Renegades: Origins

by Kal Spriggs

  They had expected a couple guards, they had not expected a mostly full shuttle of Chxor. The shuttle had no seats and it looked to be standing room only.

  Eric fired his riot gun at the nearest of the two guards, who had not yet reacted to the sight of a Wrethe and four humans in the passageway. Simon fired his pistol as well.

  Ariadne realized it wouldn’t be enough. As she did, her eyes dropped to the pipe bomb that hung from Eric’s utility belt. She reached out with her mind and tugged it free, then sent it end over end through the airlock. It struck one of the Chxor guards in the head, hard enough to drop him to the deck.

  Ariadne stepped past Anubus, who halted his lunge forward at the sight of so many Chxor. Her hand caught the airlock hatch and she slammed it closed even as she reached out with her mind and ignited the area around the bomb.

  The airlock hatch muffled the blast to a dull thud.

  Eric moved up to peer through the porthole. He shot her a glance, “Good job, you saved our asses there.” His voice held a measure of respect, for once. Ariadne gave him a smile in return.

  Her smile died after he opened the hatch. Green blood spattered the inside of the airlock, and pain-filled cries from the Chxor in the shuttle made Ariadne’s heart twist. “Oh god…” She had to look away from the sight.

  Eric gave a shout, “Perfect! And look, no damage to the shuttle!”

  Simon looked over at him, his eyes narrow, “Where did that come from?”

  Anubus pushed past them both, he prodded at a dead Chxor, “You humans make combat much less personal at times.”

  A Chxor guard tried to raise his weapon at the Wrethe. A single backhanded swing swatted him up against the wall. Anubus stalked further into the shuttle.

  “Guys? What’s going on? Can someone help?” Rastar called from back down the corridor.

  Crowe scowled, “I’ll help him get unstuck, otherwise we’ll be here all day.”

  Ariadne took a deep breath and looked back at the shuttle. The stench of Chxor blood assaulted her, and she felt her eyes water up. I will not cry, she thought, I did it to save my friends, there’s nothing wrong with what I did.

  She took a step into the airlock, and did her best to ignore the squelch of fluids beneath her feet.

  Simon put his hand on her shoulder, “Hey, it’ll be alright. Quick thinking back there, Eric’s right on that.”

  Ariadne nodded, but she kept her eyes up as she walked through the shuttle. She saw Anubus emerge from the pilot’s cockpit, he dragged a Chxor out. The Chxor pilot tried to struggle against his grip, but Anubus held him off the ground with little effort. “I thought a live pilot might be of more use this time.”

  “Right, I’ll let you know if I need him,” Ariadne said. She started to step forward when she heard a gunshot behind her. She spun around and dropped into a crouch. Eric looked up from where he’d just shot a wounded guard.

  “What?” he asked.

  “A little warning maybe?” Anubus asked.

  “Sorry,” Eric said. He turned to another wounded Chxor guard and chambered a round.

  “Wait, he’s wounded, he can’t hurt you!” Ariadne said.

  Eric gave a shrug, “Not right now, no, but he doesn’t serve any purpose alive, and the bastard would kill any of us in a heartbeat.”

  Simon walked forward, “You will not execute that prisoner-”

  Eric fired, and Chxor blood spattered across a previously clean section of wall.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Ariadne all but screamed.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Eric asked. “It’s not like I killed the rest of them. Shit, only the ones at the door were armed, after all.”

  “What?” Ariadne asked. She looked -actually looked-at some of the bodies that lay strewn around the compartment. She felt her stomach drop as she saw he was right. She had killed civilians. “Oh, Christ.” She covered her eyes with her hands.

  “We don’t have time for this,” Anubus growled.

  Simon put his hands on her shoulders, “Look, Ariadne, don’t fall apart on us now. We need you to plot a course.”

  Ariadne let him lead her towards the cockpit. Just as she took a seat at the controls she heard another shot. She hunched over the console and tried to shut the rest of the world out. For a long moment, she simply could not force her brain to function. She felt completely lost; she had done something terrible in a moment of reaction.

