The Henderson Helios: A Sci-Fi Adventure Novella

by Beatrice Crowl

  Okay, I blurted it out. Myka knew everything about my past. My goals. My weakness. My apprentice’s friends. I didn’t know anything about her. She’d been a blank slate until tonight. What was I supposed to make of her?

  I looked out the grime-streaked window as the city buzzed by. “It’s not fair.” She knew my painful family shit. She knew my former name. She could figure out why I was acting so weird. She’d probably write about it in her report after this is all over. File it away. Pull it out next time she wanted to dip into my life.

  She was quiet for a moment. Then, “Myka Benton. Profession: Personal Assistant to Adela Glezos. Skills: Organization, infiltration, loyalty. Hobbies: Watching nature documentaries, fashion, and singing. Motivation: To maintain and improve her position within Cadinoff. Fear: Being disloyal. Weakness…” She trailed off and looked away.

  She looked vulnerable. Small. I didn’t know what to do with that. I didn’t know what to do with her.

  She was Myka Benton. She was loyal to Cadinoff. Cadinoff wanted the plans working their way through my gut. Was Myka playing a longer game? Getting close to me to stab me in the back? Why else would Myka Benton, whose skill is “loyalty”, make out with me in a lemur habitat?

  I wanted to drink so bad.

  * * * *

  We reached Eldarm with a gentle hiss and the pull of contrasting forces. Corporate mercs would definitely be waiting here. Halcyore’s wasn’t some obscure hole in the wall. It was the center of the engineering world on Ri.

  Eldarm was an industrial area, completely unlike the touristy Hightower, and this station was crowded with the workers that kept the whole megacity running. No frippery, just utility. A bare massage parlor neighbored the station along with one of those calorie-rich food joints. Junk shops and resell shops and odds’n’ends shops stretched until the first factory warehouse a block away. These small businesses were just pale imitations. The real deal, Halcyore’s, was four blocks down. The sun was bright as it bounced off the light pavement that led past the sprawling warehouses. The crowd of workers thinned further from the station, leaving few stragglers.

  No clue what would happen when me and Myka separated. We hadn’t discussed it. Fact was, we had different opinions on who owned the plans to the engine I had designed, and loyalty to Cadinoff was Myka’s thing. Her skill. She wasn’t likely to let me walk away with it, despite the kissing.

  Besides, kissing didn’t mean anything. I’d done that and more with plenty of women. Never went anywhere because it couldn’t. I was the angry person hovering over Myka, ready to burst. I was not fit for a relationship. Too damaged. A lasting present from my father.

  Why was I thinking of a relationship with Myka Benton anyway? This whole night had probably been a ploy to make me let down my guard. The first step in her Cadinoff-loyal plan. I could see it clear as day: Myka Benton, thwarting Halcyore’s neutrality imperatives, sticks a knife in my gut as soon as we’re separated. Then she scoops the data tab from my intestines and walks back to Glezos with her prize as I bleed out on the floor.

  On a scale of one to ten, the likelihood of that happening was an “I don’t fucking know”. If Myka’s strategy was to confuse me, she’d succeeded.

  I was chewing my bottom lip, pensive. Distracted. It was Myka who noticed we were being followed.

  She yanked on my elbow. “We should go faster.”

  I looked behind us. Mercs. Bulky assholes who enjoyed gyms, named weapons, and thought punching things was the height of human ecstasy. They stood out amongst the industrial workers by being big and dumb-looking. When they saw they were spotted, they broke into a run.

  Then it was a sprint. Who could get to Halcyore’s first: two trained mercenaries or one wounded woman handcuffed to another woman wearing a knee-length skirt? I wouldn’t place money on us.

  Myka, though? She was fast, and she dragged me along. Halcyore’s nondescript warehouse was just a block away. The door was open as if waiting for us. My feet pounded pavement, and my legs ached, each step slinging pain into that gunshot wound at my hip. My breath was ragged, and I regretted all the cigarettes I’d ever smoked.

  Footsteps behind me. Far at first. Then closer. And closer. Then on my heels with the warehouse still meters away. This was it. We weren’t gonna make it.

  Myka glanced behind us, then stopped. She let me overtake her and presented a barricade between me and the merc whose hand was reaching out to grab me. He stopped a sliver away from Myka, towering over her as his partner stopped beside him.

