by J Porteous
They burst out of the now darkened carcass of the ship and into the the relative brightness of the ash world. Hawke clamped his hand to his face, trying hard not to suck down lungfuls of air, the ash threatening to fill his lungs. He pushed himself onwards. A pressure wave slammed into him as an explosion from the Valkyrie blasted away the layer of ash that surrounded them.
Hawke turned back, shielding his eyes from the bright light, to see Bjarke's silhouette watching the Valkyrie burn. Something peaked behind the ship, something sleek and threatening, a part of the invading craft which arched towards to skyline.
Hawke felt something stir deep within him, old emotions shedding their dust as he watched the large man staring at the destruction. He knew how it felt to have your entire world destroyed before your eyes. Silently and secretly, he made a hard decision.
Hawke marched back towards the Valkyrie and grabbed Bjarke's arm. 'I know what it's like to have everything taken from you, believe me. Charging back in there isn't going to change anything.'
Bjarke shrugged off Hawke's grasp. 'I will find you, you hear me?' he bellowed towards the ship. 'I will fucking find you!' He clutched his throat, paying for his outburst by half-choking on the clouds of ash. The screams of the remaining Sons of Odin answered him, a bleak silence following it.
'Come on,' Hawke said, staring at the ship which rose behind the Valkyrie. He grabbed Bjarke and pulled him towards the War Goddess. 'You won't be avenging anyone if you're dead too.'
Bjarke stared at the Valkyrie for a moment before admitting defeat. His shoulders slumped and his chest heaved with a heavy sigh. He turned to Hawke. 'Just get us the fuck out of here.'
Chapter Fifteen
Carl
Carl breathed a sigh of relief as the War Goddess broke out of thick atmosphere of the planet. He engaged the autopilot, once the ship had broken free of the planet's gravity, and set it on to a rendezvous course with the Winter Dawn. He looked out of the view-port and watched as the ash planet slowly dropped out of view. He slumped back in his seat and let himself relax.
He had spent years training in the academy, using the firing range and completing dummy planet falls, yet that planet had made him feel like an untrained civilian in an instant. Not only had they lost Watts but they had shown up again. He shivered as his mind dragged up the image of the thick, scaly and muscled creatures. The Kalindros.
Something had drawn them to the ash planet, but right now he was exhausted and could not spare the energy to think about it or anything else. He was bruised and battered from the fight, his body aching with every movement. He slouched a finger on the intercom, energy leeching from every muscle. 'Course set for the Winter Dawn. Cargo secure. Arrival estimated in six hours.'
'You operated efficiently down there, ex-serviceman Goban.'
Nelson had appeared beside him without warning. Carl looked up at the AI wearily. 'Tell that to Watts.'
'Unfortunately engineer Watts is deceased. Communication with him is impossible.'
Carl squeezed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He forgot just how overly logical true AIs could be. 'Not now, Nelson.'
'Very well, ex-serviceman Goban. I have some information that may interest you.'
Carl tried his hardest to look in some way receptive. What he would do for some time to himself, some time to recover, was beyond description. 'What is it?'
'I analysed the data from the initial contact with the unknown exo-species to no avail, the data was too incomplete.'
'And that is interesting in what way?'
'While you were taken aboard the Valkyrie, I entered low power mode, giving the appearance of being deactivated to avoid capture. The exo-species appeared while you were incarcerated on board the Valkyrie. I had complete control over the War Goddess' systems. I have the complete data needed.'
Carl's eyes widened. 'If we can track where they are coming from, maybe we might just have a chance against them. How long will it take you to analyse the data?'
'It will be complete by the time we reach the Winter Dawn.'
'At least something positive has come out of this,' Carl said, more to himself than to the AI. 'Let Arrathnar know as soon as you have processed it.'
'As Captain Sparov is in command of the ship-'
Carl held a hand up, silencing the AI. 'Take it to Arrathnar. Understand?'
'Yes, ex-serviceman Goban, of course.'
Carl dipped out of the cockpit and made his way down to engineering. He stood for a moment, taking in the oddly cold atmosphere which filled the room. He picked up what looked like a power capacitor, studying it as if he knew what he was doing, before tossing it back into the nearest pile of metal.
