REBOOTS

by Mercedes Lackey

  This is getting worse by the minute, the Boggart cursed to himself. “Crystal, Claire. I suppose I’m taking my ship; I’ll need my gear back, naturally.” He looked at all of the weapons, still pointed directly at his head.

  “I’m not an unreasonable woman, Boggie. Your gear is already on something better than that beast you came in. And I wouldn’t want your leash-holder to know you were taking a side job.” Her lips curved in something that was a parody of her old smile; more predatory. “I’ll even make arrangements for you so that you can report back to him as if you were working on his errand.”

  “And the man? Who is he? I ought to know who he is exactly if I’m going to be killing him, don’t you think?”

  “Captain of the vessel, an old Ojibwa. Nathan Runner is what he goes by. He’s taken to piracy these last few decades, and recently traded up for a retrofitted science barge.” She looked down her elegant nose at him. “I believe it used to be called the UES Cenotaph.” The little smirk on her face told him that she knew very well this was the ship he was looking for. “Now, be a good little Boggart and take care of this for me. Then you can go back to whatever mundane chore the H.S. is paying you pittance for.”

  This “Runner” had to be something out of the ordinary. What, the Boggart couldn’t even begin to guess, since his knowledge of most Native American customs was limited to what he’d picked up rather than any serious study. He had the gut feeling that Claire was screwing him over somehow…he just didn’t know how yet. All he knew for certain was that if someone with as many obvious resources as Claire had was not able to come up with a solution for her problem, then things were going to get ugly for him. But what choice did he have?

  “There’s really only one answer you can give me, Boggie,” she said, with chilly, false sweetness. “So you might as well say ‘Yes, Claire, I’ll take care of your problem’ and get it over with.”

  The Boggart sighed. “Yes, Claire, I’ll take care of your problem.”

  “Now was that so hard?” She picked up the box…and by the way she picked it up, the sucker was even heavier than it looked…and handed it to one of the thralls, who in turn took it to the Boggart. When he got it, he reckoned it probably weighed a good twenty pounds.

  “Triple redundancy, darling. Tamper with it, and it vaporizes the watch. Wait too long, and it vaporizes the watch. Run too far with it, and it vaporizes the watch.” She smirked and wiggled her fingers at him. Her nails were long, and painted steel grey to match her suit. “Ta-ta, Boggie. Come back soon.”

  One of the thralls made a little gesture with the barrel of his weapon. The Boggart took this as the sign that they were taking him elsewhere—maybe that transport she’d mentioned—and stood up, the box under his arm.

  “You want to know something funny, Claire?” He turned towards the door and started to walk away. He looked over his shoulder slightly as he walked. “You were prettier when you were alive.”

  She stiffened, and for a moment looked exactly like one of those Uncanny Valley hyper-real ’bots that some high-end execs had as receptionists (and were rumored to have as “recreation” as well). Cold, moving, but no one would ever mistake her for something that was—or had been—living.

  But she didn’t retort, although he’d expected her to. She merely made a dismissive movement of one hand, and deliberately turned her attention to something on her desk.

  The thralls ushered him out. Guess I struck a nerve.

  He had to admit, once the thralls had closed the airlock door on him and his box, that Claire hadn’t done him wrong in the way of transportation. This was a sweet little boat. Hell, for all he knew, it was her personal little runabout. Just as fast as the skiff, but far more expensive. And certainly safer to fly in. It was decked out in the same style as her office, sleek, modern, expensive. Luxurious. Things that looked hard—like the captain/pilot chair, which appeared to be molded from solid chromed steel—were often made of materials that would mold to you and cradle you like a warm hand. With massage, should you desire it.

  In a way, that feature was just a little creepy.

