Revenant

by Michael Anderle

  She nodded. “There were some difficulties but nothing that we couldn’t handle,” she explained, her own voice raspy and brittle. “We were caught off guard with the firepower, but like he said, we have some loot to show for it.”

  The man placed a pinky in his ear and wiggled it as he thought. “Fine, opening hanger eighteen. Get in there and be ready for someone to debrief you.”

  “Hop to it,” Kaiden ordered and glanced at Genos, who nodded and deactivated the holoscreen.

  “Go ahead and get ready,” Kaiden said to Chiyo. “I’m not sure how long we can fool them like this. If that guy is one of their best, I wouldn’t be too worried, but let’s pretend that they aren’t all that lazy and prepare to fight if need be. I’ll handle the debriefing while you and Genos take notes and download schematics or whatever you can do in the meantime.” Kaiden looked at the Tsuna. “How far to the bay?”

  “Usually, in stations like these, the repairs would be done on the lower decks. But they have either rearranged the hangers or they don’t know what they are doing,” Genos said. “The designated hanger is toward the middle, where they would usually keep the fighters and ships ready for departure or battle. I’ll let you know if there’s anything suspicious.”

  “Appreciate it.” Kaiden placed Sire onto the back of the Dead Space armor. “Remember, if they ask about the weapons, pirates work for shares and they are ‘our cut,’ so don’t let them spook you or try to take them.”

  “Acknowledged.” Chiyo nodded. “How far do you think we can get?”

  “It depends on where we need to go really.” He shrugged. “Since we don’t have a bomb that can take this place out, it’ll probably fall onto either one of you. My guess is that there’s an important system you can override and disable or, failing that, we can have Genos do one of his favorite hat tricks and blow the core.”

  “Perhaps I should try something new?” Genos suggested and looked up from the controls. “I am beginning to feel that I’m predictable.”

  “Normally, I would be all for that, but considering that this is an important test and all and we’re about to be in the base of the enemy and surrounded on all sides, maybe stick with the classics,” Kaiden stated. “From what I know, the Dead Space Crew are technically pirates but act more like a tribe. They got their start as settlers who simply said fuck it for one reason or another and became scavengers and eventually grew too big to be ‘marauders.’ They were then classified as pirates and the name came with the distinction.”

  “Perhaps, but we shouldn’t underestimate them. They are infamous for their skills as raiders and I’m sure they’ve amassed plenty of weapons within their stocks,” Chiyo warned. “This won’t be easy.”

  “I would imagine not, considering what we’ve accomplished so far.” Kaiden chuckled. “By now, the academy staff have numbers on us, so I would guess they tailored the difficulty of the mission on what they believe we can accomplish.”

  “The objective is to infiltrate the pirate base and destroy it or compromise it,” Genos recalled. “Looking at it now, most of it seems derelict, but the parts that are active are still plentiful. On the positive side, that means whatever is powering the remnants of the station should be isolated and quicker to disable than if we had to deal with a full power station.”

  “And what are the negatives?” Chiyo asked.

  “From a rudimentary glance and an estimate from Viola, we’re still looking at dealing with roughly a battalion of pirates. About four to eight hundred, leaning closer to four.”

  “They were able to take a station with only that many?” Kaiden asked.

  She shook her head. “I doubt that’s their full number. Plus, this place was probably only a science or small colony station. There aren’t many signs of heavy fighting. They probably ransacked it and took over.”

  “I guess when you’re the big dog, you get to say you own the place.” Kaiden chuckled.

  Genos drifted the ship slowly the side of the station. Kaiden stepped beside him and looked out. “The DSC aren’t as bad as some of the other pirates I’ve heard of or even some of the merc groups in the area. But they make up for it by being tenacious and ruthless, especially to the military. Apparently, they harbor a grudge due to all the fighting between the two. I would suspect, though, that it simply comes with the territory.”

  “I suppose I can’t blame them for being…annoyed, considering what led to their creation. However, becoming a band of pirates seems to be a rather extreme reaction,” the Tsuna commented. “I don’t suppose a peaceful solution is somehow obtainable?”

