Hep said.
“How’s that?” Horus asked, arms in front to protect from another gut blow. “There’s a bounty on us. We won’t get clearance to dock at Central. Trying is the same as tying a noose around our necks.”
“Well, dammit!” Hep threw up his arms. “Let’s just sit here and die then if all I’m going to get is negativity. You want me to be the one to set the course? Then I need a crew that’s willing to help me get there. You know the destination, now get us there.”
Hauser cracked a smile so subtle it was nearly imperceptible. Horus snapped off a salute that was most likely done in complete sarcasm, but Hep chose to accept it as genuine. Even Byrne, who seemed to be sinking deeper into a dark pit by the day, lit at the burst of energy. Akari looked down, seemingly unmoved. She tapped at her tablet.
Horus nudged her. “Are you seriously scrolling right now? He’s having a moment.”
Akari’s head snapped up. The uncharacteristic suddenness of her movement caught them all off guard. “I’ve just received an alert from the Fair Wind, sir. We have an incoming communication. A black channel call.”
“From where?” Hep asked.
“From Central.”
Horus clapped Hep on the back and let out a victorious roar of laughter. “Well done, Captain!”
8
The freighter out of Brekken smelled like the inside of a dead whale. Delphyne later learned that the freighter was transporting tons of fresh-caught fish. After a day, she feared she would never rid herself of the smell.
The crew was pleasant enough for long haulers. The captain was legally bound to transport any active military with orders from Central Command, but he wasn’t bound to be congenial about it. It wasn’t uncommon for Navy sailors who commandeered rides on private merchant ships to be given a cot in an engine room or a mat on a floor and bowl of previously freeze-dried mush for supper. But Delphyne was housed in an unused cabin and served the same meal as the captain and his senior staff. On night two of her voyage, the last, she was invited to dine with the captain. He was an older man named Hobbs who admitted that she reminded him of his daughter, which was one of the reasons he wished for her company. He’d spent most of her childhood sailing the spaceways, so they had strained the relationship past the point of repair.
She was happy to offer him some momentary relief from his regrets. Considering how she’d spent the last few years racking up regrets of her own and watching the people she cared about spiral down dark holes, she took some comfort in helping to pull someone up for a change. She thanked him for the meal, and he thanked her for her time, and then she returned to her cabin. She would hold on to that meal for a long time, savoring it as one of the few bright spots to sustain her through the coming darkness.
Her new orders came through quickly. She wasn’t sure her request for transfer would be granted at all, let alone with such haste. And for her request of placement to be approved, she knew that someone was tipping their hand. Whether they were indeed eager to have her aboard—which, granted, massaged her ego quite a bit—or whether they wanted her close considering her previous tours of duty, she did not know. But Delphyne was sure she’d find out soon enough.
The freighter docked on the lower levels of Central. She packed up her things and waited in her room, telling herself that she was doing the right thing, that bold moves needed to be made, and that she was capable of making them. She was Executive Officer of the Royal Blue, a controversial ship, yes, but also one that had been crucial in winning the war against the warlords that united the systems, mapped extensive sections of the Deep Black, neutralized t
he pirate threat, and had secured major victories against the Byers Clan. It carried a shadow, but hers was a storied service record full of commendations. This, now, was nothing Anisa Delphyne could not handle.
She thanked the captain and crew as she left, bidding them and the smell of fish farewell. An envoy from her new commanding officer met her on the platform. “Lieutenant Delphyne,” the man said. He was young, in his late twenties perhaps, and had a narrow face that showcased his youth. His skin was smooth, and his eyes shone. “I am Sergeant Dontay. This way, please.”
Delphyne nodded and smiled courteously. When he turned his back, her smile fell off her face. “A Protectorate officer. Why am I not being met by the Navy?”
Dontay spoke over his shoulder, showing off his pleasant profile. “Your new assignment is a joint operation. The Navy and Protectorate are co-leading. I am the Protectorate liaison on the project. I report directly to Colonel Tirseer. It was she who sent me to greet you.”
Delphyne’s blood ran cold. That left little doubt in her mind as to the motivation behind her rapid placement. Tirseer was many things, but she was not flippant. Everything she did, she did with careful scrutiny. This was not appreciation of Delphyne’s merit. No matter, she told herself. The goal was the same. The path was the same.
“Wonderful,” Delphyne said at Dontay’s back. “I haven’t had much occasion to work closely with the Protectorate. I look forward to it.”
“And we look forward to having you. Your reputation precedes you.”
That prompted a smile, which Delphyne immediately repressed. This position was one she would have killed for under normal circumstances, and she wanted nothing more than to take Dontay’s words at face value. She wanted her reputation to speak for her, for people to seek her out, to crave her opinion, foresight, and attention because she was brilliant.
This is not one of those occasions, she reminded herself.
The Deep Black Space Opera Boxed Set Page 53