  “What are you doing?” Myka asked. No, demanded. That was a demand.

  I pulled at her arm. “What are you doing?”

  The merc looked confused too. He glanced at his partner, then at me, then back at Myka. “The target—”

  Myka shook her handcuffed hand. “Is under my custody, isn’t she?”

  Oh. These mercs were Cadinoff, not Sev Tech. Myka was their boss.

  “Our orders are to secure the target—”

  Myka pointedly shook her hand again. “Is this secure enough? Who’s giving you your orders? Let me talk to them.” She held out a palm, expectant.

  The merc pulled out his handset while shuffling his feet. After punching in a code, he handed it to Myka like a chagrined student being disciplined.

  This wasn’t great for me, was it? Was Myka taking me into Cadinoff custody? We’d had a deal. She was breaking it. Right? Or was this a ploy to get to Halcyore’s?

  How much did I trust Myka?

  “Dalton, Myka Benton here. Tell your goons to stand down. I have the situation in hand.”

  My stomach jittered. She was back to being Myka Benton, the bane of my existence. The woman who’d helped kidnap me last year. The woman who would betray me as soon as her boss gave the word.

  She returned the handset to the merc. After a short conversation with his commander, he lowered his gaze. “Sorry for the confusion, ma’am.”

  Myka pinched her lips together. “Keep watch for Sev Tech. I have business in Halcyore’s.”

  The mercs didn’t question. It wasn’t their job. Myka’s word was unassailable at Cadinoff. Might as well be from Glezos, herself.

  Then she tugged at me as she resumed her approach to Halcyore’s.

  I caught up. “You’re not gonna drag me to Cadinoff after this, are you?”

  She glanced at me but didn’t answer. My stomach sank. So this was the “stabbing in the back” part. Guess I saw it coming.

  The inside of the warehouse was as bright as the outside with a naked ceiling sheltering a maze of shelves and parts piled atop each other. There was some meager attempt at organization, but nothing could tame the mountains of parts and gadgets and casings and tools and other assorted goodies. It was a wonderland. A person could happily get lost in this place. I had. No regrets. Getting lost amid the offerings of Halcyore’s was the closest I’d come to paradise.

  Myka didn’t pause at the entry but went straight down the main aisle and scanned for an employee. As she did, the ground rumbled, shaking the merchandise in a frantic percussion. A groundquake?

  No, smoke appeared at the back, drifting to the ceiling and spilling over. The tell-tale tromps of booted footfalls cascaded toward us, and like dominoes, shelves crashed one into the other, sweeping precious junk into even more disarray.

  Then we were surrounded, black-clad and armored soldiers circling us with guns. These weren’t hired mercs. This was someone’s private army, military-trained and fully-equipped. These guys were better than the actual military at killing things.

  Things like us, for example. Guess you could get a data tab from a corpse’s intestines.

  I took a useless step back and bumped into a too damn calm Myka.

  From the smoke emerged the one face I had never wanted to see again: Benjamin Brassard, backed by two soldiers and wearing a smug smile. Sev Tech was breaking Halcyore’s neutrality rule.

  “Brassard, what the fuck are you doing?” Given my current position, I shouldn’
t’ve gone the confrontational route, but…okay, this was insane! Nobody broke Halcyore’s neutrality rule! It was like a force of nature. An unbreakable law of the universe. Violating it would probably spawn some singularity that would collapse the entire world.

  Brassard kicked a connector for the Eagle Dawn propellant tank at me. It skittered along the floor to hit my insole. No injuries sustained. “Let’s put an end to this fiasco, shall we? I’d like my design plans now.”

  “They’re not your plans, Brassard! You stole them, like you stole everything you ever accomplished in your fucking life.” A part of my brain knew arguing was pointless, but instinct and anger were running the show. How dare this fucking yahoo try to claim my design!

  “Henderson, I’m not getting into a back and forth over this. Sev Tech presented the engine at the expo, it’s ours, end of story.”

  “Not end of story. What are you gonna do? Shoot me?” I eyed the motionless soldiers.

  “I don’t want to, but if you refuse to cooperate, I’ll have no choice.”

  Like fuck he had no choice. “Really? Brassy, we went to school together.”

