“The lady has chosen to keep her specifics private,” Mr. Grey said. “All you need to know is that she is a high-ranking official among the Byers Clan, with the full confidence of Cantor Byers.”
The act of remaining anonymous was not uncommon in these situations. Negotiating parties only needed to know that those at the table had the authority to make deals, not the specifics of their station. The Navy chose to be forthright in this instance as it was former Navy and United Systems officers who caused the current chaos, and Taliesin Mao had a reputation of trustworthiness.
Mao stood, ready to rip Wilco’s arm from his torso and beat him with it. As politely as possible, of course.
“No,” the woman said, waving Mao off. “It’s okay.” She looked Wilco up and down, expression unchanging. “You, humble hand servant, have some weigh to you as well. But I find it odd that you would break protocol and jeopardize the success of this parley to know my name when you hide your face behind a mask.”
Wilco’s throat tightened. She noticed. He knew now that the dance of negotiation had shifted to him, a subtle change of focus that Mao must have felt; Wilco could feel the anger flow from him. He had taken the yoke from Mao and, thus, the responsibility not to steer them off a cliff. With a sigh, he removed his mask and bowed.
The woman did not flinch at his scarred visage. “Your name?”
“Wilco.”
“Is that a first name or surname?”
“My only name.”
“Your parents did not deem you worthy of two?”
“My parents did not deem me worthy of parenting. They abandoned me, left me to an orphanage. The administrators gave me the name. They did not deem me worthy of two.” Wilco straightened from his bow. “And your name? Or shall I just call you Lady Byers?”
Her entourage tensed. The collective breath of the Navy delegation caught in their throats. Wilco was sure there was a reason aside from the surprise they were in the presence of as high ranking an official as she. He was sure he’d heard stories about the Byers daughter, lone girl among four sons. Born to a woman who was not Cantor’s wife. She was not allowed out of the family compound. She was not permitted to act as an agent of the organization, which was the family. She was a second-class citizen among her own people. And, being such, she had quite the chip on her shoulder.
But these were just stories.
“You can call me Amelia. My family was quite reluctant to bestow upon me a second name as well. I’m not as fond of it as they are.”
Mao scanned the room to ascertain the extent of the damage caused by Wilco’s mouth. Amelia was near unreadable, but her people were clearly unhappy. One of them, a young man no older than Wilco, stood at her shoulder and spoke quietly in her ear. “Lady Amelia, we should leave. This is highly unregular.”
“They sent you because you have the name, but you’re expendable,” Wilco said, seeing a subtle shift in her eyes.
“That’s right,” she said.
“Surprising amount of self-awareness,” Wilco said.
“I was raised with persistent knowledge of who I am.” She looked from Wilco to Mao and the others. “And why did the Navy choose to send you? Are you also expendable?”
“Absolutely,” Wilco said before Mao could answer. “We are not essential to the continued functioning of the Navy. If we died now, it would continue on.”
“Then why am I talking to you?”
The moment was pregnant. Mao had taken a step back, knowing the control of the conversation had shifted to Wilco, but he wanted to interject here, seeing the opportunity for success or ruin in the answer, and trusting Wilco only to be capable of one thing.
“Because we are the only people in Navy, or the entire United Systems, who have seen this new enemy.” Wilco watched Amelia’s features constrict. “We have been close to it, closer than you can imagine. And we know that it presents the greatest threat that any of us have ever faced. A threat that we can only meet together.”
Mao let out a sigh, blowing all his tension out of his body.
The young man looked at the display screen of his comm device then whispered in Amelia’s ear. Wilco tried to read his lips, but his lips were too close to her ear. A shadow fell over her face. She stood. Her body language had shifted completely. Wilco had her at ease. Now, she looked ready for a fight. “What is this?”
“What is what?” Wilco said.
“A ship just entered our space. A registered Navy ship.”
