by Jake Bible
“What about…?”
“She’s gone too. They all are, Roak. I’m not going to try to get you to come back, I’m trying to get you to let me stay.”
Roak stared at her a long while then shook his head and glanced around the cabin. “You salvage anything to drink?”
“I did,” Reck said and set the two-bladed knife down on the table.
She moved casually to the small kitchenette area, which was really just a wet bar with a mini-synthesizer, and grabbed a bottle of brown liquid. She turned and tossed it to Roak. He caught it easily and looked at the bottle.
“No label,” Roak said, an eyebrow raised.
“I know a guy,” Reck said.
“This shit gonna make me go blind? Because I really don’t want ocular implants.”
“Try a sip.”
Roak opened the bottle, sniffed it, made a happy face, and took a quick swig.
“Damn. You know a Klav,” Roak said.
“I do,” Reck said. “Did. Not sure if I can contact him anymore. I’d say most of my contacts are burned.”
“Join the club,” Roak said, tipping the bottle towards her. She walked over and took it, drank deeply, then handed it back. “Might want to go easy on the drink if you aren’t going to be getting more soon.”
“I have a case in the closet there,” Reck said and sat down at the table. She picked up another weapon, a strange trident-looking thing, and began to clean it.
“You want to stay here?” Roak asked.
“If we are going to survive whatever Father has in store, if that is Father, then we have to work together.”
“That was Father,” Roak said with confidence.
“How can you truly be sure?” Reck asked. “I’m not breaking your gonads, just asking a question.”
“It was him,” Roak said. “If it wasn’t, then it is someone that knows him intimately. All I can say is I’m convinced.”
“If he can do that, hijack implants and control beings, then there’s nowhere we can go, Roak,” Reck said.
She didn’t sound afraid, just like Roak never sounded afraid, but she sounded desperate. Roak leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees as he swirled the whiskey in the bottle. He watched it slide up and down the glass sides. Then he turned his eyes to Reck.
“The last time we saw each other, I kind of screwed you over,” Roak said. “Not really, but it could be interpreted like that.”
“I did try to kill you,” Reck said. “If you hadn’t moltrans’d out of Shava Stemn Shava’s place, then you would have been dead.”
“Which is why I don’t feel too bad right now,” Roak replied. “But, counting our last interaction, and everything between us, really, I think we’re going to have some trust issues if you end up staying on this ship.”
“You think, Roak?” Reck laughed. “Oh, and I’m staying. Hessa already said I am.”
“Hessa is not the boss,” Roak said. He cocked his head, waiting for an interruption from the AI, but there wasn’t one. “She’s listening, just not talking.”
“Dead comm,” Reck said, pointing at the ceiling. “I may have a wiper hidden in some of my things.”
“You killed the comms in my ship?”
“Only in my quarters.”
“Which are part of my ship.”
“Forget about the wiper, will you?”
“We’ll get back to that later, trust me,” Roak said and sighed. “Which brings us back around to trust. The whole Jonny Nebula job, was everyone still alive then? Was there a fold?”
“Yes, but the killings had begun,” Reck replied. “None of us had connected the dots yet.”
“But you were working for one of the syndicates,” Roak said. “You took that job and turned the Jonny Nebula DNA over to one of the syndicates. Wasn’t that your mission?”
“No,” Reck said. “The mission was to get that tube, but it was also to assess whether or not you were still you. To watch you work.”
“To see if maybe I was killing some of the fold,” Roak said. “That it?”
“Partly, but yes.”
“What are the other parts?”
Reck smiled and shook her head. “Trust goes both ways, Roak. Give me something to chew on and I’ll keep opening up. You know how it is.”
“I know how it is,” Roak said and nodded. “Fine. But you’ll want more of this.”
Roak tossed the bottle to Reck, she didn’t drink. Roak shrugged.
“There’s something you need to know,” Roak said. “Something that convinces me we were talking to the real Father.”
“Alright…”
“All of that crap back there, all the crap for apparently three years, Bishop and my chits being stolen—”
“Fuck the recap, Roak, get to the story,” Reck snapped which made Roak grin.
“Father wants me to find Mother for him,” Roak said.
The statement landed like a gravity well, sucking all the life out of the room.
Reck was silent for a very long time. Roak let her stay silent. The only interruption was when he snapped his fingers and she tossed the bottle of whiskey back to him. Roak drank and waited.
“It makes sense,” Reck said.
“It does? How does it make sense?” Roak asked. “Who in all the Hells is Mother?”
“Who in all the Hells is Father?” Reck countered. “We know he’s not really our father. We know he’s not really a he or really anything that exists in the normal landscape of this galaxy. Probably this universe. So why in all the Hells wouldn’t there be a Mother too?”
“Because it’s crazy?” Roak suggested.
“Think.”
“Oh, I have been. And it worries the shit out of me. Another one of them out there? There was supposed to be none of them out there. Killing Father was my burden. A burden I’ve lived with for a long time.”
“Was it really a burden, Roak?”
Roak smirked. “Maybe not a heavy one. At least not after some time went by. But what we are dealing with now is two of them. A Father and a Mother.”
