by Martin Perry
He let those words hang in the air, and a few faces turned to each other or looked around for any leavers. Nobody left, although Kerra thought for a moment that she would never dare to walk out on this impassioned speech even were she a card carrying member of the Free Man Nation. Global domination, genocide of alien species, human power – these would, she imagined, seem like irrelevant concepts while facing Charles’ flexing biceps and clenched fists.
“Good, I will consider this as you all making a promise. I will hold you all to it.”
“We will be here for another week or so,” Kerra said, moving forward into the limelight, the change in speaker cementing Charles’ words within the assembled mind. “Thom, Yazram and Maur will start moving among you soon to give you passes that will allow you to enter the garage and make yourself at home aboard Annie. Your cabin numbers are on the passes, as are the numbers for your armoury spaces. Please be considerate of the people still working on the ship, if you can’t access your cabin or locker now, leave it for a couple of days.
“We’ll be talking to local agents over the next few days and lining up the next three months of work. It will be continuous, and we can’t guarantee we’ll be back on Earth within that time, so those with family should probably try and spend some time with them. Quality contraband is welcome, encouraged even, but let’s keep the ship free of wildlife OK?”
“Hopefully you all understand these instructions, you’re dismissed for now. See you in a few days.” Charles finished his speech, stepping down from his soap box, and turned his back on the crowd as it grew into a rabble once more.
“You’re quite enjoying this aren’t you?” Kerra joked, grabbing Charles’ arm and offering him a congratulatory hug. She walked by his side, still holding on, while the passes were handed out.
“I’m just doing things as Champion would like them done,” he replied.
“Yeah yeah,” she said jokily, gripping his arm tight again.
While the others separated off to go and check-in with the progress aboard Annie, Kerra and Maur continued to walk through the halls of the complex towards their own accommodation. She swapped Charles’ arm for his. The beholder of the Legacy felt positive about the future.
“Have you spoken to Marc 14 in the last couple of days?” He asked.
“I tried to, he was sitting in Champion’s quarters just looking shell-shocked. I tried to make him feel better, but it’s probably best to just get our heads down and work. Try and get Champion back as quickly as possible.”
“Yeah, I guess so. Keep an eye on him though?”
“Sure,” Kerra said. “At least with the Legacy I won’t have to save your ass every other hour now.” She smiled and punched his arm playfully.
“Ha, I wouldn’t count on it.”
“Well, whatever happens, I’ll stick around.”
“You’re sure?” Maur asked. “No more worries about it affecting your work?”
“Well, the alien superpower certainly helps. And we seem to have managed so far. Plus, I don’t think we can afford to wait around any more, that bitch could have killed me in that military base were it not for you. If anything, I need to keep you around for protection.” She laughed, twisting her head up to his with a goofy pout. Her hair was blue just now, it felt soft against Maur’s skin as it tickled his arm.
Her smile continued as they approached their apartment door. Kerra’s words completed the set of circumstances he needed to move ahead from recent events. He knew now that he had her, he had always known that she would have him in return.
“Oh well,” she said. “That’s me walked you back to your door, this is where I get off.”
“Huh?” He didn’t pick up the joke.
“Jesus! You gone soft? This is where you make the ‘inside is where you get off’ joke, dumb-ass.”
“Oh right! Inside is where you get off, coming in?”
She laughed and pulled him in close to kiss, arms wrapped around his neck. He opened the door behind her, lifting her up and carrying her in. The ‘do not disturb’ sign clicked on as soon as he kicked it closed behind him.
Below, in the garage outside, Charles and the rest of Beta Crew enjoyed the normality of port, forgetting their troubles for a while. In another place, in another building, The Thirteen met in person to discuss the death of The Gentle Reminder.
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Chapter One
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Maur stood on the edge of the scout’s door. It had been lowered, leaving the heavy wind to crash into his face. He wore nothing but an under-skin, albeit one that had been recently adapted to accommodate the demands of the Legacy, the super power which now inhabited his body. It was tingling just under his skin, detecting his raised heart rate and preparing for the impending excitement. It mumbled words to him as it always did, including a forecast of his chances of surviving a fall from this height. They were good. His odds always were now.
Below, covered in a haze of gaseous excretion, a factory of considerable size spread out across the landscape. It was supposed to be purposed for plastics manufacturing, but reports from the local area refuted that, and instead suggested that the workers within had begun to operate a narcotics sideline. Maur could understand why, the factory workers around Karson notoriously underpaid. He had old acquaintances from home who were employed in these industries now; people who didn’t have the sense to join the military, or at least move to one of the more wealthy cities. They were all struggling, and narcotics money would have lifted them out of that hole.