Mao stepped forward, knowing this was well beyond Wilco’s ability to control with slick words. “We’ve no knowledge of another ship. The Glinthawk was the only ship authorized for this mission.”
Amelia waved to her entourage. “We’re leaving.”
“Wait,” Mao said. “Let me contact my superiors. If this is a miscommunication, I will sort it out. I assure you, we have every intention of honoring the spirit of this parley.”
“I don’t care about intentions,” Amelia said. “I care about actions.” The Byers people circled around Amelia as she made for the door.
On the periphery of his vision, Wilco noticed Mr. Grey’s men stiffen, their fingers tightening around the triggers of their blasters. They would be getting paid regardless of the success of the negotiation. They cared only about the bloodlessness of the parley. They should have no incentive to keep one party at the table, especially by gunpoint.
An idea flashed in Wilco’s mind. “What’s the name of the ship?”
Amelia stopped. “Does it matter?”
“Very much so.”
She nodded to the young man, who looked at this comm. “Royal Blue.”
Fear stabbed at Wilco’s chest.
“That is no longer a Navy ship,” Mao said. “It is controlled by the Void.”
“How would they know of this meeting?” Amelia said, her voice growing in volume and anger. “Communication has been limited and encrypted to the highest degree.”
Wilco studied Mr. Grey and his men again. “I daresay we have been betrayed.”
Mr. Grey smiled mirthlessly. With a nod, his men raised their blasters. “Not betrayed. Outbid.”
4
Regardless of the circumstances, it felt damn good to be at the helm of his own ship again. Weeks grounded on the Mjolnir had felt like a lifetime, but Hep only fully realized how confined he felt once he was free again. And he didn’t want to admit to himself how much he resonated with Wilco’s desire to leave the ship no matter the circumstances.
Still, he made sure to remember that, no matter how free he felt, he was no such thing. He was on a mission, not a pleasure cruise. And, despite her assertions that she chose Hep out of trust and her desire to keep this out of the Navy comm channels, Admiral Jeska had assigned him a Navy envoy. Someone Hep had desperately hoped never to see again.
“This is your crew?” Calibor asked. “You had your choice of sailors aboard the Mjolnir, and this is who you chose?”
“First,” Hep said, trying to keep his voice steady, “Jeska chose me and my crew because we aren’t Navy sailors. Maybe you aren’t as privy to the details of this mission as you think. Second, I didn’t choose you. This is my ship. You are unwanted and unwelcome. So you can shut up and do as commanded, or I can lock you in the brig for the duration.”
Calibor was not amused. Hep didn’t believe the Navy captain possessed the ability to be amused. He was eternally thorny. But he also did not speak more on the matter. Calibor was in a unique position among the captains of the United Navy. He’d had the favor of Colonel Maria Tirseer, who had deigned to appoint herself supreme ruler of the United Systems. Whether that was the only reason he was promoted to captain of the Illuminate after Mara Jeska was promoted to admiral was not a question anyone could answer, but there were many captains who believed it to be the case. He was neither liked nor respected, but he did have some insight into the Void and Tirseer’s lasting impact on the politics of the situation—something few others could claim.
Plus, after st
ripping him of his command of the Illuminate, Jeska needed something to keep him occupied. She justified it as an essential restructuring of the Navy in the wake of the massive upheaval that was the loss of Central and the emergence of the Void as a new threat. It made sense, and was largely true, but trust was more essential now than ever, and Calibor commanded none.
The Fair Wind had been underway for a day and half. Delphyne was serving as second-in-command of the mission, a point that made the entire ordeal manageable. There had been a gulf between she and Hep for a long time, pulled in different directions, driven by different things. She was one of the few people of the past years to whom Hep felt connected, like a true friend. A mission to save the galaxy may not have been the appropriate place to rekindle a friendship, but, if they failed, he may not get another opportunity.
