Black Hull

by Joseph A. Turkot

  “No—not at all, you want to give me a little more?”

  “You know where the thruster shut-down switch is, in the engine room?”

  “Yea.”

  “Okay. You shut them down. So we’re gliding. Then, rotate the thrusters.”

  “Rotate them?”

  “Spin them the fuck around. So they’re pointing backwards.”

  “The main thrusters backwards?”

  “Yea, and then turn them on. Then watch your head. I’m going full burn.”

  “We’ll fall out of the sky,” Axa said.

  “Damn right, and while we’re spinning, I’m going to blow this bounty hunter apart. Or would you rather go to the UCA Penitentiary?”

  “Ok, got it,” Mick said.

  He unstrapped himself and ran to the engine room. He found a grid of switches and knobs, and finally, the main thruster switch. Under a panel was a wide knob that rotated different parts of the wing and thrusters. He found one knob under a separate panel that rotated the entire main thruster.

  “Ready?” Mick asked over intership com.

  “Yea, now.”

  He punched the button and the roar of the engines stopped. He cranked the knob hard. In the cold silence of space, the main thrusters wheeled around one hundred and eighty degrees, pointing in the opposite direction of the ship’s momentum.

  “Cover your head!” Sera called.

  Mick brought his hands up but couldn’t shield himself in time. He flew against the jagged edge of a metal bracket and slammed to the floor, then rolled hard into a wall, then back against the opposite wall. The last thing he heard before falling unconscious was Axa’s violent screams.

  The Fogstar spun violently, stalled, then dropped underneath the pursuing light-class. The golden disc of Glisreel whipped in and out of view every few seconds. The dot of the bounty ship appeared and disappeared with the planet every two seconds as the Fogstar violently rotated. Sera pulled hard on the firing rod and hit the release button, launching twin rockets.

  A cloud of smoke and light flashed repetitively on the viewscreen.

  “You got them!” Axa yelled, half-sick.

  “We’re fucked in ways that I can’t cure, so don’t get too excited. We’ve got a taint. They won’t stop coming now. I’m afraid we’re officially on the run.”

  “We’ve got to get away from Glisreel. I knew it was a bad idea coming here. Where can we go?”

  Sera looked around her cockpit, two familiar faces missing: “Back.”

  43

  “Are you sure you want out? Are you certain?” said Carner, braced by his cane.

  A red desert wind blew waves of sand at his weathered face. He held up his forearm to shield himself. Sera winked. Tears from the wind, or sadness, dried on her cheek. Carner sensed from where her sadness had come, but he had already decided he would help her, and cause it to endure.

  “I’ve been sure for a year now. I should be asking you—are you sure they’re still alive?”

  “I’ve made all the arrangements, my niece. It’s for you that my generous coffers that have kept them from shipping into Grave Orbit. It pains me to see you go this way. Your dad wouldn’t have wanted it.”

  She squinted at him.

  “You’re going to give me that? Dad never talked to you because of the horror you put on our name, and you’re going to throw that on me?”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I never could pretend to be an upstanding man, not in this universe we live in. The age of principled living, sweetness and light, has long forsaken humanity.” The old man laughed, reflecting upon his wasted youth.

  She took a set of ship keys from her uncle.

  “Go to the hospital. FOD will be there. He will take the bodies. He’ll get you out of military reach. He’ll get you the circ mods.”

  “I’ll pay you back for all of this.”

  “Sure you will, kid. Sure you will.”

  “Did you get good droids?”

  “No—they’re shit. You’re going to have to live with that. They won’t be your father and brother, not anymore.”

  “When I get an expancapacitor rig they will.”

  “Don’t count on that. You’d do better getting to Utopia,” he laughed.

  “You think?”

  “It was a joke. That place is a scam. The universe runs on bullshit—didn’t your father teach you that?”

  “Tell me straight—will it work?”

  “If you get a rig, sure it will. But you’d better pay me back first, or FOD will have my head and yours shortly after. Pay me before you go hunting for rigs, understand?”

  “That’s all I need to know. How much time do I have before UCM knows I’m AWOL?”

  “Two, maybe three days tops. But FOD will take care of that. Are you sure I can’t convince you to change your mind? Hell, what’s the difference—go to Utopia—maybe it’s not bullshit. It’ll be a hell of a lot safer than getting involved with FOD. God knows how you’ll get an expancapacitor rig—killing a trickler is an autotaint, even with the best circ mod.”

  Sera paused in the roar of a sandstorm wind. It died down, but she didn’t speak—she looked starward, deep in thought.

  “You’re going lawless, and I can support you in that, but don’t let me hear you’re getting a reputation, got me?”

  “Principled living is gone? Wouldn’t know it by what you’re asking. You seem to care about what happens to me.”

  “My brother and me aside, I always loved you. I know what happens to people when they go rogue. I don’t want to see you—don’t want to hear about you drowning in what’s out there on the other side of the law. There’re things out there worse than death, you know.”

  “I didn’t tell you what happened that night.”

  “And there’s no need to,” Carner said. He hobbled close, and for the first time she could remember, Sera felt his touch.

  “It was my fault.”

  “Ain’t fault in this universe to be placed anywhere but the creator’s stirring hand!” snapped Carner.

  “It was. I drowned Teddy. My father drowned getting to us.”

  “You were on a fringe world. You drown on a regular world, your plant goes off. An ambo-ship will scoop you up, have you revived an hour after you die. On a fringe planet—hell—you’re lucky an ambo came that same day. It’s not your fault. It’s a lottery, that’s all; that’s all anything is.”

  “I could have said no, I could have told him I wanted to stay in bed.”

  “Well you choose that guilt then. You can take it with you right off this planet too, ‘cause I don’t want it here,” he released his arm, returned to his cold, distant self.

