by Trevor Wyatt
I close my eyes. I feel my heart pumping painfully in my chest. It's a relief; I’m ready to die. I want to see my family again.
I hear the unmistakable sound of a pulse gun charging. I flick my eyes open. A woman stands before me; she eyes me, gun aimed at my head. I don't move.
"Leave him, Sheila," says a large man stepping up behind her. "He looks half dead already."
She lowers her gun, holstering it, but watches me closely.
"I'm Tolhe," he says extending a hand. I don't shake it. After a second he drops it.
"Dave," I say, then cough.
"Where's Asel?" Another man walks up, skin dark as the ash on the ground, his eyes a brilliant blue. Without preamble, he brings me a canister of water, tips it into my mouth.
I drink it down in large gulps.
"Thank you," I say, my voice quiet, my throat raw. He nods, leaves the canister with me.
"Asel, Sheila, check out the Sonali ship. They didn't survive, but maybe something on their ship did. Something we can use." They nod and head toward the wreckage.
"I take it you're a local," says Tolhe. I nod.
"Well, as you probably guessed, we're not. Of course neither are the Sonali." At the mention of the alien race, I clench the canister in my fingers, wishing it was something I could break. Tolhe sees my reaction.
"Is it just you?" he asks.
I nod, tears, hot and shameful drip down my nose.
"My family....those sons of bitches killed them! I wasn't with them! If I'd been there..."
"You'd be dead," finishes Tolhe.
"Yes, but I would have died with them....they died without me."
Tolhe unsnaps a flask tucked under his coat, "Here."
"I'm not thirsty."
"This isn't water." I take it, start gulping it. It's unfamiliar to me, but I drink it anyway. It tastes like some sort of homebrew. It's thick, strong and most definitely illegal. I finish it, hand back the container. "Thanks. You smugglers?"
"No," he says unoffended.
"Mercenaries?"
"Close," he says, pocketing the flask. "We're a special branch of the military offensive targeting the Sonali. We don't get the fancy ships, fancy weapons, or much weapons at all. What we do get is the leeway to fight the enemy in the manner of our choosing." Our methods are not always sanctioned, and many consider them to be downright suicidal."
He looks at me. "The pay is decent," he continues, "not that you'll have a lot of free time to spend it." His two compatriots have returned.
"No survivors, some salvage, mostly tech," says Sheila glancing at me, then Tolhe. A look passes between them. She leaves. Asel says something in another language. Tolhe gives him a glare, "Don't be rude to our new recruit."
"Hey!" I say looking at him, "What do you mean 'recruit'? I'm not a soldier; I'm a farmer."
"You were a farmer," he says, looking me directly in the eye, "You had a family. There is nothing for you here now."
Rage so hot it feels I'm reaching into the bowels of the planet gripping its molten core surges through my body as my fist connects with Tolhe's nose.
There's a 'crack' sound as blood flies from his nostrils. He's a big man, but I knock him back a step.
Sheila and Asel step to me but stop as Tolhe puts his hand up. He pinches his nose, then wipes away bloody snot. He lumbers toward me, and I think now, I’m going to die.
"You don't need to be a soldier to fight this war. You only need a reason, or hell, fuck reasons, you only need rage." He pokes my chest, near my heart. "The most dangerous person in a fight is the one who has the least to lose. So, tell me, Dave, what exactly do you have left to lose?"
He puts his hand on my shoulder, then lets go and starts walking away. I figure that means the recruitment speech is over.
"Asel, you take point, we'll retrace our steps, figure out where we can hit these assholes next."
"We'll need to find something to replace the corvette, and we're running out of ground explosives," says Sheila walking next to Tolhe.
I am forgotten.
In the land of the dead, the living man is...
Nothing.
I jog to catch up. Tolhe hears me and turns around; he looks smug. Sheila looks annoyed. Asel looks at me, then goes back to walking, nonplussed.
“Would flares designed for ground dispersal work?"
Tolhe looks thoughtful. "Very likely," he says.