  Or had she? I remember seeing the weapons of the guards, she thought, did I see the others did not have weapons, did I want to kill them all? The thought shattered her self control. She stared at the console for a long moment, and she remembered. She remembered the words of Victor on the day she had killed him.

  “You pretend to care, because you think it makes you a better person, but deep down inside, you’re just as much of a sewer as the rest of us.”

  * * *

  She had stood there in the empty warehouse. She had not known why he wanted to meet with her and her brother here. At the time, she had some half imagined dream that he wanted to leave the planet behind, to go to some frontier world and start anew.

  But he hadn’t. She remembered how he had arrived with his friends, the rough group that always seemed to get Victor in trouble. And then when she refused his initial request to help them rob the restaurant, he had thrown those words in her face, “You pretend to care, because you think it makes you a better person, but deep down inside, you’re just as much a sewer as the rest of us.”

  Ariadne shook her head, “No, I refuse to do something like that. They took me in, gave me a job, they almost treat me like family…”

  “They hired you because they know you’re a fugitive and they can pay you less,” Victor snarled. “They know you’ve got trouble in your past and that you won’t cause trouble. Hell, I’ve seen the way that Andrews looks at you. Give him half a chance and he’ll rape you in the pantry while his wife’s away.”

  “No,” Ariadne said. “You’re saying that stuff to make me do what you want. Leave this be, alright, Victor? Look, I really like you…”

  “Oh, don’t give me that shit,” Victor said, and his normally pleasant face twisted in anger. “We have something special, and you know it. Or do you think that I share my hard earned money with just anyone? You’re better than this place, and with your abilities… we can do so much better. Think of how much money we could take from those who don’t deserve it!”

  “Victor…” Ariadne shook her head, “I’ve already seen what happens if I abuse my abilities, when my friend… when she died…” She shook her head, “I won’t toy with people, not for something as petty as money.”

  “You will,” Victor said, and he glanced over at Karl. The biggest man in the group moved forward. “And I hate to force you to do this, but it’s for your own good. If you won’t do it because it’s the right thing to do, you’ll do it because otherwise I’ll have to hurt Paul.”

  “No!” Ariadne shouted as the big man walked towards her brother. Without thought, she lashed out with her mind, and saw Karl stagger and clutch at his head.

  “Ariadne,” Victor said, his voice calm. “Don’t do that. If you attack my guys again… well I’ll have to take it out on your brother…”

  The calculated cruelty in his voice reverberated in her memory. That shock she had felt that she had not seen it in him, that she had made herself blind to his flaws. She had lived in willful ignorance and in that moment, someone would have to pay for that mistake.

  Ariadne looked at her brother and saw the fear in his eyes. She looked at Victor and saw the slight smile on his face, the smile she had always thought meant he cared for her, and only now realized he had felt some other emotion when he looked at her.

  “No,” Ariadne said. “If you send anyone after my brother or I… you will be the one to pay the price.” She forced confidence into her words, even as she met his gaze. All of her fear and uncertainty washed away, replaced by anger at his cruelty. She felt the sweat bead h
er brow, smelled the slight scent of burning hair that suggested her control had begun to slip.

  “Nice try, Ariadne, but we both know you’ve got that soft center, you won’t hurt anyone, it’s not in your nature,” Victor said. He turned to his men, “Grab the kid, and if she does anything else, rough him up a bit.” He drew a gun from an inner pocket and aimed it at her, “And just in case you try any mental tricks… well I’d hate to lose you, but…” He shrugged, that slight smirk still on his face.

  Ariadne saw them draw knives. She saw Paul’s eyes flit from them to the doorway behind. “Run, Paul,” Ariadne said.

  And then she reached out with her mind. She felt Victor, as she had before, only now she saw him as he was: a piece of organic matter ready to give in to entropy. Even as she melded with his mind to hold him still she reached out with her anger. His betrayal, his cruelty, and his horrible smirk all boiled the furnace of rage inside her. She poured that through her mind and into his body.