  As Claire had said, his equipment had been carefully stowed aboard; there wasn’t much, granted, but the Boggart had always been a light traveler. Reflexively, he checked the revolver and its ammo. Everything was right there, minus the round he’d expended. Even the wooden bullets, which he found a little surprising, all things considered. With everything in order, he set the ship to leave the docking bay and start on a course towards the coordinates that Claire had provided him with. She knew the pirate captain’s planned routes in this system, so it shouldn’t have been too much of a hassle to find him. The only real question was how the Boggart was going to get aboard and kill the dumb bastard. This boat didn’t have any offensive weaponry of any sort, and the pirate ship was more than likely retrofitted with all of the usual variety of things that make other ships stop working or go boom. Besides, he was fairly certain that the Púca wouldn’t appreciate it if he blew up the ship that he was contractually obligated to track down.

  And neither he nor Claire would be happy if her pretty little runabout got trashed.

  How do you best draw in a predator? With easy prey.

  Ugly, but it would work. He just had to hope that no one on this privateer knew about boggarts. We’re pretty rare…I just hope we’re rare enough.

  It was a very expensive runabout, just off the usual flight paths, floating, apparently without power. There was a distress beacon calling, but weakly—so weakly that the broadcast probably wouldn’t get past near-space. When the Requisition neared and tried to raise the crew, there was no answer.

  “Whatdya think, boss?” asked the navigator.

  “I think we’ve found a tasty morsel in need of our loving care.” He leaned forward on the console. “Circle around and get in close, and scan it again. I don’t want any surprises.”

  Vids to the contrary, there was no way to scan for “life signs.” What there was—you can scan for heat signatures, signs the engines are up, and sometimes hack into a ship’s computers to find out what the state of things aboard her are. The crew of the Requisition were good at all of those things, and what they had to report was enough to gratify the heart of any privateer. Engines were cold. Ship was cold. And airless. Ship’s computers reported a malfunction that had vented the air, which had probably killed the pilot and any passengers. Or if not—it was equally possible the pilot had ditched in a life-pod, expecting to get picked up and come back after her. That would be why he had left the distress beacon going. But out here, he’d die of dehydration, or his pod would run out of life-support power before he got picked up. Too bad, so sad, rich boy goes out roaming and discovers the universe is a bad place with very sharp teeth.

  “Send out a man in a suit, and get what he can out of the cockpit and cabin, set up a tow line on it. Then we make tracks for the nearest space yard; Hollis has been giving us good coin for ship carcasses, lately.” He licked his cracked lips greedily as he looked to the navigator. “If they find any bodies, have ’em bring that, too. My cabin.”

  “Aye, boss.” The navigator was too used to the captain by now to shudder, but the com-and-systems man looked green—which was not his natural color. They were both new hires, picked up only a few stops ago, before they had taken this ship. They would get used to how the Captain ran things…or they wouldn’t, and might find themselves requested to “dine” with the Captain in his quarters. The Captain had a unique way of dealing with troublemakers. Like people who mistook him for a Reboot, which he most assuredly was not.

  It was some time before the Boggart felt that his pocket watch was back in atmosphere. He waited what felt like several hours, just to be sure; wouldn’t do to go corporeal in front of the entire crew as they divvied up the spoils from his borrowed ship, what little there were. When he felt it was safe, he eased himself into the here-and-now, and found himself, and the box with the watch, and the guncase with his revolver and ammo, all in w
hat looked like a storage closet. There were other things on the shelves; he didn’t pay a lot of attention to them.

  The Cenotaph had been a big ship; it had to be, to hold all the Reboots, their food, the food for Fred, the fish tank for Fred, and the hydroponics for Fred. Then there was all the exploration and analysis equipment. The Boggart assumed all of that storage had been cleared out along with the E and A stuff; probably sold on the black market faster than you could blink. That would make for a lot of crew space. Captain probably took the old captain’s quarters, though, so that narrows it down. They built these boats to spec, mass produced them back when deep space exploration ramped up. If he’s not there, though…I’m screwed. He opened the storage closet door a crack, peering into the hallway beyond and listening. There was some shouting and jeering, but it was far off. Gotta draw most of them away if I’m going to have a chance at this.

