Renegades: Origins

by Kal Spriggs

  Mike felt cold all over as that gaze went over him. He remembered a man with a gaze like that. That kind of gaze came from someone without a soul, a person totally given to calculation of manipulation and personal benefit. Mike wondered if he would have to kill this man too.

  “I take it you’re Mister Fontaine?” Mike asked.

  “Do you speak for these others, as well?” Fontaine asked. His gaze ranged across each of them. “Which of you are the pilots? The Wrethe, I know, and the woman, but who is the last?”

  “That’s me, I’m Mike Smith,” Mike said.

  “Ah, good,” Fontaine said. He spoke with a distinct French accent, and a friendliness and joviality that set Mike’s teeth on edge. “Let me explain things to you lovely people. I have made arrangements for a ship. In case you haven’t figured it out, this is a salvage station. When the Trustees put you to work in a few hours, you’ll see pieces of ships that we’ll start to scavenge. We mine them for resources, which the Chxor then ship out when they have a worthy cargo. There’s a thousand kilograms of osmium, a thousand of platinum, and four thousand of gold that the Chxor have stored up from our labor here. When I leave, I intend to bring that wealth.”

  “Why invite us?” the woman asked. Mike glanced over at her. She had a strange accent, and the darker cast to her skin suggested mixed heritage, not uncommon on some of the more remote colonies.

  “Because my pilot suffered an unfortunate accident last week on his tug shift, and the only other pilots on the station are Chxor trustees,” Fontaine said. “So this is your opportunity. I need at least one pilot, but I have room for a backup. You’ll get a share of the wealth, and a very nice share that will make… yes?”

  “What’s the details?” Mike said. “How do you plan to escape, up the conveyor, into one of the ships?”

  The seated man on Fontaine’s left gave a laugh, “The conveyor is a certain route to death. That tunnel has the waste heat sinks for the station, average temperature is three hundred degrees Celsius. Last person that tried it came out a crispy skeleton.”

  Fontaine glanced at his assistant and gave a slight smile, “Thank you, Patrice, that will be quite enough. We wouldn’t want to tell our new friends everything, now would we?”

  The other man paled a bit, and Mike caught the implication. Even his own men fear him, Mike realized, so not only is he a cold bastard, but perfectly capable of getting his hands dirty. He’s not just propped up by his men’s loyalty.

  “We need some details,” Ariadne said from behind. She stepped forward to stand beside Mike, “What kind of ship, for one thing. A pilot won’t be any good if she can’t fly the ship you want her to fly.” Mike shot her a suspicious glance. Had she decided to throw her lot in with Fontaine? Granted, it made sense to go with an established plan, but Mike did not trust the man, not with that cold look to his dark eyes. Especially not with how smoothly he talked.

  When I talk like that, it means I don’t care what I promise, I’m lying to get what I want, especially when there’s women or money involved, Mike thought. Come to think of it, he realized that Fontaine reminded him of himself. No wonder he hated the snake.

  “The first ship will be a shuttle, the Chxor Warden’s personal boat,” Fontaine said slowly. Mike could see the other man’s discomfort at the necessity to share such details. “The second will be a larger ship, with a Shadow Space drive. Are any of you navigators?”

  Mike saw Ariadne open her mouth. “No,” Mike interrupted. “We don’t have a trained navigator.” She looked over at him and frowned, but she gave a slight nod in agreement.

  “I’m not certified, the female pilot said, “But I know how to put the coordinates in a computer, as long as you have a star map. And I’m in, I’m Cathy Motomi.”

  “Good,” Fontaine said. “Glad to hear it. The rest of you have twelve hours to decide. After that, well… you’ll be stuck here. And most people don’t last over a year, especially without my protection.”

  “Would you have room for others?” Mike asked.

  “Depends on their skills,” Fontaine said. “I’ll discuss that on a case-by-case basis. And frankly, it looks like Cathy here fits the best parameters. You’ll have to convince me that I want you along.”

  “What happens if we threaten to tell the Chxor you’re planning an escape?” Crowe asked. “I mean, that could get awkward for you right?” The big man had a smirk on his face, one that suggested he felt he’d found a solution to his problems.

