by J. N. Chaney
Moving at the exact same time as my attacker, I threw myself sideways, firing two shots before I hit the ground and rolled, and two more as I came to my feet.
Bullets struck my light recon armor. If I’d been standing still, the force would have penetrated, killing or staggering me.
This kind of close-range pistol dance was the most dangerous and stupid type of fight. I wanted to move to cover and engage with my HDK but couldn’t get a half second of time to do it.
We both reloaded on the move, firing the pistols dry a second time and transitioning to the carbines in near perfect synchronization. His armor was heavier and more modern than mine, but he knew better than to slug it out with the HDK.
This close, we’d kill each other with the first volley.
He slipped around a large pipe running away from the water tank to get at me. I ducked behind the door to a ladder, quickly coming around the other side to fire on his position.
He moved to do the same thing to me. “Why don’t we see what the big guns can do?" he shouted, raising his HDK carbine and firing a stream of bullets at my hiding place.
“Throw down your weapons and step out in the open so we can talk this out,” I yelled back, inserting my final HDK magazine. As much as I hated to admit it, the arm blade was my best chance.
The weight of my enhanced left arm didn’t feel right. I wasn’t sure if it was losing power or was damaged. Snapping down my hand, I forced the blade to extend while I pulled the HDK in tight to my right shoulder to use it one-handed.
Shooting this way sucked, but it could be done for short bursts.
Running out into the open to cut Callus down and pump him full of HDK rounds would have been awesome if the tactic had even the slightest chance of working.
I also doubted he was waiting for me to accept his challenge.
The spec ops super soldier was working his way to my flank. Otherwise, he’d be shooting and or taunting me. I waited, ready as I’d ever be.
The top deck shook like a battlecruiser had wrecked into it. Dust and debris swirled around me. Broken pipes released new clouds of steam, but what was more ominous were red and orange smoke clouds from fires in other areas.
“Will you get out here and fight?” I yelled. “There’s only so much oxygen under the environment shields. But you probably know all about void death after I kicked your ass off the ship last time.”
He charged out of the shadows, emptying a magazine from his HDK as he rushed toward me. Spinning out of the way and returning fire, I looked for his melee weapon, expecting to see an axe or flamethrower but realizing there was the hilt of a sword protruding from the back of his armor.
He cast aside his HDK and drew the sword with his other hand. “You were never anything, Reaper, just a hopped-up street thug. Never deserved to be a Reaper.”
I watched the way he now held the weapon with both hands, feet moving from one perfect fighting stance to the next, eyes always on me.
“Your vigilante spree was more successful than you realized,” he said. “Really tested your limits. Impressed a lot of people.”
“Don’t be jealous.” I lunged, forcing him to retreat a step. “And don’t bullshit me. I know where you’re from. Who you are? Why do you hate me?”
Callus adjusted his stance and stayed mobile. “You think you did a good deed, killing all those pieces of shit. And their friends. The way you scoured their hideout was the bloodiest thing I’ve ever seen. They play it in dark ops orientation now. Did you know that?”
“Then you should know better than to come after me.” Rushing him, I slashed downward from left to right, then upward with the same speed. The real attack was another lunge that followed immediately, piercing his left bicep.
It didn’t matter, but I’d recognized the streetwise accent under his gruff military tone. He wasn’t just from the neighborhood, he was from one of the gangs I thought I’d wiped out. Probably one of their soldiers.
My thrust should have been through his heart, but he was fast as hell.
“You’ll pay for that!” he roared.
“Fucking come get me!” I shouted back.
He started laughing bitterly. “You know the gangs didn’t kill your father, right?”
I froze.
He lunged, catching my light armor and shoving me back. The blade didn’t penetrate my flesh. I’d jumped back just fast enough to avoid dying right there.
“Dark ops did that,” he said. “Had to provoke you to see what would happen.”
Sound seemed to vanish. I felt like I was cut off from all sensation. Voices screamed from behind soundproof windows in my mind. X-37 talked excitedly, trying to convince me of something, but I was in my own dark place where none of this mattered.
Callus drove his sword into me, the blade piercing my torso and deflecting along one of my ribs. We fought like animals—stabbing, slashing, kicking, punching, and pushing.
Exhaustion and an explosion through the top deck forced us to separate and rest for several seconds.
What I didn’t understand was why he didn’t hate the Union more than I did. He had to be lying. Had to be.
“I’m not saying I killed your father, but I’m glad someone did,” Callus said. “The project would’ve been shut down without proof of what men like us could do.”
This fucker had no honor. He joined the people who wiped out the gang. The man was too weak to fight against the Union, so he joined them.
Which made me hate him even more.
“I nearly burned to death when you firebombed our hideout. A Union dark ops team pulled me out. Promised I’d have my revenge.”
He hadn’t finished talking when I attacked. Thinking of nothing, I slammed my weapon into him again and again. He retreated, desperately parrying blows and shutting his fucking mouth—finally.
His mistake was letting me get too close. My arm blade was shorter and easier to maneuver. His back struck the wall of the massive water cistern. I grabbed the back of his helmet with my right hand and shoved my blade up through his throat with my left.