  She held him immobile as his flesh erupted into flames. She held his mind trapped, and experienced every second of his agony as he burned from the outside in. And as she did it, she saw why she did what she did. She saw that his threats to her brother had crossed the line, he could threaten her all he wanted and she would have ignored it… but he threatened her family, and for that, she would make an example of him that no one would ever forget.

  It might have taken five seconds or five years, afterward she had no idea how long it took Victor to die. His goons had fled, terrified by what they saw or just driven away by the inferno that the warehouse became. The old building had ignited from Victor’s flames, and that fire spread to the whole section of rotting warehouses. She later learned that the fire burned for days.

  Ariadne walked out of the flames untouched.

  * * *

  Ariadne snapped back to the present.

  What she had done to the Chxor aboard the shuttle sickened her… yet she felt her head clear. She had done worse before. What she wondered now, was if what she’d done happened because the Chxor threatened her friends. They can be violent and sometimes not the best people… but my friends nonetheless, she thought.

  Was that why her inner monster had awoken? Had she felt that the Chxor needed an example to be made? Ariadne didn’t know the answer. In the end, she could not be the judge of that, not without some time to put it behind her and reflect.

  Even as she thought that, she remembered her purpose. She had to plot their course, and do it quickly. She opened her mind to the world around her again. Her hands went to the console as she tapped in coordinates and commands. The use of her powers for something so unrelated to violence put her in an almost trance state, and she felt some of her tension ease.

  As she typed in the last commands, she heard the hatch behind her open. “What a mess you lot made back there. Good thing we won’t reuse this shuttle.” Mike sounded cheerful. He’s definitely made for the pirate life, she thought.

  “We won’t?” Ariadne asked.

  “Nah, the Ghornath corvette doesn’t have a docking clamp or any hard point large enough for this beast. And I don’t want to spend time trying to jury-rig something. We’re crunched for time as it is,” Mike said. “How does it look for the course? We ready to go?” He took a seat in the copilot seat.

  Ariadne nodded, “We’re ready.”

  “Good, everyone should be loaded, along with all the stuff that we’re bringing from this ship. It’s pretty crowded back there, and I know some of the passengers wish we could have vented the compartment or at least rinsed it to clean it off a bit.”

  Ariadne went green with sudden nausea, “Yeah.”

  “Hey, no worries, they can live with a little mess, especially that arrogant bitch of an ambassador,” Mike said. “And we dragged the bodies out, so it’s just a little gore.” He glanced at the control panel. “Alright, it looks like Simon has shut the airlock. Time for us to move. Bird is yours.”

  “Right,” Ariadne said. She flipped the switches that released them from the side of the cargo ship. She brought them up under the shadow of one of the cargo shuttles. Her hands flickered over the controls, and she let her instinct guide her as much as her senses of the world around her.

  Mike flipped on the intercom, “This is your pilot speaking, we’ll be flying through hostile Chxor space with the likelihood of meeting a fiery death if they spot us.” He paused, “Oh, and has anyone seen Run? We may need him to talk to their traffic control.”

  The cockpit door opened and Run stepped in. “I would not suggest doing anything that results in our termination. I would not finish my experimentation if I am terminated. This would be suboptimal.”

  “Right, suboptimal,” Mike said. “Well, just stand by there to talk on the radio if and when they see us,” he passed over a headset.

  Mike glanced at the shuttle chrono. “We have around thirty minutes before the cargo boat comes barreling through. I wish we’d timed this better.”

  “I’m sure this will go just fine,” Ariadne said. And as she did, she believed it. She couldn’t say why, but she had the feeling they would all make it through alright. She gave him a smile, “I’ve got faith in the team.”

  Mike gave her a nod, “Well, you should, I suppose. Pixel thought up another neat little trick, it should take some attention off of us when the time comes. Come to think of it…” Mike flicked on the intercom again, “Pixel to the cockpit please.”