It was odd not to see Watts, either zipping around from one piece of junk to another, tittering to himself as he tried to increase an output, or fortifying the hull with a makeshift repair. Now the room just sat in silence, the piles of junk as still and quiet as Watts laid out in his cabin. Carl sat himself in Watts' old chair, letting the silence of the room swallow him.
'It's hard to believe, isn't it?'
Carl jolted to life, jarring his aching muscles. He had been so detached from himself that he had not noticed Justinia creeping into the room. He nodded back, his mouth opening but no sound coming out.
She smiled back, a tint of sadness to her face. Her face was still badly bruised and swollen. 'To be fair, he should have been dead by now. We all should be, considering some of the jobs we've taken on.' She stood smiling to herself for a moment, some fond memory appearing to flit through her head. 'Still,' she said, her head dropping. 'Sometimes reality really knows how to smack you straight in the face.'
Carl managed to find his voice. 'The universe is a dangerous place,' he said. 'Millions of people die every day, you just don't expect it to be anyone you know.'
Justinia agreed with a sigh and a nod. 'Mercenary work isn't the safest job going, and we all knew the risks when we signed up. It's going to catch up with all of us sooner or later. It should be expected in our line of work, never a surprise.'
It should be expected in our line of work. His mind drifted back to his parents. I wonder if they ever expected what happened to them? You do not sign up with a mining vessel expecting to be shot down in your cabin over an apparently important rock. He thought back to seeing Rix raising the hand cannon at him. He almost opened his mouth to speak of what happened, then thought better of it. 'How's your face?'
She touched a hand to her swelling and hissed. 'I'll live,' she said. 'I've had worse.'
He nodded, then asked the question he was sure he did not want to know the answer to. 'Do you think we'll stop them?'
He did not have to explain who them was. Justinia raised a hand to her mouth, chewing on the remains of her grubby fingernails. 'If I'm honest, I don't know,' she said bluntly. 'The way the Sons were cut down...' She looked at Carl, studying his weary face before correcting herself. 'But then we aren't the Sons of Odin, are we?'
Carl snorted a laugh. Nothing like bravado in the face of insurmountable odds. He smiled back. 'You're right,' he said. 'They haven't had round two with us yet.'
Justinia laughed. 'Speaking of Sons, I better go check on Hawke's audience with our guest,' she said. 'You coming, or are you just going to sit here feeling sorry for yourself?'
Carl nodded, rising from his seat. 'Let's see what our new friend has to say for himself.'
Bjarke sat in Hawke's cabin. He slumped forward, his hefty shoulders crestfallen and his elbows pressed firmly into his thighs. He looked nothing like the confident and cocky man Carl had seen on board the Valkyrie.
Hawke sat opposite him, grim-faced. 'You've seen them first hand,' he said. 'And lived to tell the tale. So far.'
Bjarke nodded slowly, not raising his head from the floor. His face remained covered in shadow. 'To take down the Sons like that, the Valkyrie...' He looked up at Hawke, his eyes steeled. 'Nothing fazes me, but even I know we're up against some tough odds.'
> 'Isn't that what we deal in?' Hawke said. 'Taking the jobs no one else either wants, or can, do.'
Bjarke grunted. 'And what if even we can't do it? We're tough, Hawke, not stupid.'
Hawke shrugged and sat back. 'Then we're fucked either way, aren't we?'
Hawke makes a good point, Carl thought. He shuffled his feet slightly. 'They knew we were there, they knew how to find us.'
Hawke looked towards him. 'They did,' he said, crossing his arms across his chest. 'There must be some pull to the stones, something that attracts them.'
The stones, or you? Carl glanced up and caught Arrathnar's eye, who stood propped against the wall on the other side of the room. She nodded back as if reading his thoughts. 'How are we even meant to match them in combat?' Carl said. 'They tore through the Sons of Odin, as Bjarke can attest to.' He nodding over to the hunched man, who did not bother to raise his head.
'Goban makes a good point,' Justinia said from beside him. 'We're going to need bigger guns, more firepower. We can't take them on a ship at a time.'