"Then follow me," I say heading off toward the shed on the other side of the property, hoping that the vault where the flares are kept pressure-sealed has withstood the violence.
I know the code because Nadia uses the same key code for everything. I tap the code in solemnly, grateful when the door swings up revealing bundles of flares, primed and ready.
"Well," says Tolhe grinning wide at the selection, "It looks like Christmas came early this year."
Shelia pushes past me grabbing bundles to load into satchels, "Let's get to work."
I think of all the damage we can do with these flares if we can get close enough to the Sonali ships.
"Yes," I say hefting a bundle of flares in my hand, "Let's."
Life. It’s interesting what you’ll remember when it’s all gone.
But I’m not gone yet.
Jeremy Black and the Asteroid Belt of Azoc
I walk into the dank bar with a scrunched up piece of paper in my right fist and hope ablaze in my heart.
The bar had style even though it is situated in one of the most dangerous, underground worlds in the farthest reaches of the Terran Union. You just had to agree that whoever was the manager of this bar had taste. Yes, the bar was jammed to the brim with the scums of the galaxy: bounty hunters, space pirates, kidnappers, terrorists, the wanted, criminals—all drinking, dancing, causing a brouhaha, sometimes fighting with guns, knives, and fists, under the same roof, yet, the architecture of the place resembled what you’d find in an upscale environment in some of the finer worlds within the Terran Union.
I am still standing at the mouth of the door to allow my eyes adjust to the low lighting. Even though it’s midnight outside, there’s still some modicum of light from the hovering street lights. The bar’s lighting is a stark difference. There are lights inside, but they are dim. Except on the dance floor, where the lights fluctuate and dance around like a disco.
The light serves two purposes. One, for people to see where their food or drinks will go into, when taking a swig. And two, to ensure their knives make it home, when trying to assassinate someone. The music is deafeningly loud—and, of course, this is for two reasons: one, so everyone would dance regardless of how good the song really is, and two, so that no one would hear it when you were screaming for help or screaming before death.
I scoff a little. This is no place for the weak or narrow minded. This bar is a place where some of the most nefarious deals are brokered. This is where you can hire practically any mercenary for practically any endeavor, from bombing an entire world to petty thieving. Assassins come here on their off time. Bounty hunters come here to unwind. Space pirates—including the ones working both sides of the blasted Sonali-Terran war—come here to tell their stories and brag to everybody.
To be sure, Yulverse is a Terran Union world. However, being one of the farthest flung colonies in the Union, it was all but abandoned by the Union. It’s not one of the Outers because it still flies the Union’s flag. Nevertheless, its government had long since been ruined by corruption and filthy lucre.
Yulverse has all the makings of a well governed world, what with its police force, presidency, senate, and representative on the Terran Council, as well as all its agencies to ensure that everything runs smoothly for the 50,000 residents.
But that is all for show. It is all on the surface. Yulverse’s government is as criminal as the inhabitants that come here to hide. And among all the bars, this particular bar is renowned in the underground world of Terran Union as the most dangerous of them all. In fact, it is so dangerous that newcomers rar
ely make it out alive. So dangerous that its pavements are coated in the bloods of its customers every day. Yet, they keep coming.
I really don’t want to be here. I may be sharp, skilled, smart, and goddamn dashingly handsome, still, this bar—the Starlight Bar—is the last place I want to be. I’m also wise and not foolish. All it takes is a wide-eyed space pirate to spot me and slide a concealed knife into my spleen, and I’d be gone before the next verse of the song blares through the hidden bass speakers.
If it weren’t for who I hoped and had a burning desire to meet here, I would not even fly within ten light years of this forsaken world. Well…that and if I am out of a job. In Yulverse, there is always a gig for the most despicable, dishonorable, disdainful, and dangerous of criminals. On that list, space pirates by default come in the top three.