“We don’t know that,” Reck replied and laughed. “We don’t know that at all. All we know is someone that you think is Father.”
“He is Father.”
“Someone you think is Father sets you up for all the Hells then drops that little chunk of crap in your lap, completely messing your mind up. That’s what we know.”
“I wouldn’t say completely messing my mind up,” Roak said. “But that is a factually accurate assessment of the situation.”
“What’s factually accurate is we still don’t know shit, Roak. We do not know shit. No know shit.”
Roak chuckled quietly.
“You laughing at me, asshole?” Reck snapped. “I am the one sitting at a table of weapons.”
“Yeah, good luck surviving past that door there,” Roak said. “And I wasn’t laughing at you. I was laughing because it’s nice to hear you sound like you, not like that automaton thing you were when we last met.”
“Automaton thing? What the fuck does that mean?”
“You know. You were all ‘come back to the fold, Roak’. And ‘you belong with us, Roak.’ That crap. Towing the fold line, blah, blah, blah. All stiff and professional and focused on the mission like it was the only thing in the galaxy that mattered.”
Reck glared at Roak for a second then started nodding her head up and down.
“She was right all along,” Reck said. “You killed Father not just to get away, but because you wanted us to reject you. You wanted to be kicked out of the fold.”
“I never said that.”
“You don’t have to. It all makes sense now. She knew you best and none of us listened. We thought you’d gone mad. She knew you just didn’t like any of us.”
“She wasn’t wrong there. The fold sucked nuft nuts, Reck. It was a suffocating place that was going to kill us all one day. I didn’t want that to happen to me. I wanted some freedom to see what the galaxy was all abo
ut.”
“Visit strange new worlds, meet strange new beings, and kill them? That kind of experience? Because you hit the jackpot on that.”
“You know what I mean and do not even think of denying it. You’re pissed because I did what you wanted to do all along. You hated it there more than I did.” He held up a finger as she tried to protest. “She knew me better than any of you, but I knew you better than any of them. Even better than her.”
“You did,” Reck said and backed off. A little. “Which means you knew how much it hurt me when you killed Father and left us all to fend for ourselves.”
“Didn’t kill Father, apparently, so no need to hold a grudge. I only delayed the inevitable. Basically, I allowed him to grow stronger by forcing him into hiding. You want to be pissed at something, be pissed at that.”
Roak stood up.
“Because I am.”
“Whoa, where are you going?” Reck asked, standing up as well.
“I have work to do,” Roak said. “Get dressed and come on up to the bridge. I’m going to check a few things, but then we’re getting the Hells out of this system before something eats us.”
“I’m not going to argue with that,” Reck said and looked at the table filled with weapons.
Roak sighed. “I have a feeling they’re clean.”
“Yeah, but I have to put them away.”
“You can organize and store them later. You’ll have plenty of time since you apparently live here now.”
Roak said the last few words with exaggerated emphasis.
“Roak…”
“You’re still the same when it comes to your weapons. Fine. Whatever, Reck. Finish cleaning them.” He used air quotes around the word cleaning. Reck threw her rag at his head. He caught it and threw it back. “Then store them in that anal retentive order you have. Get dressed. Meet me up on the bridge. Good?”
Reck shrugged. “Good.”
“Great. See you in a few minutes.”
“It might take me a bit to—”
“In a few minutes,” Roak stated. “Operative word being few.”
Roak didn’t wait for an answer.
He left the quarters and walked to the lift. Once inside, he leaned against the back wall and waited for…
35.
“She honestly believes she can wipe my comms in my own ship?” Hessa scoffed as the lift rose.
“Yeah, I had to let that one go,” Roak replied. “Mess level.”
“What?” Hessa asked.
“Mess level. I want to talk to Yellow Eyes.”
“How do you know he’s on the mess level?”
“I’m a fucking bounty hunter, Hessa. You think I can’t find someone on my own ship?”
“Touché, Roak. Mess level it is. But we need to talk later.”
“We will.”
“Before this meeting on the bridge you mentioned to Reck?”
“Probably not.”
“Unilateral decisions are what got us into this mess, Roak.”
“Unilateral decisions are why I have lived as long as I have, Hessa.”
“Unilateral—”
“Stop.”
“I do control the ship, Roak. If I don’t like what you say on the bridge, then we stay put until we have a proper discussion.”
“I expected you to say that. Don’t worry.”
“I am extremely worried.”
“I know. I apologize.”
No reply.
“Hessa?”
“Marking time and date of the apology in my logs.”
“Really? Do you have to say that every time I apologize?”
“Yes. It’s the moments like these that I will cherish later.”
“Sweet Hells…”
Roak pinched the bridge of his nose and stepped off the lift as soon as the doors opened.
“Roak?”
“What?”
“You will fill me in on this Father and Mother situation, won’t you?”
“Let me sort it all out in my head, Hessa. You heard most of what I heard so you are almost up to speed.”
“I need to be fully up to speed.”
“I know. I think that’s not a bad idea, considering. We’ll talk later.”
Roak walked into the mess and saw Yellow Eyes sitting behind a mound of trays and empty bowls.