  Brassard’s nostrils flared. “Yes, I had the unfortunate experience of attending school with a piece of egotistical street trash. I prefer not to think of how Becker lowered their standards for your benefactor.”

  I gaped. Yeah, I’d gotten some shit at Becker for my background, but none of it had come from Brassard. He was an asshole, but not that type of asshole. Except, apparently, he was.

  Brassard kept talking: “Henderson—Elly, this invention is the purview of the people who matter. The only reason you made it to Becker was because an addled philanthropist forced their hand. There’s a reason you never went on to anything worthwhile: It’s not your place. I know it. You know it. It’s why you stick to the Back 40 working on whatever ancient engine pops up in the next-door junkyard. You’re not good enough for this engine.”

  Ouch. “But I designed it…”

  Had Newt Henderson IV been off his rocker? Yeah, of course. The old guy took walks around the Back 40 wearing expensive clothes with no bodyguards. He was certifiable. But he’d run across teenage me with my dinky alley fix-it shop, and he’d seen potential. Changed my life.

  But Brassard was done with me, and he turned to Myka, his expression shifting to solicitous. “I realize this is awkward timing, Ms. Benton, but I’d be remiss if I overlooked this opportunity. There is another project from which both our companies may see some benefit. I’ve been trying to schedule a meeting with you for, well, a few months now.”

  Myka nodded. “Yes, I know.”

  And then nothing. That was it. The moment hung, taunting Brassard more and more as each second passed with only Myka’s steady gaze for an answer.

  Finally, Brassard looked down, a flush creeping up his cheeks. He cleared his throat. “Yes, well.”

  If the situation weren’t as desperate, I’d have hugged Myka for this singular smackdown. As it was, Sev Tech was about to gut me to get that data tab so playing spectator to Brassard’s most embarrassing moment lost its shine.

  I nudged Myka. “What’s the plan?”

  Her face was blank, and she shrugged.

  Fuck. She had no plan.

  This was it.

  Two soldiers approached at Brassard’s order with weapons forward as if we had a chance of defending ourselves. No arguing my way out of this. No way to run. Nothing. I was gonna die while handcuffed to Myka Benton. My corpse would be butchered. Then Myka and Brassard would play tug-of-war over the bloody data tab. Possibly literally over my dead body. My brain helpfully supplied an extended vid of the two of them slipping on my blood to fall on my mutilated corpse, data tab again getting lost among my guts.

  At least I’d gotten to kiss the pretty girl before I snuffed it.

  Gloved hands clapped my elbows, and a faceless soldier pressed the barrel of their gun against my temple. Noticing that she was in the line of fire, Myka conscientiously stepped back to avoid being struck by an overachieving bullet.

  My heartbeat could power a fucking Mega-Mammoth engine as I closed my eyes. The floor rumbled, sending scattered junk bouncing around like a spare wrench left on a faulty Acer Bride 3. The gun at my head withdrew.

  “We didn’t call for reinforcements,” Brassard said.

  I opened my eyes to see growing confusion among the soldiers. My would-be executioner had backed away several steps, gun half-raised in anticipation.

  A crash sent toppled shelves flying across the room behind Brassard, and a small, ancient, military tank powered its way to the center aisle. A chorus of even more heavily outfitted soldiers enfolded the Sev Tech forces within their own, larger, circle of guns.

  With a hiss that split the air, the tank hatch lifted, and a worryingly skinny old man poked his head out. His skin was wrinkled like the slack waste hose on an old Skyforce Theta, and he kept his wispy, white hair long and loose, blowing around his shoulders. He was shirtless. Possibly naked. Halcyore had arrived.

  Brassard staggered away from the tank.

  Halcyore cleared his throat with a gross, phelgmy sound. “The rules of Halcyore’s are clear. Obscene bargains, poor inventory tracking and organization, and—most importantly—no fighting. This means no weapons, no soldiers, no threatening of customers, none of that. Please tell me, Benjamin Brassard of Sev Tech, why are you breaking this most sacred rule?”

  Weapons thudded to the floor as Sev Tech soldiers wised up to the situation. My ex-executioner quiet-stepped backwards in hopes of blending with the crowd.

  “Look here, Halcyore,” Brassard stuttered. “This woman stole from Sev Tech. This has been our only opportunity to reclaim our property.”