His sword fell from his hands and his body went limp. I held him up and stabbed him again and again. When his head finally popped off from the excessively forceful stabs, I hurled his body on the deck and stomped on him until I couldn’t breathe.
“I advised you to control yourself,” my Reaper AI said.
“Fuck off, X,” I said, striding away from my work. Then, on impulse, I returned to the corpse, found one of his grenades, and shoved it under his body with the delay sent to twenty seconds.
“Perhaps you should run to cover,” X-37 said.
“Zero fucks given, X,” I grunted, wiping blood from my forearms and torso.
“Noted.”
I didn’t talk to X-37 for a while. Callus deserved what I’d done to him. It was hard for me to think of the man as human. Genetically modified and cybernetically enhanced, he’d also swallowed the Union’s propaganda whole. There were a lot of people like him who wanted to use Elise to create even more deadly soldiers.
I didn’t know the details, but I’d find out if I had to kill someone. That was what Reapers were made for—infiltration, assassination, and acquisition of secrets necessary to the well-being of the Union and its investments.
I wanted to vomit. Anger could be a tool, but Callus had drawn out a kind of rage I didn’t like. It scared the shit out of me.
“Hal, do you read me?” Elise said in my earpiece.
“I copy. Did you make it to the shipyard?” I asked.
“Yes. What happened? Are you okay?” she responded.
“Stay where you are. I’m headed your direction.” I didn’t want to talk to Elise or anyone else. Fantasies of killing Callus and anyone like him wouldn’t let go of my imagination. The rage was building toward another explosion that would destroy me.
30
BEATEN DOWN, exhausted, and needing a cigar, I plodded toward the shipyard. Bright construction lights blinded me, casting shadows
darker than the void beyond the environment shield.
A rough group of thugs eyed me from a dark alleyway. Outnumbering me ten to one, they were armed with everything from converted tools to state-of-the-art firearms.
I flipped their leader my middle finger. It was a stupid, self-destructing act. A few hours ago, it would have gotten me killed.
They backed away en masse.
“You ballless asswipes, come get some!” I tossed the words at them like a profanity grenade.
If they were still lurking in the shadows, they decided to stay there. I strode toward my destination, heedless of the increasing chaos around me.
Fuck this place.
There was a lot of activity near the shipyard. Lights shone on walkways leading to a moored freighter big enough to carry thousands of people. The motley Dreadmax soldiers guided men, women, and children into the loading area but turned away larger and larger groups of RSG, NG, and other prison gangs.
I didn’t see any of the crazies from below decks. They didn't seem to like this time of day when the shadows moved across the top deck and all of its structures.
“If you’re done sulking, I have located the recon ship that recovered Callus and deployed him to the surface of Dreadmax,” X-37 said. “It hasn't moved and seems to be in standby mode.”
I climbed what had been a point-defense turret for a better view. X-37 could detect things slightly beyond my conscious awareness through a process I didn’t understand, but generally, he saw what I saw. So the recon ship had to be in view if I looked for it.
“Now that’s beautiful. I think we’re finally catching a break,” I said, but didn’t start toward it. The larger view of Dreadmax’s destruction was horrifying and captivating at the same time. I could almost hear large sections of the deck twisting free as gravity generators went haywire or failed entirely.
On the curved horizon of the station, I saw a plume of atmosphere vent into space where part of the environment shield failed. It looked like trees were shooting out from below decks, and maybe people. A lot of people.
Near my position, a pair of Union fighters raced low over Dreadmax, dodging debris and strafing the recon ship before I could steal it.
“Son of a bitch! Are you motherfuckers kidding me!” I shouted.
The explosion was strange, like there wasn’t much atmosphere left to carry the sound waves.
“The loss of the recon ship is justifiably frustrating,” X-37 said. “I recommend you make for the shipyard with all possible haste.”
“Good call, X.” I ran like my life depended on it. What could go wrong now? The station was doomed, I was out of ammunition, and I’d learned the Union had without a doubt issued a kill-on-sight warrant for me after slaughtering most of my family and all of my friends.
The Dreadmax soldiers passed me through after a brief radio conversation I didn’t hear. One of the shipyard foremen greeted me a few moments later and helped push through the growing crowd of desperate refugees.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“I was told to take you to the Jellybird. Someone important says it belongs to you now,” the foreman said. “Not sure why you deserve your own ship, but that’s above my pay grade. Why are you covered with blood?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said.
“Okay. None of my business. I get it.” He continued to talk, giving me passcodes and launch protocols I needed to follow. I ignored him, looking for Elise and the doctor in the growing crowd.
“One more thing, sir,” the foreman said. “They said you’d have something for me.”
Looking him up and down, I decided I was too tired for games. “I recovered a slip drive regulator. Your navigators will need it.”
“Fucking A! Are you serious? You can’t give that to me. I’ll take you to the Bold Freedom.” He waved for me to follow. I didn’t want to. Everything would be so much easier if the young man would take the SDR and deliver it while I handled my own business.
We approached the main hangar, where the massive freighter they’d named the Bold Freedom was being loaded and powered up.
