The Deep Black Space Opera Boxed Set

by James David Victor

  A red light flashed on the main monitor.

  “Is that foreseen?” Trapper asked.

  “The hell should I know?” Shankar said. “I don’t know this ship from my ass. Could be alerting me that the plumbing’s broke for all I know.”

  “That’s the proximity alarm,” Wilco said. “And it’s a slightly bigger problem than a broken toilet.” He raised the map of the area. Three ships were close behind them and getting closer. Initial scans of the ships set Wilco’s blood rushing to his face.

  “Navy or Byers?” Trapper asked.

  “Neither,” Wilco said. “They’re syndicate.” His mask flashed with a red, lava-like pattern.

  Shankar shrugged. “So I may have told them about this route. I was their prisoner for years. You think I survived that on charm alone?”

  “No,” Trapper said. “We most certainly do not think that.” He squatted beside Wilco. “What’s our move here, Captain?”

  “Not a lot of maneuverability in this junk,” Wilco said. “And they have us outnumbered. If we engage in a firefight, we will lose.”

  “Are you certain they seek a fight? Shankar told them of this route as a means of smuggling across the Black Border. Perhaps they are just here to smuggle.”

  Wilco cursed his sentimentality and suddenly wished he’d changed the name of the ship. Then, just as suddenly, remembered that there was no need. When last he encountered the syndicate, he had snuck aboard their station and stolen their prisoner, then flown away on the Fair Wind. Though it wasn’t called the Fair Wind at the time. It was the Dorian Black. Maybe Trapper was right. Maybe this was just an unfortunate coincidence. Still, even if the syndicate soldiers didn’t come looking for him, they wouldn’t take kindly to another ship making use of their preferred smuggling route.

  He opened a channel to the lead syndicate ship, a frigate with the call sign Spiro. “Hello there, friends. Fine day for a leisurely sail atop the cosmic seas. This is the ever-congenial Captain Dante of the Fair Wind at your service. How may I be of assistance?” He waited for a response, hopefully one that did not involve a torpedo up their backside.

  “Stow the bullshit,” said the voice on the other end of the comm.

  “That worked splendidly,” Shankar said. “Now let’s try my less-stupid plan and get the hell out of here.”

  Wilco slapped him upside his head. “We’re boxed in between fields of debris, and I’m at the helm of an unfamiliar ship. We sail off this path, we die.”

  “We stay, we die,” Shankar said.

  Wilco bit his lip. The emptiness in him raged like a storm surge. It wanted to run the black blade through Shankar’s lung and watch him drown in his own blood.

  “We know who you are,” the voice continued. “I have a message for you from Compton Elmore.”

  The three men on the bridge of the Fair Wind froze. Compton Elmore was a legend in many circles. Rumored to have been one of Colonel Tirseer’s top black ops agents, he jumped ship when he saw an opportunity to consolidate the smuggling operations under his command. He was as ruthless as he was brilliant.

  “Unexpected,” Wilco said. “And what might that message be?”

  “He’d like to deliver it in person. We’ll let you turn your ship around, then you’ll follow us.” There was nothing in the syndicate soldier’s voice that suggested this was anything other than a command whose refusal would result in instant obliteration.

  “Of course,” Wilco responded over Shankar’s silent protestations. “Lead the way.”

  2

  The engine room flooded with toxic fumes. The crack in the engine core had grown significantly in the last day. Hep knew they shouldn’t have tried that last jump. However, the Byers Clan destroyers chasing them down would have certainly blown them apart, whereas the growing problem of the Bucket’s deteriorating engine killing them all was only a strong likelihood. Weighing their limited decisions, the crew chose to chance cracking the damaged engine in half by jumping away.

  Or, rather, Mao had declared it, and the rest agreed over Hep’s objections.

  The atmosphere inside the Bucket was almost as tense as it was outside, with the war between the Navy and Byers nearing a climax. Several members of the ragtag crew had grown used to giving orders. There were too many cooks in this dilapidated kitchen.