'I agree,' Hawke said, rubbing a hand through his thick beard. 'And Bjarke here, is going to help us. Aren't you?'
Bjarke stared at the floor and grunted.
Justinia scoffed at that. 'A mercenary with no crew and no ship? Big help there.'
Bjarke threw his chair back, and pointed a meaty finger towards Justinia. 'Fuck you,' he bellowed. 'The pain you felt for your one dead crewman? Try extending that to your entire crew.” He lowered his hand. “Men you've flown and fought side by side with for years, only to get torn apart and left in a dead part of the galaxy. At least you get to give your man a decent send off.'
Justinia shrunk back against the wall. She shrugged her shoulders, not saying another word, but not apologising either.
'Sit down, Bjarke,' Hawke growled, his steady voice reigning in the giant of a man. 'We've all lost good people today, we're all just doing the same job.'
Bjarke wrapped a large hand around his chair, pulling it upright as if it were weightless. He sat down on it with a grunt. 'A bear may be wounded, but it will still rip you limb from limb with its dying breath,' he said, eyes boring into Justinia's head.
'Save your hatred,' Hawke said to them both. 'We're going to need that later, not now.'
Justinia's stare lingered over Bjarke for a moment before looking at Hawke. 'So, what's the plan?'
Hawke stood and paced the room for a moment, as if trying to sift the good thoughts from the bad. 'We need firepower and we need bodies, that's a given. The military, we can't go to them. We don't know who is giving their orders, so we don't know which ones we can trust.' Hawke looked at Carl. 'That goes for your friend as well, Goban.'
A lump formed in Carl's throat at the mention of Rix. He only just managed to swallow it. 'She won't be a problem,' he said, forcing the words from his throat. He dropped his gaze to the floor, being careful to avoid Arrathnar's stare.
A stiff silence fell over the room. Hawke broke it. 'Good,' he said, before pacing the room again. 'With that in mind, that cancels out a sizable amount of force we could use. If I'm honest, I'm not even sure they would be willing to talk with us, more specifically with me. What with my...history.'
Bjarke laughed at that. 'I'm sure they would be more willing to go worship in a Harathdan Chapter House for the next ten years.'
Hawke looked down at the large man, hesitation touching his features. 'I'm sure they would,' he said. He glanced up at Arrathnar who still leaned against the opposite wall. 'On the subject of Harathdans...'
Arrathnar screwed her face slightly. 'I am...I am not sure,' she said sheepishly.
It was Hawke's turn to laugh. 'Not sure?' he snorted. 'You're the only bastards who believed all this shit in the first place.'
Arrathnar straightened. 'I know, Captain,' she said. 'It is just...we believe in the Balanthur prophecy, indeed, we live our lives in understanding of it.' She shifted uncomfortably. 'We never believed the endgame would be so...violent.'
'You fought for us,' Carl said.
Arrathnar nodded. 'I am of a rare mindset that looks at all of the options, even the least preferred ones. Not many others share my view.'
'Once you boil it down to its bones, all religion ends in violence,' Bjarke said, looking up from the shadows. 'I thought your scholars would've learned to know better after watching us humans for millenia.'
If Arrathnar could have blushed, she would have. 'That was billions of years ago,' she said, tripping over her words as she struggled to find them. 'Societies, civilizations, they evolve. They become less violent and more learned.'
'Interesting theory that,' Bjarke said, his chair groaning under his weight as he leaned back. 'I wondered why us mercenaries hadn't retrained as helium farmers, what with all the peace going about.' A large grin spread over his face, revealing crooked, broken teeth. 'Everything that lives must die. Maybe sooner than you think if your friends take a back seat.'
Arrathnar stalled at those words. She looked back at Hawke. 'I will talk to the Grand Researcher when we dock with the Winter Dawn. I cannot promise anything.'
Hawke looked approvingly at Bjarke. He sat back behind his desk and glanced at Arrathnar. 'That sounds good, High Researcher. Perhaps it will force his hand if you gently remind him of what is at stake.'
'A no and a maybe? Have you got anyone else in mind?' Carl asked flatly. The situation looked bleak. 'We've not got a lot of options so far.'