“The Jellybird is a great little smuggler. Not that I’m calling you a smuggler,” he rambled. “But she brought medical supplies and other stuff to Dreadmax that kept a lot of us alive. We’re not all criminals, you know. Just people the Union couldn’t control, or didn’t like, or randomly decided to fucking kidnap.”
“I need to find a girl and her old man,” I said. “She’s probably been here before and he’s hard to miss. A real pretentious douchebag.”
The foreman shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell. I can ask the soldiers. They know everyone who comes this way.”
There wasn’t time for that. I was already regretting leaving the ship they’d just given me. A deep voice issued commands on the public address system, confirming my opinion of the situation. Passengers were urged to proceed in a quick, orderly fashion and do what the guards and deck foremen ordered.
Several firefights broke out near the perimeter as desperate criminals made a last assault on the shipyards. The self-proclaimed Dreadmax soldiers opened fire with crew-served machine guns that made Slab’s weapons look like toys.
“Cain!” a girl’s voice shouted.
I turned to see Elise dragging her father through the increasingly unruly crowd.
A senior ranking engineer ran down the gangplank and introduced himself. “I’m First Lieutenant Kyle Hanson. The perimeter guards advised you were bringing a slip drive converter recovered from the spine. Please tell me this isn’t a joke or an attempt to guarantee your place on the Bold Freedom.”
I handed it over. “I already have a ship.”
“He’s taking the Jellybird,” my guide said excitedly.
Hanson looked me over. “She’s a good ship. Saved a lot of lives here. Take care of her.”
I didn’t watch him run back into the big ship but shook the foreman’s hand briefly. “Take care of yourself. I gotta go.”
Moments later, I was using my arm blade to prompt Doctor Hastings. “Let’s go, Doc. I’ve got a ship.”
“Leave me for the Union,” he said. “You exceeded your mission objective. Kidnapping me will be seen as treason. You can’t defy the Union forever.”
“Haven’t you been paying attention? That’s all I do is defy those asshats. They probably gave me this mission knowing I’d steal you away and torture information out of you,” I said.
He went pale.
I laughed, nearly ashamed at how good it felt to pull his chain. “I’ll turn you over to them once this is over. For now, consider yourself a hostage.”
“What about me?” Elise asked.
I scanned the crowd that was one angry shove from turning into a mob. The soldiers were going to get all of them on board the Bold Freedom, but they were scared and desperate.
“You better stay with us, but if you want to try that way, I’m not stopping you.”
She made some shitty teenage expression that involved a snort—to my back because I was already forcing her father onboard the Jellybird.
“STOP PUSHING ME! You’re going to pay for this. I’m very important to the Union!” Hastings complained.
“Okay, no more pushing,” I said.
He faced me, turning his back on the door to the small room I wanted him inside. “Really?”
“Yep,” I said, then shoved him backward.
He landed on his ass, a stunned and betrayed look on his face.
I shut the door and locked it. Elise looked at me with crossed arms. “Are you going to lock me in a room?”
“I’d rather not. Find yourself a bunk and get some sleep,” I said.
“I’ll help you—”
Holding up a hand, I cut her short. “You’ll get in my way and then I will lock you in a cell.”
She muttered under her breath as she ducked into one of the cramped hallways.
The bridge contained three crash chairs not much bigger than what would b
e in a strike ship. The walls and ceiling were covered with controls making the view screen seem small.
“Are you ready for this, X?” I asked.
“I am. Do you feel it is necessary?” X-37 said.
“Yes. I want control of the ship. Its AI could be a problem later. Quarantine it as soon as you can.”
“I’m afraid you have an unrealistic opinion of my abilities. I am a limited AI with hardware spread out through your cybernetic enhancements and neural network. The ship has a fully functioning AI and more than enough processing power to quarantine me.”
“Are you scared?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“I am merely conveying information. What you decide to do with it is your problem,” X-37 said.
“What do you suggest?”
“Universal AI protocols,” X-37 offered. “If you really have full access to this ship, I should be able to negotiate with the AI and come to a working agreement.”
“Fine. Do it your way.” It was hard for me to concentrate with accumulated injuries throbbing in my augmented arm sending an electric pulse up my spine in time with my heartbeat.
I took a seat and leaned back, listening to X-37 interact with the ship AI.
“It looks like she was originally called the UFS Jellybird,” X-37 said, catching me up on the conversation. “I’d assumed the locals were having us on about the name.”
“It’s probably too early to ask her to change,” I said, imagining myself referring to her as Jelly in the middle of a dogfight.
“Interesting. Jellybird has some advanced features I wouldn’t have guessed from the look of her,” X-37 said, sounding distracted, which was strange for a limited artificial intelligence.
“Why am I only hearing half the conversation?” I asked.
“She’s shy,” X-37 said.
“Stop fucking around. Patch me in.”
Nearly a minute passed before my Reaper AI got back with me. “I think we’re making progress. You’ll need to connect with a ship earpiece to fully join the conversation.”
“I really am tired, but you could have reminded me. Are you on a date?” I asked.
“That assumption is preposterous. Neither of us have a physical form beyond hardware. My advice is to get your mind out of the gutter,” X-37 said.