I allow myself to smile. Yes, sure, the average Armada official considers me a space pirate. I like to see myself as a businessman and a war profiteer. I’m no more a space pirate than the corporations that make oodles from the war efforts. Heck, all the corporations have outposts right here in Yulverse. You may say that this is after all a recognized Terran Union world, and you would be right. But remember, nothing goes on here except criminal activities or the planning of criminal activities.
Yulverse has no natural resources, nothing to offer the Union in terms of resources, so why would those profit oriented corporations spend millions to maintain an outpost in Yulverse, if they weren’t engaged in some criminal activity themselves?
At the end of the day, it’s all business. Just that the Armada Intelligence is biased. Fucking biased to my detriment.
“Are you gonna keep standing there, or do you want to go buy a drink?” says a gruff voice behind me.
I crane my neck to see the boxy bouncer’s head through the slightly open door. He’s looking at me with a deadly glare as though telling me: Give me a reason and make my day.
I flinch a little at that thought. I flash the bouncer a little smile and walk away from the door.
Yeah, this goddamn world is the last place I want to be. Still, I find myself walking towards the bar, senses heightened in preparation for an attack on my person I am more than ninety percent sure will come. I have taken the pain to dress like a low level space pirate, with weathered boots, faded pants, and a shirt that has seen better days. I have one of the oldest and cheapest weapons in the galaxy in my right holster: a 9mm Berretta. At least, the big killers would see me as small fish and ignore me.
The bar is spherical in design. It has a central, circular bar with pumps hanging from an overhead beer brewer. There are five bartenders at the bar, while the number of customers trying to get a beer numbered above fifty. The outer edge of the sphere is lined with table and chairs. This area is dark and the light that reaches there is minimal. I can make out the figures there, barely, but I can identify faces and I am having difficulty counting just how many are there. The space between the bar and the chairs is the dance floor, and it is littered with male and female dancers.
I make my way to the north portion of the bar. The queue here is lighter because the bartender on this side is a bit faster than the others. The letter I got told me to meet at the north portion of the bar in Yulverse’s Starlight.
As I get to the northern side, one of the customers sitting at the bar leaves. I immediately slip in ahead of a short, stout individual.
“Sorry, dude,” I say with one of my more annoying smiles.
Others simply shrug and wait for their turns to get a beer, but the man’s face contorts terribly into a frown. I tense even before I notice the glint of a knife sliding out of its scabbard. My reaction is immediate. I go for his jugular, the edge of my palm flat as a knife. The dude lets out a cry that’s drowned by the music.
He staggers backwards, the teeming beer mongers parting and closing ranks at the same time as he goes. He collapses on the dance floor, his knife clattering out of his reach. He remains there, dazed.
“I said sorry,” I mutter, actually feeling sorry for him and looking away. Some moments later, I received my mug of cool ale and began to nurse it, waiting for who I desperately hope will be Commander No One.
Maybe if I hadn’t been so obsessed with her, even after three months after the mission to blow up that Sonali Starship, I might have disregarded the message we’d received on one of our contraband runs to the Outers. But you see, I am not myself. She is in my dreams. She fills my thoughts. She basically commands my emotions and reasoning. I have made so many dangerous runs to New Washington and even once snuck into the Armada Intelligence Command there, hoping to bump into her and maybe ask her out. My crew thinks I’m crazy and even had a doctor take a look at me. But the doctor gave me a clean bill of health.
I am truly losing my mind, wondering and hoping that I have made enough of an impression that Commander No One, wherever she was, is thinking of me too. I was hoping she would make contact with us again, and I swore that the next time she did, I was going to make my move. I wouldn’t let her go so easily. If she rejects me, I can get some closure and maybe move on. Otherwise…
So, when we got a message from one ‘N1’, my buzzers went off. Of course, everyone gave me reasons to believe that N1 could mean a lot of things aside from No One, but I wasn’t hearing that. It was a biscuit crumb…a trail, and I’d be damned if I didn’t follow. I’d rather follow it and be led to a dead end than not follow it and spend the rest of my life cursing myself for not taking my chances.