  “This all happened a long time ago, Genos. I’m sure that if a peaceful solution was available, the Animus wouldn’t have them as an option,” Kaiden reasoned, “But hey, if this works out, we could potentially be done with this mission in a few hours.”

  “There isn’t enough time,” Chiyo admitted and he gave her a quick look. “You remember that there is a time limit due to the influx of students. We have a little under two hours left.”

  He looked at Genos for a moment before he turned to her. “Yeah, that’s good to know. I guess we’re not in the homestretch yet. We’ll have to see how far we can get in and hope we make it to a good stopping point before we’re kicked out.”

  “I don’t think they kick you out if you are in the middle of a firefight,” Genos protested. “If we are in a state of constant fighting, we could potentially extend our time for the day.” He froze when he realized what he had suggested and Chiyo stared at him. He could feel her anger even behind the visor. “Or it could end up being a disaster if we alerted the entire station.”

  “As much as that appeals to me, I’d rather not for the time being,” Kaiden admitted. “We don’t know the layout, but I can tell that there’ll be a lot of tight spaces in there. Without field advantage, they could honestly keep throwing grunts at us until we are tired and are overwhelmed. This time, you will need to flex your brains instead of your muscles for the most part.” He went silent for a moment. “Or at least, that’s the hope. Usually, bad things happen when we get too optimistic.”

  As they approached the hanger, Chiyo looked around. “I suppose that you’ll have an explanation as to why there are less people on board than when we set off?” she asked.

  He folded his arms. “Of course I do.” He pointed a finger at the hole in the cockpit. “That’s why I splashed blood around that. I’ll tell them a few ended up getting spaced. Not that I would think these guys would have a hell of a lot of common sense, but you would think that when you have the reputation of being a pack of raving lunatics from the stars, a little collateral damage will occur.”

  “To be fair, it wouldn’t really be a lie.” Genos drifted the ship into the hanger. “We’re about to dock. Are you ready?”

  Kaiden knocked his fists together “Of course.”

  The dropship of Dead Space Pirates flew up to the front gate of their stronghold. The leader, dressed head to toe in crimson heavy armor and a rounded helmet with a full-face visor, carried a modified Reaver shotgun when he walked up to the console of the ship and pressed a key to hail the station.

  A holoscreen appeared. A woman with a passive gaze and pink and blonde hair looked at the leader. “Password?” she asked and stared at him for a moment. Her eyes widened when she realized who she was talking to. The leader grunted as he raised a hand and placed it on the scanner.

  “I should simply say open the damn gate, but I’ll be cordial. It’s ‘black hole sun,’” he responded brusquely and earned a small nod from the woman onscreen. She quickly pressed buttons on her terminal.

  “Good to see you, Captain. What brings you back to the station so soon?” she asked.

  “Hurry up and open the gates. We have a shipment of chems and loads of Stardust from one of the puppet colonies here, and I want to have a ‘chat’ with Walker.” The captain’s gruff voice was accentuated with a crackling voice modifier in his helmet.

  The woman onscreen nodded
one last time before the screen deactivated. The large doors of the main hanger of the gate began to open and slid into the walls around them. The captain turned to the group of pirates in the ship and nodded at them as the ship began to dock, their cue to get moving.

  One of them in the front nodded. He turned to the two dozen others behind him and waved them forward. Pirates shuffled around quickly and gathered equipment and goods as the ship stopped and exit doors opened.

  The grounds of the DSC base were comprised of the remains of the science station ‘Antarctica.’ The captain looked around and recalled when they first took the base over. Somewhat ironically, it was also briefly a base of a company of Red Sun mercs, who maintained it fairly well. Unfortunately, they didn’t do as much when they ousted the mercs from the station. The fading color of the walls and the fact that three quarters of the place didn’t even work properly could attest to the neglect. No one had come to look for them yet, neither the mercs or the WCM to avenge the scientists. The captain decided it was either because they were too afraid to deal with the Dead Space Screw personally, or they knew there would be nothing left of them to find.