Still, the Jump Cannon had been requisitioned by one of their new agency contracts to covertly investigate the plant. They had been given specific instructions not to engage any of the workers in either conversation or combat. The task was simple; he was there only to confirm whether or not the workers, and their managers, were doing something secretive, and if so, what?
It made sense to hire a mercenary for the task. A frank and open investigation of the site by its owners, Plasterio, would only help alienate an already fragile work force. The company had invested very little in new equipment in recent years, leaving them entirely reliant on the ageing staff still familiar with the near-ancient production methods. Plasterio couldn’t afford to lose any of these workers, but at the same time could not afford to allow their company to become embroiled in illegal activities, at least not without their direct involvement and profit.
The wind continued to crash into his face, and Maur began to shake out his arms and legs in preparation for the jump. A pilot he had not yet had time to get to know sat at the front of the scout, idly flicking through a panel and paying very little attention to what was going on behind him. All of the new Jump Cannon crew had seen Maur in action by now, whether on a recording or on mission. It gave him reassurance that both the novelty and fear of his abilities seemed to have worn off over the last few months. He felt like an ordinary part of the crew now, almost. He remained the only man aboard capable of jumping unaided from a scout hovering a mile up. Others might try, but only he would walk away unharmed.
“Are you ready?” said Kerra, her voice crackling
in over the audio channel. She was still aboard the Jump Cannon, floating far away from him in the orbit of Earth. Most of their recent work had been domestic, but in light of the arrest of Champion, and the still lingering threat of the Free Man Nation, Charles had decided it best that the main ship stay off-world. Maur agreed but it still felt good to have real, clean air against his skin, despite how capably the Jump Cannon was able to replicate Earth’s atmosphere.
“Yeah, of course. They still want me to go in quiet?” Maur replied.
“Yup. Charles offered an assault option for a fair price, nothing extortionate. They didn’t go for it though,” she said.
“Is this actually worth doing then? Are we just charging them for a one man operation?”
“No. As far as Plasterio are concerned, you’re a five man squad featuring the very best in covert operatives,” said Kerra. She sounded happy. A lot of the stress that she had been under during the Free Man Nation incident seemed to have drifted away. No matter how challenging things were aboard the ship – with the new crew and the difficulty of finding decent work – she seemed to take it in her stride as long as, at the end of the day, they coiled themselves together in bed.
“That’s a pretty huge lie. I’m one man, not five.”
“It’s just a small lie! On a good day, you’re maybe a man-and-a-half, perhaps two…”
“Just two?” said Maur.
“I’d say that’s a pretty decent compliment! I wouldn’t take offence if you told me I was twice the woman.”
“You took offence when I told you that a dress didn’t fit. I imagine if I told you that you were twice the woman that pissed off wouldn’t even cover it,” he replied.
“Hah. Focus on the job soldier, you can dig yourself a hole later. We’re just waiting for the shift change to happen and then you can drop. Entertain yourself until then.”
The pilot had tired of his panel, and stepped up from his seat to join Maur at the back of the scout. He stood in a navy jumpsuit, crinkled but clean, with his hands on his hips. There was a slight smell of smoke about him, and his accent placed him as a native of G1, one of Pritania’s major cities.
“You’re just going to jump then?” he asked. His voice was friendly, but guttural. It sounded as if he might be drunk. He was, in fact, a very capable pilot with an outstanding military and mercenary record. He also detested drink, which was fortunate, as he might have otherwise been completely incoherent.
“When we’re ready, yeah.”
“Doesn’t seem like a great idea. What if these powers of yours fail half way down? I had a friend once, he was doing a drop and his gear failed. Didn’t end well, had to scrape him off the ground,” said the pilot.
“What’s your name?” asked Maur.
“John. John Macson.”
“Well, John, if this doesn’t go well, you promise to come scrape me up too?”
“Sure,” he said. “Anything for a fellow crewman.”
With that came the signal to leap from the scout, and Maur followed it without hesitation. Ducking his head forward, he dived into the empty sky and began to plummet toward the ground. The noise of the air filled his ears, and for a moment he remembered diving down into the military base where he first gained the power of the Legacy and forced The Gentle Reminder into retreat. The Legacy itself registered the rapid descent, and began to count down the feet as he hurtled downward.
His skin was starting to glow again, and the straight red lines of the Legacy’s energy cracked through and shone against his clothing. A red stream trailed behind him, disappearing for a moment as he cut through some low lying cloud cover. The factory soon filled his view, measurements flashing through his mind, and the interior mapping out in front of him. It didn’t disorientate him, it didn’t surprise him. Maur was used to the Legacy’s overload of information now.