“This could be Sonali spies, looking for avenge the ship you destroyed!” Garret, one of my crew and one of my two best friends had said, even as I walked out of the Corvette, which landed several miles outside the city.
I didn’t even reply. I got into the Corvette’s only air car and drove on.
My comm device chirps. I tap it and say, “Go ahead.”
“What’s happening Captain?” asks Garret.
“She’s not made an appearance…yet,” I say and cut the line before Alex begins another lecture on how this could be an assassination attempt. Of course I would be worried except for the fact that no attempt has been made for the last three months since our deed. It is highly unlikely that they knew it was a space pirate that destroyed their ship.
“You waiting for someone?” says the voice beside me.
I freeze. Something about the voice doesn’t sit well with me. It was deep and masculine, but is also sounded computerized, like it was a translator. I even think I may have heard clicks and pops, but the music is so loud it may have been that.
I throw a quick glance at the figure beside me and see that he’s wearing an ash colored hood that conceals him from top to bottom.
I grunt a ‘yes’ and try to ignore him.
“I’m Mark,” he says, sticking his hand out. “Mark Angel.”
I growl. I take his hand and say, “Jeremy. Jeremy Black.”
The next thing he says causes my blood to run cold.
“Nice to have finally caught you, Jeremy Black of The White Silk,” the voice says and then I hear it: the click and pops.
I try to pull out my hand, but the creature’s grip is rock solid. I look around, thinking to yell for help.
“It’s of no use,” he says. “You are coming with me, or you die here. Your choice.”
My mind begins to spin. I count about five more hooded Sonali in the room. Yes, I figured they are Sonali. Damn. How could I have been so stupid, thinking this was No One.
At that there is a loud explosion that rocks the bar. The concussion wave blasts me and the Sonali holding me apart. We land side by side along with about a hundred other people.
The music somehow survives the blast, but the screams threaten to swallow its blare. Klaxons ring out too, and the disco light turn red in warning.
At the door I see a feminine figure silhouetted by the bright hovering streetlights outside. It’s as curvaceous and lithe as I remember, standing alluringly in the blast hole of the wall of the bar, a high grade
Armada laser gun sitting in a holster on her right jutting hips.
The last thing I remember before I black out is that the Sonali stands up and tries to stab me in the face before his slits extend and he crumples beside me, dead. Commander No One stands over the dead Sonali and smiling sweetly at me.
I wake up with my back on a sandy ground and my face to a star littered sky. I shoot up to my feet, going for my weapon. Surprisingly it’s still there. I pull it out and aim it at the nearest person to me.
No One stares at me, unfazed. She’s sitting on a makeshift chair by a camp fire. There are provisions on the ground. Behind her is an aircar parked on the ground, and farther behind is my Corvette.
I focus on No One. She’s wearing her long brunette hair down, and it flows all the way to her cleavage, which is visible to my eyes and appeal to every single molecule of my being. Her stunningly beautiful face looks at me, expressionless, her lips thin, yet luscious, and pressed into a line. Her long neck sings a song of pleasure to me, even as the smooth easterly wind wraps around it. She’s wearing the standard tight fitted Armada jumpsuit which brings out all her curves…which is kinda painful because all I can do is stare.
I holster my weapon.
“That was kinda stupid, getting caught by a Sonali,” she says, her voice cold and flat.
Anger bursts in my veins. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me! You were the one that said we should meet in that god forsaken bar. I could have died!”
She nods. “And you would have, if I hadn’t rescued you.” No iota of compassion in her eyes or voice. Heck, I can feel another mission coming.
I look away. It’s becoming painfully clear that I’m only here because she needs me to go on another mission, forget that the entire Sonali Intelligence is on the hunt for Jeremy Black of The White Silk.
A terrible barrage of hurt and pity besieges my heart.
My mom always told me I would get into trouble because of a girl. I instinctively look up. Mom, looks like you were right.
“Hey…” No One says, calling back my attention.