  The biggest storage area had been the food storage hold—freeze-dried brains for the Reboots, and freezers for the Fur. Odds were, that had been turned into a cargo hold. He made his way through the corridors slowly, keeping low and stopping every few meters to perform a listening check. The Boggart stopped once more outside the hatch for where he had figured the cargo hold was; silence was the only thing that greeted him. He keyed the hatch, and stepped through the portal as it swung inwards. As it swung closed with a loud clank behind him, two crewmembers stepped out from behind a crate, both holding mugs of something foul smelling. They were both human, or near-human, and as surprised as the Boggart was.

  Everyone stood stock-still for several beats.

  The Boggart spoke first. “So, a Fur, a Fang, and a Priest walk into a bar—”

  The crewmen did a double-take. That gave the Boggart all the time he needed. He rushed forward, staying on his toes as he charged them. The one on the left had the presence of mind to try to swing his mug at him, but the Boggart ducked under it and leveled his shoulder into the man’s midsection. He gave a quiet whuff as he staggered backwards, his air gone out of his lungs. The other one finally reacted, dropping his mug and slapping his hand to the holster on his hip. The Boggart placed his left hand over the pirate’s, and squeezed, digging claws through leather glove and into flesh. The pirate screamed, and tried swinging a haymaker at the Boggart’s head with his off hand. The Boggart easily leaned out of the way, the wind from the pirate’s punch brushing his face. His fist was a lot more accurate than his assailant’s, crashing into the side of the man’s jaw. The Boggart didn’t waste a moment; he slammed the crown of his head forward sharply, shattering the nose of the man he was holding. The pirate reeled back, blood leaking through his fingers as he clutched a hand to his face. The Boggart, almost as gently as a concerned brother, pulled the man’s hand back and then proceeded to jab him three more times with his right fist. The man’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell to the floor in a messy heap.

  The Boggart turned to the other pirate, who was just now starting to recover from his blows. “Sure you don’t want to lay down, me ducky?” The pirate shook his head to clear it, then glanced at the mug still in his hand, throwing it away angrily.

  The Boggart shook his head. “You’re gonna die, an’ badly. The Captain’ll have you, once I’m done, and I expect he’s not a gentle sort of leader.”

  The pirate led with a strong right hook, but the Boggart blocked it with his arm, and slapped him hard enough to send a trickle of blood from his lip in response. Another punch came sailing for his face, and the Boggart pushed it aside, sending the pirate off balance. He grabbed and twisted the man’s arm, bending the hand at the wrist until he was certain it was near the breaking point; the Boggart forced him to his knees, pressing his arm up. The pirate looked up with pain creasing his brow.

  “Raise your chin a little.” The pirate was breathing raggedly, and did so. The Boggart reared back with his free hand, and brought it down savagely, square on the point of the pirate’s jaw. He slumped to the deck, out cold.

  The Boggart released him as he fell, then reflexively dusted off his hands, grimacing. Well, that was a complication he hadn’t needed. He dragged both of the limp bodies towards a storage container.

  Best not to leave these two where their pals can find them easily.

  He made sure they were both bound and gagged properly before he closed the container’s doors.

  Time for the next bit of this moronic plan.

  He gathered up as many boxes as he could, nothing too large or anything that he needed to drag. After that, he’d dumped out all of their contents in a pile, sorted out what would burn, and with an unhappy grimace, poured most of the contents of his flask over them.

  The Boggart didn’t use a lot of magic, but he had a few small tricks up his sleeve. He stared at the pile, then snapped his fingers.

  It went up in a whoosh of blue flame and whisky-smell.

  Poor waste of good whisky. Right-oh. Part three. And if I’m lucky, the Captain has better booze than I did.

  It had been hard going getting to the Captain’s cabin, but the Boggart had finally made it there. Most of the crew was busy running down to the cargo hold where his little fire was burning merrily, which left him a fairly clear path to his destination. Ancient ship or space-ship, the one thing no sailor takes lightly is a fire.