  “And so you broke the neutrality rule?”

  Brassard was building confidence. I could tell by the way his chest puffed up like a horny male bird. “Given the urgency and the import of the situation, yes. We’re reclaiming a very revolutionary engine design that will transform the entire industry—multiple industries. This theft concerns all of us, as a community, and I’m afraid there was no other way to recover this property.”

  Halcyore nodded, rubbing his chin. “Oh, I see. That does sound very important.” He scratched an armpit. “Very, very important. I’m very sorry I hadn’t considered Sev Tech’s priorities when SETTING THE RULES FOR MY STORE.”

  That last bit was a spit-filled shout that forced Brassard back another step. He didn’t even have a chance to reply, because Halcyore had only warmed up.

  “In all my years of operating this paradise, I have never been subject to such a disrespectful violation of my rules. I give you all the world in this warehouse, everything you could possibly want for mere fingernails! Fingernails! And all I ask is that you don’t bring in your cadre of private soldiers to threaten customers! What part of that rule is too difficult for you, Benjamin Brassard?”

  Halcyore spit Brassard’s name like it was an acidic loogy. Oh, and the fingernail thing? Weirdly true. Not the whole nail, but just the clippings from when you trimmed. Nobody knew what was up with that, but you couldn’t argue with a good sale.

  Brassard looked as if he were caught in a surprise hurricane. “My greatest apologies, Halcyore. I lost perspective, and I am deeply sorry. I promise, Sev Tech will reimburse the cost for any damage—”

  “Yes, you will!” Halcyore pounded the tank. “And you are banished from my paradise! All of Sev Tech is banished! Employees, contractors, consultants…if you are attached to Sev Tech you are dead to me!”

  Brassard paled. “Please, Halcyore, the fault is mine. You can’t possibly penalize the—”

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” Halcyore coughed up some phlegm that dribbled down his chin. “Leave this warehouse now! Never return! And tell your employer it’s because you shit on Halcyore’s paradise!”

  Brassard dropped to his knees. “Please, Halcyore. Tell me. Anything I can do to spare the company. Anything. Anything you want!”

  Ha
lcyore huffed and crossed his bony arms. “Do the unity dance.”

  Brassard balked.

  “Now. Do the unity dance.”

  The unity dance was a dumb thing somebody in the Core came up with after the Colonial War to try to “spread peace”. It caught on only in that it was widely mocked here in the Outer Core. All the peace and unity shit the Core tossed to us was widely mocked.

  Brassard stood on shaky legs. A smattering of soldiers switched out their weapons for their handsets and held up their cameras in anticipation. Brassard was so close to shitting himself, it was amazing.

  Then he danced. Brassard raised his hands and gyrated his hips as he spun. He hopped from foot to foot, thrusting out his butt to do a backwards scootch. Then he threw a hand back, clasping air and pulling forward to begin the cycle again. His movements were clumsy, and the guy was one giggle away from crying.

  Halcyore watched dispassionately. See, this was why it didn’t pay to work for the big corps. Sell your soul and eventually you’d find yourself in front of a tank driven by a naked and insane old man, dancing the unity dance while your own soldiers took video to blast through all the networks.

  Myka didn’t look entertained, though. Instead, her brow was furrowed as if she were working through a problem.

  She probably was. The me problem. Brassard’s spectacular humiliation had distracted me from the fact that I was not at all in the clear. Sev Tech was effectively out of the picture, but Cadinoff still wanted a piece of my stomach. And Myka had been born with her soul already sold.

  Brassard wobbled to a stop, his face bright red. He stared at his feet and waited for Halcyore to pass judgment.

  “Needs practice, but I was amused.” Halcyore shrugged.

  “Then you won’t banish Sev Tech?”

  “No!” Halcyore thumped the tank with a fist. “I just wanted to see you dance! You’re all still banished!” He looked around as if noticing all the soldiers for the first time. “Now go away! I’m bored with you!”

  Brassard definitely wanted to argue more, but his better judgment kept him from doing so. Instead, he motioned for his soldiers to withdraw. Their exit was less like a fighting force of soldiers and more like a big party breaking up. Brassard didn’t meet my eyes at all on his way out. Coward.