  Mike bit back a curse. What was Crowe’s problem? Didn’t he realize that Fontaine had to have bribed at least some of the Chxor guards to get as far as he had? Mike saw Fontaine raise his right hand, almost as if to give a signal, and then pause. Mike saw a faint glitter of color at his wrist, similar to the ones on the necks of the guards.

  “I’m sure the Warden would find that very interesting, my friend,” Fontaine said. “Which then leads to the question of whether I’d let you leave here alive at all, and if I did, which of the Chxor guards I’d have kill you. Or maybe I’d just arrange an accident for you in the Pit. Death by decompression is a terrible way to go. But at least that would not last long. If I let the Hun take you… well, my friend, that would last a very, very long time.” The good humor in his voice made his threat that much more terrifying.

  “The Hun?” Crowe asked. His face had gone pale and Mike saw him edge backwards, as if he thought to run. Please don’t, Mike thought, Fontaine’s men will be on all of us then.

  “That’s what I call my Wrethe friend here… he has terrible eating habits, he likes to play with his food before he eats it,” Fontaine clucked in false disapproval. The Hun gave a wide, toothy, dog-like grin. Mike thought the temperature dropped a good twenty degrees with that smile. “A strong one like you might last a week or two. And the Hun doesn’t like his meals reprocessed, like the rest of us. He likes his meat red and rare.”

  “We’ll keep our mouths shut,” Mike said. “Kid was stupid, just opened his mouth and put his foot in it. You don’t need to worry about him or the rest of us. Either we’ll work with you or we’ll stay out of your way.”

  Fontaine’s eyes snapped to Mike. “Good, Mike… Smith, was it? Rather bland name for you… but better than John, I suppose. Something I do wonder about, Asian fellow like you, how you got a name like Smith.” Fontaine looked them all over again, and Mike saw his eyes linger on Crowe for a long moment. “You may go. Anyone who wants to talk with me, plead your case, can come by at your leisure. Cathy, you can stay, I’d like to discuss the details of our arrangement.”

  Mike didn’t look over at the female pilot as he backed out. For one thing, he did not want to take his eyes off of Fontaine. For another, he figured that Fontaine would have her killed just as soon as she ceased to be vital for his survival. Better that she not seem human to Mike. He could not afford to pity her. She chose her fate.

  After they stepped out into the hallway, Mike looked over at the others. “Let’s find a set of bunks, shall we?” No one responded, but they followed him as he walked down the corridor. He peered into two or three barracks rooms before he found an empty one. It lay at the end of the corridor, next to another airlock. Someone had painted ‘The Pit’ in lurid red paint across the hatch.

  Mike threw his suit and helmet down on a bunk near the door. The others squeezed past him and chose their own bunks. The rectangular room looked more squeezed than the others he saw. The metal framed bunks each had a few millimeters thickness of foam and Mike did not see any blankets. A clatter and hum of machinery seemed to rattle at them through the deck plates, and suggested why this room sat empty.

  Mike moved down to the end furthest from the door and gestured for everyone to come in. “Alright, in case anyone did not pick it up, Fontaine might have the best plan to get out, but he’ll kill anyone who isn’t one of his men. Those guards outside, they had gang tattoos, I didn’t recognize them, but they matched one on Fontaine’s wrist. He’s got some serious criminal connections, I’d
guess, and he’s not going to cut some pilot or engineer in on it.”

  Ariadne nodded, “So I guessed. That’s why I tried to find out more about his plan. We know it involves the Warden’s shuttle, and another ship, maybe a smuggler’s freighter he plans to meet with. He seemed to really want a pilot from that offer he made.”

  “Yeah, and a psychic navigator would have made his day.” Mike frowned. “Glad you kept quiet on that?”

  “I think that he noticed my hesitation,” Ariadne said. “And I think he realized you hid something, which was why he threatened Crowe.”

  “Great, so you two got the psycho pissed at me,” Crowe grimaced.

  “No, you opening your mouth nearly got you and the rest of us dead,” Mike said. “Fontaine was very close to having his goons come at us. When he lifted his hand, that signal would have brought his entire gang down on us.”