  His men filed out of the ship. They had a caravan comprised of twelve floating storage units holding all the chem and drugs from their haul from the nearby planet of Koma, a planet that seemed to be only good for making more powerful recreational drugs. The WC thought it useless, but more enterprising men such as he found many uses for it.

  The crew maneuvered their way through and headed to the holding dock attached to the hanger where they could be examined and processed. They entered the building, which was mostly empty. A random tech sat in the corner they had yet to go through. The few crewman sorting through some items on the other side of the room dropped everything to run over and help with the new shipments. Several Handy droids walked around the floor, cleaning or moving a few objects into place. These humanoid-design robots were approximately six feet tall with long limbs, rounded heads with only a single large, blue, glowing eye and white bodies that were dirty from their work and lack of maintenance.

  One of the bots approached the captain. “Good day, sir. Anything that I can help you with?”

  He took drew his shotgun and placed the barrel against the droid’s chest. “You can get the contents of these containers ready for processing. Until then, get out of my face,” he sneered and pushed the bot back with his gun for emphasis.

  “Of course, sir, right away. Sorry to be too close to your face,” the droid acknowledged and apologized. The containers stopped in the middle of the warehouse and around so they were side-by-side with each other. The pirates began to sort through and organize the packages within the crates. Two men with the highest rank outside of the captain followed him out of the warehouse and to the center of the station.

  “Hey, Mick,” one of the station pirates hissed and caught the attention of one of the crew pirates. “What’s happened with Captain Swarn?”

  “What do you mean?” Mick asked. “You know he’s not exactly the nice sort.”

  “Well, sure, but he’s mostly only indifferent or snarky. He’s coming across like he’s bitter. Usually, he would order the bots to leave him alone. There’s no point in shoving his gun in their faces when they can’t feel anything.”

  “Ah, right, that.” Mick sighed. “That would be one of the reasons we came back early. Turns out one of the deals Walker made went sour. No big fight or nothing, but it was a hell of a lot of wasted time for no payout, the captain hasn’t had time to blow off steam for a while, so I’d guess that things will get a little rowdy in the offices once the two have words.”

  “Oh, that’s not good.” The crewman sighed. “We’d best hope nothing else is out of place. If anything else goes rotten, the captain will probably start on a bloody warpath.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The trio left the shuttle and warily observed a group of pirates nearby. The man they had spoken to stood amongst them and he pushed past the others and approached them. “Is this all that’s left? Weren’t there about ten of you?”

  “Good day to you too,” Kaiden greeted sarcastically. He held out the stolen ID chip and motioned for Chiyo and Genos to be on their way. “I thought you said someone else would debrief me.”

  “So I did,” the man grunted as he inserted the chip into a tablet “But we had a sudden change in plans. Captain Swarn arrived at the same time as you did. All the boot-lickers ran to the main hanger to meet him and get to groveling.”

  “You not a fan of the captain?” he asked as he took the chip from the man.

  “He earned his title and he’ll probably keep it until the end of his days. I don’t doubt he’s earned respect, but I could do without all the toadies who try to suck up to him whenever he comes back. There’s other things to do than kiss his arsehole till it shines.”

  “I guess I can relate.” Kaiden shrugged and gestured behind him with his thumb. “How long till we can set out again?”

  The man gave the craft a cursory glance. “What’s the damages?”

  “The obvious big-ass hole in the front for one. Besides that, damage to the shields. They aren’t charging right. They used some sort of tiny machines to wear it down.”

  “Probably seekers, although I didn’t realize they’d started using them in torpedoes.”

  “They didn’t. They sort of dropped them on us.”

  The man guffawed. “Seriously? I’m surprised they didn’t target their own ship—although, if they’ve developed something like that, maybe we could make some serious creds if we had a sample to show the markets.”

  “I think most fell off or were destroyed in the fight, but if you want to get some scrubbers up there to have a look, be my guest.” Kaiden peered to the side to confirm that Genos and Chiyo now wandered around. They acted like they were simply killing time, but he knew they were both focused on a study of the situation.