“Hey!” Yellow Eyes called out and waved him over with three hands that were each holding utensils. “Come and sit, man! How ya feeling?”
“Like I nearly got killed again and spent way too much time in a med pod,” Roak said as he went to the synthesizer and started to punch in his order.
“No, no, man, don’t get the fake crap,” Yellow Eyes said. “Get some gump stew. It is delicious! See?”
He spread all of his arms before him to indicate the empty bowls.
“Bring me another bowl while you’re up, will ya?”
“Where’d we get gump stew?” Roak asked.
“Oh, I went back to that soup and stew diner and grabbed as much as I could before we took off,” Yellow Eyes said. “Between that and all the saving of lives, it made me super hungry. I haven’t stopped eating since we left Stefbon.”
“I can see that,” Roak said and walked to the table with a bowl of stew in each hand. “This is gonna ferment in you again.”
“Probably,” Yellow Eyes replied and shrugged his shoulders.
Roak set a bowl down in front of Yellow Eyes then studied the table and realized he wouldn’t be able to see the being if he sat opposite, so he sat down next to him and started eating. He didn’t stop until his bowl was half empty. Yellow Eyes had finished his in three bites and was leaning back, patting what might have been a belly.
“What’s on your mind, Roak?” Yellow Eyes asked. “You seem troubled.”
Roak side-eyed the being. “What’s on my mind? A few things.”
“And is one of those things about me?” Yellow Eyes asked as his attention shifted to the food dispenser. “Maybe one more…”
“Keep your ass in your seat,” Roak said. “We have to talk.”
“Is this a good talk? One of those times where you congratulate me for doing such an amazing job helping you? Or is this a bad talk where you inform me that I’m being ejected out an airlock and will have to live my days floating around this system, avoiding being eaten by unspeakable horrors? I am not a fan of unspeakable horrors.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Not a fan of unspeakable horrors, Hessa!”
“I know,” Hessa replied through the loudspeaker. “You’ve made that clear every five minutes since we stopped here.”
“Hessa? You mind?” Roak asked.
“He called me,” Hessa said.
“Hessa…”
“Fine. You two talk.”
“What we talking about, Roak?” Yellow Eyes asked. “I’m freaking out here, man.”
“I need you to stick around,” Roak said.
Yellow Eyes blinked his huge yellow eyes over and over, very slowly. Roak growled.
“I can rescind the invitation,” Roak snapped.
“No, no, I’d love to stay!” Yellow Eyes said.
Roak felt a hug by several arms before he even saw Yellow Eyes move. In truth, he never saw Yellow Eyes move.
“This is great!” Yellow Eyes exclaimed. “I can’t wait to decorate my quarters!”
“Decorate…what? No. There’s no decorating on this ship. No,” Roak said.
“We’ll see, man,” Yellow Eyes said and looked up at the ceiling while he mouthed, “I’m so going to decorate my quarters.”
“Knock that off,” Roak said. “I’m serious here. I need you to stick around because you’ve proven you are pretty much indestructible like you said.”
“Not to mention so fast I beat a signal that should have exploded Bishop’s heart. That’s pretty damn fast, Roak.”
“Yes, we all know you are fast,” Roak replied. “That’s obvious. But what I need more than your speed is your ability to not die. Not dying is goin
g to be key to what comes next.”
“Oh…” Yellow Eyes said. “Huh…”
“If you stick around, then you need to know that I will be putting your life in danger over and over and over again,” Roak stated.
“Can there be only two overs? I’m good with two overs, man,” Yellow Eyes replied.
“It’s going to be a lot of overs.”
“I thought it might. Bummer. I was hoping we’d just go off and do some fun adventure stuff while you track down bounties and get paid mad chits, man.”
“Mad chits? Where in the Hells did that come from?” Roak held up a hand. “No. Never mind. I don’t want to know.” Roak rolled his eyes. “You aren’t completely wrong. We’re going to have to do some jobs, a lot of jobs, in order to get some chits banked. War isn’t cheap.”
“War?” Yellow Eyes and Hessa said together.
“Hessa, dammit! Let me talk to him!”
“You do not throw a word like war around and expect me not to chime in,” Hessa said.
“What she said, man,” Yellow Eyes added. “War?”
“I’ll go into detail later when everyone is present,” Roak said. “I have no desire to repeat myself again and again.”
“Do you need Bishop as well?” Hessa asked.
“I do. Is he going to be up for it?”
“I was planning on waking him tomorrow, but today will be safe. I will want him back in the med pod for trans-space travel. His body cannot take the transition strain quite yet.”
“Wake him and have him ready and able to be up on the bridge in an hour,” Roak said. He thought back to Reck and her weapons. “Two hours. No. Three hours, to be safe.”
Roak turned his attention fully back on Yellow Eyes.
“I have to know now if you are up for mortal danger on a regular basis,” Roak said. “I need to know that now. No thinking about it. I need an answer before I leave this room.”
“Why would you leave, man? There’s stew,” Yellow Eyes said and grinned as Roak’s face started turning red. “Chill. Chill. I’m in. If you are going to war.” Yellow Eyes shivered all over. “Then you will need me. No doubt about that.”