  Akari stomped forward in her full-body hazmat suit, pushing past Horus, who had taken it upon himself to join her in the increasingly toxic room. “Move,” she said.

  He had grown hostile over the previous week, watching others squabble over who should command his ship. He issued orders, but no one followed them. It was his ship, but not his crew, and he struggled with wanting to smash it all to pieces just to spite them. “You move. This here is my ship and that there is my engine.”

  “And your poison spilling out of it?” Akari said. “You want me to leave this to you?”

  Horus swept his arm, motioning for her to continue. “You have my permission to continue.”

  Akari scoffed. She dropped her toolbox next to the damaged engine core, examining it like an ordinance tech examining a potentially explosive device. Which it was, Hep supposed. He couldn’t see her face through the thick plastic mask of her helmet, but her demeanor didn’t seem encouraging.

  “Screwed.” That didn’t help either. “This crack isn’t repairable. Not with anything we’ve got on this heap.”

  Horus growled.

  Akari ignored him. “We need to jettison it.”

  “What will our capacity be without it?” Hep asked. The Bucket was a powerful ship, built as a trawler and modified as a mining ship, packed with enough drive to haul or push pretty much anything. But what it sported in power, it lacked in speed. Down a core, Hep worried they’d be crawling the rest of the way.

  “We won’t have the choice to run again,” Akari said.

  Even though it was a tank, the Bucket couldn’t withstand a sustained assault forever, and with the volume of Byers ships in the area on their way to the Black Border, it would be naïve to think they wouldn’t be crossing paths with them again. “We can’t fight our way to the border. And this thing isn’t much in the way of stealth.”

  Akari seemed to grow agitated as Hep thought out loud. “What are you telling me to do?”

  “Dump it,” Hep said. “We’ll figure out the rest later.”

  “You did what?” The veins in Mao’s neck pulsed. “Who told you to do that?”

  “Wasn’t aware I needed permission to save everyone’s lives,” Hep said.

  “You think that’s what you did? You turned this heap into an anchor!” Mao spit as he talked. Not a habit he ever had, not when he was a naval officer. “We may as well be dead in the water.”

  “Better than being cooked from the inside out as the ship fills with radiation.” The tips of Hep’s ears burned. His blood was so full of adrenaline that his heart beat arrhythmically and his eyes raced faster than his brain could process what they were seeing.

  Mao stabbed his finger at Hep. “You don’t make decisions without consulting me.”

  “This isn’t a Navy ship,” Hep shot back. “And you aren’t captain. You aren’t even Navy anymore. You’re just like the rest of us.”

  Mao’s face turned the color of blaster fire. He took a half-step toward Hepzah, anger blowing out his nostrils like fire from a dragon.

  Bigby stepped between them. “I’m technically still Navy.” His voice rang with youthful excitement but did nothing to diffuse the situation. “And I’m definitely not like the rest of you. So tense.”

  Dr. Hauser cleared her throat, doing more to deescalate with a grunt than Bigby could with all the words. “Settle down. You’re fugitives, not children. Start acting like it.” Horus shot her a confused look. “Stop squabbling,” she said in answer. “The more you bicker, the longer we drift without a plan, and the sooner we get caught and executed for high crimes and whatever bull they heap on us.”

  The once-captains retreated to their various c
orners. A contemplative moment fell over them like a weighted blanket, at least giving the appearance of calming them, but, perhaps, it just rendered them incapable of moving. Finally, Mao spoke. “We need to agree on the next course of action. And the next course only serves to get us to our final goal. So, if we are not at least agreed on what that final goal should be, then the next step makes no difference.” He stepped back and lowered his eyes, forcing himself to wait for someone else to speak.

  “We won’t be taking many next steps if we don’t get my baby fixed,” Horus said. “Sorry, our baby.”

  Hep shuddered at the thought of a mutual baby shared between those gathered. “A new engine core. Not many places we can get one of those within limping distance. There aren’t even any black-market hubs nearby.”