  “Where’s the goods?” the man asked and dragged Kaiden’s attention back to him.

  “Storage bay one. I took all the items they had on board and anything that could be repurposed or scrapped. Otherwise, the ship was too damaged so we blew it up before we headed back.”

  Kaiden’s attention moved to the group of pirates behind the man, who all seemed to be scrutinize him. He shifted slightly and snaked his right hand closer to Debonair’s holster. “Can I help you guys?”

  One of the larger men smiled deviously and walked forward with his hand out. “Your weapons—give them here,” he demanded and two others came up behind him for support.

  “Hell no.” Kaiden balked and his hand now gripped Debonair’s base. “This is my cut. You ain’t taking a damn thing.”

  “Come on now, buddy. Are you really gonna be like that?” the tall man asked. “You lost most of your crew. This is, what—your twentieth patrol in the lead, right?” He prodded Kaiden’s chest plate. “You BAT guys are all about going out into space and finding the big catch. There’ll be more in the future. Some of those guys were my friends, I feel I deserve a little recompense.”

  “Really now? What were their names?” he responded.

  The man made a fist and held it up to Kaiden’s visor. “We had a lot of nicknames. My favorites were Fuck and You.”

  “You need to work on your material, dumbass,” he muttered as he drew Debonair and held it at the ready.

  “You boys stop your bitching!” the first man demanded. He apparently had more clout than Kaiden realized as the tall pirate and his friends backed off. “And you, Doma.” It took Kaiden a moment to realize he was talking to him.

  “What now?” he asked and feigned exhaustion.

  “I’m answering your question, so show a little more gratitude, punk,” he warned. “The repairs will be anywhere from sixteen to twenty-five hours, unless the shielding really is dead. The minute this thing is ready, you and what remains of your crew will be back on patrol, with an extra shift to make up for your fuck up.”

  “Fine, fine,
” Kaiden said with a wave, anxious to move on so they could continue with their mission to blow this place to hell. “Do you need anything else?”

  “Only that I’ll take my cut if there happens to be one of those seekers left on the ship.”

  “Sounds all right.” He nodded and strode toward Chiyo and Genos. “Let me know when it’s fixed.

  “All right.” The older pirate looked at the group. “The rest of you get in there and fight each other for the scraps. Get moving!”

  Water, oil, and several liquids Kaiden couldn’t identify dripped from the grates above the canal. Angry shouts and the fizz of overheated electronics from above were muffled but audible. The trio wandered slowly through the tight corridor and hugged the side as they tried not to step into the puddles on the floor and keep their noise to a minimum.

  Several shots were fired above, followed by laughter and snarls that seemed to indicate pleasure in the violence. In front of the group, a tiny stream of blood trickled through a small hole in the left wall. Genos, who was closest to the drips, inched away to avoid the tainted liquid.

  “Hey, Chiyo, out of curiosity, why did you choose the creepiest destination for us to go to?” Kaiden hissed, his annoyance evident over the comms.

  “Because I do not have a full map of the station,” she explained. “Using what I do have, this was the path that would lead to the central chamber and arguably be the safest.”

  “Well, at least you thought it out,” he mumbled. “It’s that door up ahead, right?”

  “Yes. That should lead into the western chamber, and from there, we should have a direct route to the center.”

  Genos approached with his cannon aimed downward and turned the handle while his teammates held their weapons at the ready. There was nothing behind the door but a longer, darker hallway that offered no real visibility at all.

  “I’ve only now realized that this DSC gear doesn’t have night vision.” Kaiden sighed and tapped around his helmet before he depressed a button and a small light flashed on. “Well, that’s something, at least. So, who’s first into the deep, dark hole?” he asked. Chiyo walked up beside him and opened a miniature holoscreen. “My access is extremely limited. It doesn’t look like they use a base-wide system but issue commands from one location. It’s rudimentary but more effective that most security systems, ironically. But that being said…” She pressed a few buttons and small dots of light brightened the hallway. “There are a few things I can do to make our lives a little easier.”