The final feet counted down, and Maur bent his knees to prepare for the landing. His skin burned brighter now. With little noise, and whatever audible notice of arrival silenced by the roaring factory, his feet landed hard on the ground. They crushed the earth and mud beneath them, deep set footprint holes reaching his knees. His body throbbed, and the Legacy calmed, dissipating the force of the impact into the air around him.
He was positioned not far from the southernmost building, at least a kilometre away from the wall identified by the Legacy on his way down as the easiest to breach. Digging himself out of the ground, quickly dusting off the muck streaked high up his suit legs, he started to move forward, remaining close to the walls of the building.
They were roughly three storeys tall, and constructed of large matte black blocks; one of the products that Plasterio produced. Solid, and cold to the touch, the only breaks in the lack of colour were bright yellow bands of sealant used to stick the blocks together. Other than that, there were large white painted letters which denoted the purpose and numerical assignment of each of the units that composed the factory. Maur stuck to them, feeling the bumps with his ever sensitive fingers.
The ground below squelched with each step. Rainfall from the night before had left the ground sodden and difficult to walk on. However, with the strength of the Legacy, his progress remained consistently quick.
Maur reached the end of the first block, from which Kerra’s plan dictated that he break off and enter through an access entrance on the opposing unit. The Legacy had other ideas, still flashing the location of the weak wall which, it promised him, he could easily punch through.
“Kerra,” he said, holding his finger against his skin-tight suit, the fabric illuminating under his touch.
“Why are you not moving?” she said in reply.
“The Legacy is making suggestions again. It wants me to breach a wall just under a click away. I think I should go with it…”
There was a pause, and the crackle of empty audio suggested that Maur’s preference had not been warmly received.
“Kerra?”
“Sorry, I assumed you weren’t interested in my input,” she replied.
“Why?”
“Evidently the voices in your head have more valuable things to say than your commanding officer.”
“You’re not my commanding officer Kerra,” Maur replied.
“I'm the strategic officer for this mission. Look, just do whatever you want,” she replied.
The Legacy was the one thing that killed Kerra's good mood, and had Maur not been distracted by its offerings of an easier mission, he would have been smarter and not mentioned it. There had only been a few instances, but on occasion Kerra had voiced concern about the impulses that the Legacy pushed him to follow. Nobody had been hurt, they hadn't lost any money, but he had walked into situations that would have seen any other man killed. He could understand her concerns, he would feel the same if it were her, but if she understood the Legacy as he was beginning to, then it might have allayed her fears. With all it could do, it annoyed him that the Legacy couldn't offer him a way to properly explain its properties to her.
The crackle of silence hung in the air for a few seconds after Kerra's statement, before disappearing entirely. Maur thought that it might have been a mistake not to reply. At least he could go ahead with the Legacy's plan now.
He prepared to bolt over to the cover of the adjacent building, but was halted by the sounds of voices coming closer. His heart raced, and the threat of discovery forced his stomach into knots.
“You had your cut this month?” said a first voice.
“No. Mitchell said I'd get it by the fifteenth, but he's full of shit. He told Fahdi that he would get his money on the eighth. It didn't happen. He asked why and was just brushed off,” said a second.
“Mitchell is playing a dangerous game man. People don't put up with that shit for long and this game is too risky for us not to get paid on time. I'd rather just take my wage from Plasterio. At this rate, we'll be in jail before we earn anything,” said the first voice, piping up in reply.
“Don't talk about jail. Plasterio
can't see the production area, what makes you think anybody will find out?” said the second once more.
“Everybody gets caught eventually.”
The rest of their conversation faded away until it was silenced by the swoosh of a closing door. They had entered the unit that Maur was pressed against, but in the process they gave him sufficient evidence to be sure of the workers operating outside of the law. It gave him impetus to pursue the Legacy's plan. Impetus that wasn't required; he could have called it a day right there and then. However, the Legacy had already helped him succeed. Maur thought that he could do better than just complete the mission, he could prove a point and get more information for Plasterio. His confidence in the Legacy had been complete before, regardless of Kerra's response, and he would carry it through. The panic of almost being uncovered still coursed through his body
After ducking his head around the corner of the unit, checking that these stragglers weren't part of a larger group, he bolted over to the other unit with his head down. He could feel eyes on him, pressing against his flesh, but it was a perceived threat rather than a real one. There was nobody there to spot him, but still the pressure of the mission remained.
Pressed back against a solid wall, he continued his journey to the marker set in front of him by the Legacy. It was placing a single, bright light at the correct location, and he moved toward it without hesitation. At first, he kept himself crouched, but soon confidence got the better of him. Maur stood straight then broke into a sprint. His fists pumped the air, and the power in his body sent him bounding toward his destination.