  “Shame we can’t have one delivered,” Horus said. The earnest eyes directed at him led him to believe the others didn’t understand his joke. “You know that’s not a thing, right?”

  “No, but it gives me an idea,” Hep said. “If you’re all willing to try something foolish.”

  “Always,” Bigby said.

  With great effort, Mao managed to not scold them all. He only muttered to Bigby, “How you’re still a Navy captain and I’m not…” Then he cleared his throat and said to all, “We still need a clear destination if whatever this plan is works. Where are we going?”

  It sounded like a question open to all, but Hep knew Mao had an answer. He was about to open the door for Mao to give it when Horus chose to walk through instead.

  “We run,” he said. “As soon as we can get away from the Black Border, we run. This space is about to get lit up like the big boom, and we don’t want to be anywhere near it.”

  Before Hep could tell Horus to shut it, Mao said something that took them all by surprise. “I agree.” Everyone, including Horus, looked at him like he’d just dropped a live grenade on the floor. “The bulk of the Navy and the Byers forces will amass on the border in the coming days, leaving their respective strongholds relatively unguarded. If ever we’ll have a chance to get into Central, this will be it.”

  Horus threw up his hands. “That is not what I meant at all. That is not running away. That is running from one deathtrap straight into the mouth of Hell! And what reason do we have to go to Central?” He pointed to Hep. “We were only trying to go there before to get that doctor guy to fix your crazy blue friend. Well, we lost Sig, so what’s the point?”

  Anger twisted Mao’s face. “The only reason you had a chance of getting that doctor is because Delphyne infiltrated Central and sent you that information. And now she’s rotting in a cell, probably being tortured by Tirseer.” He turned from Horus to Hep and stared into his eyes like he wanted them to explode. “She sent you a file knowing she’d get caught, knowing what would happen to her when she did.”

  It stabbed at Hep’s chest to think of Delphyne locked in a dark hole somewhere, subjected to Tirseer’s twisted mind. It pierced straight through and out the other side to think of why she did it, that she thought him capable of doing something with the information. She trusted him to be capable and to care enough to do the right thing. There was a time he trusted himself with those same things.

  “I know,” Hep said. “I know what she did for us.” But what hurt him the most, what punched a hole straight through him and pinned his heart and lungs to the wall, was the fact that he couldn’t open the file. “But until we know what’s on the file, how do we know it’s not some sort of trap orchestrated by Tirseer? She could be baiting us. Delphyne might not even know she put the worm on the hook.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Mao said. “I don’t care if Delphyne knew exactly what she was doing or didn’t know a thing. I don’t care if she sent you the secret of life or Colonel Tirseer’s secret recipe for chocolate chip cookies. All that I care about is the fact that Anisa is now being held prisoner by the most dangerous person in the galaxy. She served me well, she’s served the United Systems well, and she is the most admirable and honorable person I know. I will not leave her to rot.”

  Horus smiled at Mao.

  “What?” Mao said, perturbed.

  “Did you just make a joke?”

  “Go to hell, Horus.”

  “I agree with Taliesin,” Dr. Hauser said to everyone’s surprise.

  “You don’t even know Delphyne, Doctor,” Mao said.

  “Don’t need to. I can tell by the way you all talk about her what kind of person she is. If we leave a person like that, one of the last truly honorable people any of us knows, then what the hell are we doing?”

  “Delphyne is one of the finest sailors I’ve ever known,” Bigby said. “And regardless, no one should be left to the devices of Maria Tirseer.”

  Hep wanted to jump on board. Every part of him argued that it was the obvious choice except for one tiny part, a voice in the back of his head that sounded like Wilco. It called him naïve for even contemplating sailing straight into the lion’s den to save one person when Sig was out there in the hands of a ship full of sociopaths who intended on doing who knew what with him. Not to mention the bounties and kill orders on Hep’s head and the heads of all who associated with him. But that voice was pragmatic. He argued with it that whatever file Delphyne sent them must be important enough that she would risk her life to send it, and the only place he could think to open it was Central.