Aside from their relationship, she was by far the most qualified. She was more qualified than Hep, but it was his ship. The only reason she was on this mission and not captain of her own was because she resigned her post in the Navy, having lost faith in the institution. It was the greatest frustration for her and people like Wilco and Horus, people who were tired of the bull and just wanted to find their own comfortable place somewhere, that there no longer was a place to hide. The Void would become an omnipresent threat if not stopped. And so they sailed.
“Coming up on our last stop, Captain.” Delphyne was bent over the nav panel on the bridge. She spoke without emotion, with none of the excitement that had once characterized her voice.
“You don’t have to call me that,” Hep said.
“Habit. I’m punching in landing coordinates.”
The ship slowed as it broke the atmosphere of a small planet just this side of the border between the United Systems and Byers space. A planet called Genarian. It hosted only a handful of settlements, once used primarily as refueling stations and trading posts. Now, having been refurbished and gentrified, they served mostly as retirement communities, old folks who put in their time and came looking for a quiet place to die.
That was before the war, of course. Genarian hadn’t suffered directly because of it, it had no strategic value for either side. But trade shortages and blockades, all the peripheral effects of war, hit the planet hard. Medicine dried up. Doctors were pulled away to treat soldiers. People died just the same.
The dour atmosphere was thick in the air, clouding it like a volcano had been spewing ash into the air for years. Once the ship touched down, Hep gathered the crew in the war room. They’d only been at it thirty-six hours, but it had been straight, no rest. Genarian would be their fifth stop. Jeska had given Hep a list of possible locations, leads she’d gathered over years of personal research. They’d started by investigating a backwater planet that served as a popular vacation destination for people looking to get off the grid for a few days—uncolonized, wild, no settlements aside from a few small outposts. When that didn’t pan out, they bounced across three other planets that were largely the same. Jeska seemed to think that Thornton Mueller was the sort of man who preferred solitude in his waning days.
She added Genarian to the list more as an afterthought, the result of a conversation she’d had with an old friend of Mueller’s. This old friend claimed that a lot of that reclusive mystique was bull, a curated image. She said Mueller told her that he always dreamed of retiring to a place like Genarian, where he could live in a condo and have other people tend to his needs.
The crew looked tired and frustrated.
Horus, as always, was the most vocal about it. “We need to do this again? Ain’t this a whole planet of old people?”
“That’s what the intel says.” Hep said.
“You mean the brochure?” Horus held up a tablet, which displayed a publication advertising one of Genarian’s retirement resorts.
Hep waved it away. “If we’re looking for this guy, then someone else might be as well. The Void has Ayala’s brain now. If Jeska knew something, Ayala might have known it. If Ayala knew it, the Void knows it.”
Horus squinted through the hazy air. “Let the Void take this place. Goddamn dump.”
“Shut it,” Byrne said. “The sooner we search Genarian, the sooner we can leave Genarian.” She shivered. “Old people make me uncomfortable.”
Hep shook his head. “There are three resorts close to this location. We’ll split into three teams of two and tackle them at the same time. Shouldn’t be any harder than getting a resident list from the site administrators. But we stay in constant contact. If you see anything that looks even slightly off, call it in and we hoof it back to the Wind.”
“We can get short-range transport at this outpost,” Delphyne said.
They split into teams. Calibor and Delphye, Horus and Hauser, Hep and Byrne. Each secured a skimmer—a four-person hovercar—and raced off to their location.
Byrne was quiet during their ride. She focused on the path ahead, a primitive dirt road lined with the husks of dead pines. Hep could see the muscles tightening in her jaw. Clench, release, clench, release, like she was chewing something.
“Spit it out,” Hep said.
She tasted it another moment. “Are you still captain?”
The question surprised Hep only in that he thought he was the only one questioning that fact. “Yes. The Fair Wind is still my ship.”
“The Royal Blue was Bayne’s ship, wasn’t it?”
“And he was captain.”
“But not the same way. He answered to people. He did only what he was told to do. He wasn’t free to sail wherever he wanted. Wasn’t that the whole problem?”