'That is where this man comes in,' Hawke said, pointing towards Bjarke. 'I'm calling in a UEMC.'
Carl noticed Justinia and Arrathnar's eyes widen at the mention of the UEMC. 'Sorry,' Carl said. 'UEMC? Am I missing something here?'
'Universal Emergency Mercenary Council,' Justinia said, hardly believing the words coming from her own mouth. 'Mercenary code zero zero one.'
Puzzlement etched Carl's brow. 'I thought the different crews hated, or at least disliked, each other?'
Bjarke looked towards him, stretching his great arms out and cracking his knuckles. 'It's a complex thing, kid. There's rivalry, sure, and sometimes it waivers on the edge of all out war, but the code binds us. When a problem would affect not just one crew, but every crew operating on a universal scale, we will call the council forward and present evidence. Then we act on it.'
Carl's puzzlement failed to leave him. 'If it's such a big deal, how come I've never heard of it?'
'Not something they teach as standard in the military, Goban,' Hawke said. 'They frown upon it. In fact, it has been outlawed for millenia by the human military-'
'No rallying or organising of a private militia,' Justinia said, cutting in.
Hawke nodded in agreement. 'Besides, one hasn't been needed for a long time. A very long time.'
Arrathnar stepped forward into the light. 'Hawke is correct,' she said. 'The last recorded UEMC was roughly two hundred and thirty seven thousand years ago, around the time of the Final Great Extinction.'
'Like on your etchings?' Justinia said. Arrathnar nodded back in response.
The Final Great Extinction? Carl dredged the memory of it from his brain, something that rattled around from stories his father had told him when he was younger. There had once been more than just the Harathdans, Byracinths and Humans in the universe, there had been hundreds of different species. His memory of the story was faded, fuzzy. There was a super virus, with certain genetic constructs being rendered infertile. Trillions upon trillions of individuals were unable to reproduce, dying out within a few generations. 'Perhaps we named it the final extinction a little prematurely,' he offered.
Arrathnar caught his eye. 'What makes you think that the Final Great Extinction was over?' she said. Her eyes drifted from him, caught in her own thoughts. 'Maybe this is the tail end of it,' she said, more to herself than anyone else.
Carl bypassed Arrathnar's musings. 'And what about who hired him?' he said, gesturing towards Bjarke. 'If we can knock out one of the groups that oppose us, surely that's putting us in a better p
osition?'
Bjarke nodded back to Carl. 'You're correct,' he said. 'And Hawke and I have spoken about this already.'
Carl could feel his frustration beginning to burn to the surface. 'And?'
'And,' Hawke said. 'It means that once I issue the call to council from the Winter Dawn, myself and Justinia will be heading out to meet this mystery person in place of Bjarke.'
'Mystery person?' Carl said, his brow creasing. 'How do you not know who hired you?' he said to Bjarke.
The giant of a man stood, blocking out part of the ship lighting behind him. 'We were hired by a proxy,' he said. 'Never met who placed the bounty. The only thing we knew is that it bore the seal of the guild.'
Carl folded his arms across his chest. 'And that made us fair game, did it?'
Bjarke looked back at Carl bemused before shaking his head. He glanced at Hawke. 'I'll let you explain the intricacies of the mercenary guild, I need some rest.' He towered over the crew as he passed, easily matching Arrathnar's height. 'Let me know when we reach the Winter Dawn.' With that, the large man barged past Carl and disappeared into the darkness of the corridor.
Hawke motioned for Carl to take a seat. 'It's hard to explain,' he said. 'To break it down simply, any action against another merc crew must be sanctioned by the mercenary guild itself. If a contract bears the seal, then the crew taking the job will not face expulsion if the contract becomes...lethal.'
Carl took the seat opposite Hawke. 'So you're saying the guild sanctioned the contract on us?'
Hawke's face darkened. 'They need all of the council to sign it off, and I know for a fact that one of them didn't. I don't see what they get to gain from it though,' he said, carefully picking up an empty glass from the desk and rolling it around his palm.
'You still think they would do that?' Justinia said, perching herself on the desk next to Carl. 'You're not exactly welcomed by all of them, but still, it's a little extreme to sign a contract on us.'