  “Oh,” Crowe said. “I was just trying to find out what kind of resources he had, you know? Trying to figure out how connected he was.” Crowe seemed so self assured once more that Mike wanted nothing more than to slap some sense into him.

  “Regardless, we can’t side with him,” Anubus said. “I respect his acumen, but there’s no way he’ll take a second Wrethe. We’d have to fight it out for dominance, and I’m not sure I could take the Hun in a fair fight.”

  “Oh?” Mike asked. He felt surprise at the admission. Wrethe rarely, if ever, admitted to weakness, from his experience.

  “I could kill the Hun, easily enough,” Anubus said. “Actually I think it would be best, take out his strongest muscle. But I’m fast and sneaky, not pure muscle and toughness. I’d have to hit the Hun from behind and I’d have to kill it. Otherwise it would just challenge me later, when it knew it had the advantage.”

  “You Wrethe are psycho,” Ariadne said. “How do a pair of you ever get together and make baby Wrethe?”

  “We don’t,” Anubus said with a growl. “We self replicate and we control our genetic mutations to suit our needs and the survival of the species. And we remember mutations from other species we consume and other Wrethe we eat. So when I want to raise another army, I’ll just plan a decade or two ahead.”

  “Wait, another army?” Pixel asked. “You’ve done that before? And how old are you?” The engineer looked fascinated. Mike found the idea disturbing himself. Particularly disturbing to think of Anubus with an army.

  “Old enough,” Anubus growled.

  “Alright, back on subject,” Mike said. “Anubus can’t join him, Ariadne and I both realize we might as well sign our own death warrants. The rest of you…” He shrugged. “If you want to take your chances, go ahead, but I doubt you’ve any skills that he’ll find worthwhile enough to bring you along and let you live afterward. He plans to rip the Chxor off for a couple hundred million of any currency you care to mention.”

  “So we’re back to plan B… escape on our own,” Eric said. “That’s not much of a plan. Why don’t we try to hijack his escape? Take his shuttle, catch his freighter.” The mercenary grinned and his blue eyes almost seemed to glow with the thought of a fight.

  “Uh, they’ve got goons, weapons and probably some Chxor guards on their side?” Pixel asked. He rubbed at his chin in thought. “We’ve got… precisely none of that.”

  “We’ve got a Wrethe, a big Ghornath, and me for fighting,” Eric said. “Crowe said he knows how to use that shank of his. Plus we have psychic girl here, to do the whole fire thing. Plus we’re together and no one knows our capabilities. Tactically we have an advantage, but that advantage goes away over time, especially if his escape goes down soon.”

  “If you’re planning on taking down Fontaine, you should probably talk in a lower voice and watch your back,” a voice said.

  Mike’s head snapped around. A man stood only a dozen feet behind Eric. He stood taller than any of the humans in the group, almost as tall as Anubus. “Who the hell are you?” Mike asked, even as he saw Crowe slip his shank out and slowly shift in the stranger’s direction.

  “I’m Simon,” the man said. He shot a glance at Crowe. “And I’m no threat to you, though if he doesn’t put that knife away I’ll feed it to him.”

  “How do we know you aren’t with Fontaine?” Mike asked suspiciously. As a matter of fact, the smartest thing for a man like Fontaine to do with a group of organized people new to his territory would be to send a mole.

  “I’m something that Fontaine hates more than anything else,” Simon said. “I’m a cop… well former cop. Worse, I was an honest cop.”

  “I didn’t think those existed,” Crowe said with a laugh, even as he put away his shank. “Sort of like Unicorns, Drop Bears, and Jesus Christ.”

  “I’ve seen a Unicorn before,” Ariadne said. “And though I’ve never heard of a Drop Bear, I’ve a faith of my own that I’d prefer you not rag on others for theirs.” She looked over at Simon, “I recognize that accent, you’re from Centauri, or one of the Confederation’s worlds. How’d you end up out here?”