Hep thought on it. He remembered his time sailing under Drummond Bayne, the uncertainty, the chaos. He remembered it fondly and with regret. “I guess it was.”
“So, are we still free?” Byrne dared to take her eyes off the road a second. She looked at Hep, expectation and worry on her face.
He wanted to stab his blue blade Benevolence into the dirt and cry out that he was now and forever would be free, having served under warlords and pirate lords and Navy captains and Rangers pretending to be Navy captains and dancing to the tune of admirals. He’d earned the money to buy his ship and the right to fly it. But instead, he said, “I don’t know. In a time like this, with something like the Void out there, I don’t know if anyone can be free.”
Byrne turned her attention back to the road. “Fun while it lasted.”
They reached the resort called Fedora Beach within minutes. A metal gate like one to close off a cattle ranch crossed the road. When they came to a stop, they were greeted by a squat robot that moved across the rocky terrain on a single tread.
“Welcome to Fedora Beach,” the robot said in its monotone voice. Like the residents of Genarian, this robot was an old model. Probably recycled from decades ago and kept running on cannibalized parts from its dead and dying brothers. “Please present your gate pass.”
“We don’t have a gate pass,” Hep said. “We came to visit someone.”
The robot hummed, its internal processors working harder than should be needed to access the resort’s servers. “There is no one listed on the visitor’s registry today. Please call ahead and make an appointment. Good-bye.” The robot rolled back to the gate and fell into a sleep mode.
Byrne and Hep exchanged a curious glance.
“Maybe we just go around?” Hep said.
With a shrug, Byrne steered the skimmer around the gate, back onto the road, and continued toward Fedora Beach.
“They don’t get a lot of gate crashers, I guess,” Byrne said.
‘Resort’ was a generous term for Fedora Beach. It consisted of one main administrative building, which was one story and looked to contain one room. Then, in a semicircle around the back of the administrative building, were a dozen condos, each containing two residential units. There was no beach in sight, throwing the name into question. Astroturf in all of the common areas where there should be grass gave the complex an artificial feel.
“Never let me
die in a place like this,” Byrne said as she stepped out of the skimmer.
The idea that Hep might have some say as to where Alenna Byrne would grow old made his stomach flutter.
They entered the squat administrative building and were immediately struck with a suffocating library atmosphere. They felt compelled to whisper and take off their shoes. The room was dimly lit and sparsely decorated. A small bell over the door jingled to announce their presence. If not for the urgency of their mission and the lingering presence of death in the air, Hep would have welcomed the quaint nature of the place.
They were the only ones in the room. The welcome desk that sat a few feet in front of them was unmanned. Until an old man came shuffling out of an unseen room looking disheveled. “Who’s… What’s there? Who?” He huffed like he’d just run up a flight of stairs, but Hep was sure he’d only traveled a few yards. His white hair was ruffled, his shirt half-tucked.
“Sorry,” Hep said. “Did we wake you?”
“What?” The old man seemed offended. “’Course not. I don’t sleep on the job. Just…checking some files. Big job. What do you want? Who are you?”
“We just came to visit one of the residents,” Hep said.
The man eyed them suspiciously. “Which one?”
“A man called Mueller,” Byrne said. “Thornton Mueller.”
The man looked like he’d just swallowed his own tongue. He coughed, trying to cover up his reaction. “Sure, sure. Mueller. Let me just check the registry here and I’ll let you know which unit he’s in.” He bent down below the counter and out of sight. When he came back up holding a sawed-off scattershot blaster, he was met with the tip of Hep’s blade and the barrel of Byrne’s blaster.
“Not suspicious at all,” Byrne said.
Had the old man maintained the strength of even a few years prior, he might have squeezed off a shot out of reflex. As it was, he hadn’t the dexterity to pull the trigger. He didn’t even have the strength to hold onto the blaster as Hep snatched it out of his hands.
The Deep Black Space Opera Boxed Set Page 70