  “You called?” Pixel asked.

  “Just need you standing by for when we need your distraction,” Mike said.

  “Oh, right…” Pixel squeezed over to where he could look over Ariadne’s shoulder. “Just let me know when.”

  Ariadne focused on the pilot’s controls. She had Mike’s skill to compare herself against, and she knew that if he had the time to go over the course she plotted, he probably could manage to fly the shuttle better. But she knew that she would do for the moment. As long as she didn’t hit the cargo shuttle they shadowed.

  The course change came up, and Ariadne fired the shuttle’s maneuver thrusters. They swept out of the shadow of the cargo shuttle. Just a moment later, the radio squawked. A stream of Chxor words came out of the radio. “What are they saying?” Ariadne asked.

  Run cocked his head. “They want to know who we are and why we just now appeared on sensors.” He glanced at Mike, “I will answer them in a manner that they will accept.”

  He spoke into the radio for a moment, then looked up. “I told them that we are personnel shuttle thirteen seventy six, and that we experienced an accident on-board that damaged our controls and communications.”

  The radio squawked again. The stream of Chxor words might have sounded more aggressive, though with the monotone voice they used, Ariadne found it difficult to tell.

  Run answered. He seemed to pick his words with more caution than normal. Ariadne took that as a good sign. She glanced at her sensor feed and felt a wave of relief as she saw they had drawn perceptibly closer to the corvette.

  “The traffic controller put his manager on,” Run said a moment later. “He is very rude. He accused me of lying due to the fact that we have made several maneuvers and are currently in contact with them.”

  “Uh,” Pixel said, “You are lying though.”

  “Yes, it is very rude of him to make note of this,” Run said. “I think that he will probably request that we be targeted and destroyed. I find this a suboptimal result.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Mike said. “Shit, something just hit us with active radar… Pixel, I think it’s time for your distraction.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Ariadne saw Pixel draw what looked like a bastardized radio out of his pocket. Pixel extended the antenna and he flipped off the top, and revealed a button. “Here goes.” he mashed the button.

  Ariadne glanced at the sensors as she flew. She didn’t notice anything.

  “Uh, Pixel, any time now, bud,” Mike said.

  Pixel looked down at his r
emote. “That should have done it.” He shook the control a bit and hit the button a couple more times. “Huh, that’s odd.”

  “They’ve got us targeted,” Mike said, “Ariadne go into evasive-”

  A bright flash erupted to their rear. The boil of light burned out their sensors on the aft end of the shuttle. Half the indicator lights on the panels went red or amber a moment later, and a puff of smoke erupted from the radio box.

  “Oh, there it goes,” Pixel said. “Must have been a delay as the safeties disengaged.”

  Ariadne fought to keep the shuttle on course. Her adjustments grew a little frantic as it seemed that a number of systems had either restarted or gone completely offline. “Was that a nuke?”

  Mike gave a long whistle, “Yeah, you could say that. That was one hell of an EMP signature on that thing, good job buddy.”

  “Where did he get a nuke?” Ariadne demanded. “And who thought it a good idea to set it off anywhere near us? We’ve lost half the shuttle’s systems, there’s no way we could dodge anything right now.”

  “We had the ship’s fusion plant,” Pixel said. “And I made some modifications to the Chxor captain’s little sabotage program, so it created a high energy radiation burst, which then caused the plant to lose containment.” Ariadne tried to parse that while she piloted the shuttle. She thought she understood most of it.

  “I thought EMP didn’t work well in space?” Ariadne asked.

  “It doesn’t, but a high burst of radiation can cause a similar effect, basically induce currents that fry electronics. I used the Chxor stuff we had encountered before as an example to choose the frequency,” Pixel sounded inordinately smug. Then again, it sounded complex enough that Ariadne figured he had a right to be impressed.

  “Won’t that fry the ship we want to capture too?” Ariadne asked. She felt pretty certain that Pixel would have thought that through. Still, it didn’t hurt to ask.