  He’d had a few close calls, but had managed to avoid any further violence. The Boggart didn’t waste time when he was faced with the door to the Captain’s quarters. He knocked brusquely, and was greeted with a rough shout of “Enter! And ya’d better have word that fire’s out. Otherwise, I might’n just figure that I’m hungry. ”

  The Boggart had donned the face of one of the crewmen he’d knocked out; his dirty jumpsuit could have passed as the standard garb for any pirate or dock worker in dozens of systems.

  “Fire’s been contained, Captain. We’ve got men in the hold assessing the damage, just came from there myself.”

  It took all his control not to show his reaction to the full sight of Captain Runner.

  He’d half-expected a lot of things.

  This wasn’t one of them.

  The Captain looked like a Reboot—sort of—but obviously wasn’t the usual zombie. He stood about eight feet tall, and was skeletally thin, emaciated; his dark skin was patchy, his face cadaverous, his eyes an unholy scarlet. Literally unholy; the Boggart could sense the demonic energy in him, something ancient and evil coiling in on itself behind those eyes. His black, unkempt hair was pulled back in a rough braid. There were raw, oozing places on him…not exactly sores, more like places where the skin had stretched too far and torn and now was…sort of…healing. His lips, like a Reboot’s, had pulled back from his teeth, giving him a permanent skull-like “grin.” To make things even more macabre, he wore what looked like a fancy blue uniform. And not just any uniform. An ancient US Cavalry uniform from centuries ago, in design at least; it even had the faded golden crossed sabers.

  There was no way a real uniform would have survived this long. Would it? And why was he wearing it in the first place?

  The jacket hung open to show his chest…which was not a pretty sight.

  What in the name of all things Dark and Pointy is this bastard?

  The Captain grinned at him, pausing for a few moments before he spoke. “Good, good. So, Renly, would you chance your Captain a further moment of your time? I haven’t supped with any of the crew in a long while. I fancy a bit of company.”

  The Captain recognized the crewman’s face that he was wearing, and by name at that. Not good. Going to have to bullshit this as much as possible.

  The Boggart paused, uncertain for a scant moment, then replied. “Certainly, Captain.” Well, what else could he do?

  He stepped further into the cabin, closing and quietly setting the lock on it behind him.

  Runner was sitting at a desk that was as big as any man could expect, but the pirate captain dwarfed it with his size.

  Nice of Claire to conveniently forget to mention that this
guy is a fucking monster. If the Boggart got off of this ship alive, he swore that he was going to do something to repay Claire for her kindness.

  “So Renly…as ya know, I’m a big man, hard to move in this cabin. What say ya get down some of that whisky for the two of us.” The Captain nodded to some place behind the Boggart; he half turned and saw a well-stocked series of bar shelves built into the wall. He walked over hesitantly, searching for a moment before finding the bottle the Captain had referred to; he held it up for inspection. “That’s the one; fetch down the glasses too.”

  There were only two shot glasses. One was twice the size of the other. Pretty obvious which one was the Captain’s. The Boggart brought them both to the desk, put them down, and without being asked, poured.

  The thing reached over the desk—giving the Boggart a good idea of its reach—and took the bigger glass. He tossed the contents down, and cocked one of those devilish eyes at the Boggart. The Boggart drained his small glass, never taking his eyes off of the Captain.

  Something is off.

  “Siddown, Renly.” He did so. “Have another.” The pirate leader poured them both stiff glasses of the whisky; the Boggart had far better than this blended swill, but he couldn’t rightly refuse while playing the part of the obedient crewman. “So, Renly, how long have ya been with this crew?”

  Oh shit.

  “Long enough, Cap’n. If it pleases you, I need to get back to my duties.” Run now, regroup, do anything but stay here. His gut turned to water, and a feeling of dread was growing with each passing second. He’d survived as long as he had in his profession by trusting his instincts, and they were all screaming at him now to save his hide.