  He gave her a nod, “You’re from Tau Ceti, right? Well, I suppose I can’t hold that against you, I’m not too fond of the Confederation right now.” He gave a grimace, “Well, I was involved in the Minister of Justice’s investigation of some black government operation, around three months ago. Someone took out Minister Gunther with a high powered rifle right before we had our case all ready to go public. Right after that, my partner’s car blew up, and what do you know, I’m suddenly the main suspect.”

  “So you end up on a Chxor prison station?” Mike asked. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw Eric move forward. He looked interested in the other man’s story, or at least more than the others. Mike wondered about that, and why Eric had not spoken up about his own origins as a Centauri.

  Simon shrugged, “There may have been a few other details in there, but why bore you? I took ship for the furthest planet I could, and my bad luck took me here.” Simon gave a self depreciating grin. Mike studied the other man carefully. His tall, lean frame made him distinctive. His sharp features and stubbled jaw made him more so. He had an intensity about him that Mike liked. It suggested that this man was, above all else, a professional. Vastly different from the amateurs Mike had fallen in with.

  “They accused you of bombing your partner, do you know bombs?” Eric asked.

  Mike winced, not this again. He remembered the smoke and fire from Eric’s last attempt. He did not want a repeat performance, especially not with a pair of them.

  “Yeah, I spent a few years in police explosive ordinance disposal. We spend a lot more time than you’d expect building explosives, and learning about how to make them from scratch,” Simon said. “Why do you ask?”

  “I know a bit about explosives, mostly self taught, I was wondering if you could give me some pointers,” Eric said.

  “Yeah, sure,” Simon nodded. “First one, one of the quickest ways I know to die is to be self taught with homemade explosives. Give up your hobby and leave it to the professionals… or do it somewhere far away from me. Because if I catch you anywhere near me with something like that I might well kill you myself.”

  Mike gave a snort, “You know, I think I like you. We could use a little common sense around here.” Not that he really wanted a cop, even of the former type, around, but the man had already overheard enough that he could cause them problems. Besides, if he prevents Eric from killing us all, Mike thought, he’ll do more than I think I can manage on my own.

  “Good. You get any food yet?” Simon asked.

  “Food would optimize my ability to function,” Run said. Mike looked over at the little Chxor. He’d almost forgotten he existed. It seemed the little alien had an ability to blend in after all. “Are Chxor rations available?”

  “We’ve heard… bad things about the food,” Pixel said.

  “Yeah, they reprocess our dead here. It’s recycled protein, sterile and they put it through a biological process that makes it healthy enough. If you tell yourself that, you can choke d
own a few bites. They mix it in when rations get tight. But with the new shipment, if we time it right we can get just the grain mush.”

  “Mratha rice for everyone… hurray,” Crowe said, his voice dry.

  “You’ve… eaten?” Ariadne asked. Her face had gone green.

  “I’ve been here long enough to do things I’m not proud of to survive,” Simon said. “Eating the dead… well, that’s not the worst. Pretty horrible, but not quite the worst.”

  “I don’t want to know,” Ariadne said. Mike saw her look away with a look of concentration on her face. He wondered at that, for she had spoken of her other mental abilities, but not any kind of mind reading. She almost looked as if she tried very hard not to look into his mind. Mike made a mental note to talk to her later, to see if she had abilities she had not wanted to share with the group.

  “So what do you know about Fontaine’s plan to escape?” Mike asked after a glance at the doorway to make certain they had some privacy.

  “He’s bribed the Warden and some of the Chxor guards. Pretty logical, on their perspective. This place is a dead end, punishment detail for all of them. I’d guess he has the schedules for supply ships as well as a way to escape the barracks when the time comes. I don’t know more than that.” Simon shrugged. “I will say that I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t have some kind of distraction planned, maybe even one that destroys the station after he’s safely gone.”

  “Yeah…” Mike nodded. Something like that would cover Fontaine’s tracks, much like his own distraction when he jumped ship back on Saragossa. For a moment, he felt a moment’s pity for the crew of the ship, but he pushed that aside. They would have sided with the Captain… which meant they would have died anyway after they turned on Mike. “The Chxor won’t know what happened if the station’s destroyed and there are no witnesses. He might even abandon the Chxor Warden and the guards he’s bribed.”