  “Agreed,” Hep said, unsure which of his motivations was strongest. “We should go to Central.” With everyone in agreement—except Horus, who grumbled to himself and cursed them all under his breath, they set about getting there.

  The tension on board had not subsided now that they were largely on the same page as to their course. It had only shifted from one topic to the next, proving that it was not the symptom of miscommunication. It was a symptom of a deeper ill: divided ideology. None of the driving forces in their patchwork team believed the same or fought for the same outcome. Hep saw their cross-purposes pulling them apart at the seams, but, like watching a train barrel toward a cliff’s edge, all he could do was watch the impending catastrophe.

  There would never be a time when tension did not clog the air, Hep realized. Not in the near future or any future he could see. The universe was built around it, the constant conflict, the ever-changing landscape, the building and breaking down. He just wished he wasn’t living through the part of the cycle where everything burned down. It would have been nice to see something grow, to build something.

  “This is bull,” Horus barked. “A stupid, suicidal plan full of crap.” He sat in his captain’s chair like a pouting toddler.

  “This is the best way to save your ship,” Hep said, defending his plan.

  “The hell it is. You’re serving her up on a silver platter.”

  Hep shook his head, unwilling to explain the merits of the plan again. But Bigby didn’t share his sentiments. “It’s a good plan,” Bigby said. “Smart. Devious. I’m getting all warm thinking about it.”

  “Gross,” Byrne said. She walked across the bridge to check the status of the signal. Graeme was hunched over the comm terminal. It took some tinkering to tweak the signal to their specs, but it was nothing outside of his wheelhouse. “How’s it looking?”

  “Good. I altered the signal so on the surface, it appears to be a general outgoing distress signal, but I was able to direct it to a certain sector while shielding it from most detections. It is going to be received only in the small section of space we want it to be.” An uncharacteristic ring of pride sounded in his voice.

  “Well done,” Byrne said. “Then how long until we know they got it?”

  “Could be any minute.”

  Byrne looked to Hep and Bigby. “And if the call is received by someone other than our intended recipient?”

  Hep shrugged. “Guess we’ll cross that bridge if we have to.”

  Horus cursed them all again. “Not crossing that bridge with my ship.”

  Minutes passed that felt like hours. None spoke. T
hey all felt hyper-vigilant, waiting for a blink on the monitor that seemed equally likely to mean salvation or destruction. With just a nod to Bigby, Hep left the bridge. He walked through the corridors, allowing his eyes to trace a pipe that had rusted apart and been patched and soldered back together dozens of times. It read like a timeline of the ship, each mass of molten metal a major point in the ship’s life, a time when the ship fell apart and when someone put it back together again.

  He found himself at the brig. He understood why Mao chose to stay there, at least the reason Mao gave for doing it, but he didn’t agree that it was necessary. He knew the real reason. It was the same reason Hep took to spending stolen minutes in the cargo hold.

  “I’d sooner be alone, if you don’t mind,” Mao said upon seeing him.

  “I don’t mind, but we have some things we need to talk about. The sooner we can sort them out, the sooner we can both retreat to our respective dark holes and sulk.”

  “I’m not sulking,” Mao said.

  “Sure.” Hep sat on the cot opposite Mao. “First on the list of things to talk about, what happened to Delphyne. It’s not my fault. It’s not your fault either.” Mao leaned forward and dug his elbows into his thighs. “She did what she did because she’s the bravest of us. She didn’t tell you her plan because she knew you’d order her not to, and she didn’t want to disobey orders. She’s also the only one of us who seems to give a damn about the rules.”

  “Not enough to counter her integrity.” Mao referred to Delphyne’s subterfuge, her infiltration of Central and subsequent theft and release of highly-classified intelligence. She challenged rules she thought unfair. She broke rules she knew to be unjust. Mao sat back and pressed his shoulder blades into the grimy wall of his cell. “She’s also the only one of us with any of that left intact.”