  “I’m going. Thanks.”

  “You’ll be just fine. When you start needing work, come and see me. Maybe I’ll get along with Theodore just fine, being that he’ll be mounted on an XJ71. Maybe he and I’ll have fine amends together that way. Life works like that.”

  “XJ71?”

  “FOD isn’t cheap. That’s the best I can do for you.”

  Liar. He has the money. There are other reasons he’d keep my father a half-version of himself.

  Sera looked at the light-class ship her uncle had secured for her. Its metal gleamed under red starlight, its bow windows repelling the rushing sand.

  “What’s he like—FOD?”

  “I’ve never met the man. He’s a ghost. A real villain. But I’ll tell you this—he never fails a job he’s been paid to do. And there aren’t many jobs he can’t do. Get off this dustbin. I’ve got smugglers coming through. Don’t stay long away from Bessel though. This system’ll make a good home for you. Don’t forget that.”

  “Got it.”

  Sera walked against the wind to her new ship.

  “And remember,” Carner called out, receding into a fog of sand, “promises are not worth shit, ‘cept to act as points of weakness.”

  He knows I promised them. He understands why.

  She raised her hand in farewel
l without turning back and entered the Cozon. The ship launched into space, leaving the only sanctuary in the free universe left to her.

  Into the galaxy; a rogue, a thief, a futureless vagabond, tied inextricably to the scum of the universe, all for a promise made out of guilt and love.

  44

  A man in a navy blue uniform, countless emblems of honor emblazoned across his chest, looked down at Mick. He lay upon a gurney, ready to be slid into a room-large white tube. The officer looked placidly at his apprentice:

  “Mick, I know you’ve signed the papers, but I’ve got to ask you this out of necessity, for my own conscience. Hell, I’ve asked every cadet to come through FRINGE, so here it is: Are you sure you want to do this?”

  Mick laughed. He’d been training for the rewire for six months.

  How is he going to ask me this now? It’s got to be a joke.

  Mick surveyed the old man, looking for a smile, or some sign of the comedy. There was no trace of one.

  “God damn Commander. What the hell are you doing? Why freak me out now that I’ve come this far? I’m nervous enough.”

  “This is going to change things. It’s going to change you,” the mild tone of Commander Reynolds replied.

  “I’ve read the papers, been through the class. I know the statistics.”

  “The statistics are bullshit. Seventy percent you read? That’s propaganda. It’s everyone. Everyone who goes through this.”

  Thanks for the vote of confidence asshole.

  “You seem okay to me, Commander,” Mick smiled.

  “Sure, it wears off over time—by time I mean decades. Enough years for you to have a productive career as a FRINGE operative. By the time you get to my age, you’ll feel it in pieces, in flares, once in a while. But for until then, there’ll be hell at home, I can assure you of that.”

  A vision of Karen flashed before Mick’s eyes. Their baby boy stared brightly with his father’s eyes. Her bulging stomach, their second unborn child. Their shared dream of happiness.

  “Karen and I talked it over. We’re ready to work through it. She supports me.”

  “It doesn’t matter one bit if she supports you, or if you think you know what you’re getting into because you took a class on it. The rewire spits you out a different person—a machine useful to FRINGE, but of no use planetside, in the home, in a family.”

  “So what? You’re serious? You want me to bail now, as it’s about to start?”

  “Yea. Because I don’t think you want to split up your family. I think you’ve got a good thing.”

  “What do you expect me to do?” Mick said, anger encroaching on him, the shadow of his eventual rage. “Just leave? The last four years of my life wasted, and go drive a crane?”

  “We can put you in the UCA police. My son’s heading that way.”

  “I know he is. And he told me how awfully boring his life will be.”

  “We can get you a desk job—you have the brain for one. FRINGE planetside detail. Even orbital sergeant isn’t out of the realm of possibility.”

  “Hah,” Mick chuckled. “Can you see me behind a desk Commander?”

  The commander looked for a long time at his cadet. “You know, I guess not. You’re going to do the UCA a lot of good.”

  “Thanks,” Mick said, and he closed his eyes.

  “Procedure one, engage. Twenty-five minute circulatory system reduction to near-freeze point,” the commander said over his com to a doctor observing the rewire chamber from a window above.

  “Confirmed for procedure one. Engaging now. Please exit the chamber, Commander.”

  Commander Reynolds saluted Mick and left the room.

  The beauty of life engulfed Mick. He felt free and grateful. He thought of his puppy, Selby.

  What a good boy he is. He always brings me back to center.

  A vision of a night on the sofa with Karen played live in his brain:

  My goddess—how ever could my love for you change? What power of technology could alter our love? I do not believe there is such a power.

  45

  “They’re gone! XJ look!” GR whined.

  “I can see that GR, there’s no need to cause a scene,” XJ said cautiously. He checked the hangar again for the Fogstar, but he knew exactly where they had docked. They had watched the ship fly away—leave without them. “She’ll be back—she wouldn’t abandon us.”

  “Forlorn! The very word is a like a bell to toll me back from thee to my sole-self!” GR ranted, spinning like atop along his waist groove.

  “Again with this poetry nonsense?” XJ disapproved. “You’re making a mountain out of a molehill, GR. She’s coming back. Enough. No more out of you.”

  XJ looked behind them, suspicious of a single soul loitering by the edge of the hangar entrance.

  “Him—what does he want?” XJ asked.

  “He wants to join the tournament.”

  As if he could hear them from one hundred yards away, the black-cloaked man backed into the corridor, hiding himself from their view.

  “What now then?” GR asked. “Back to the booth?”

  “I suppose that’s our only option. She’ll be the more pleased with us if we get the money before she gets back.”

  “Are you positive you can win?” GR asked as they left the former parking spot of the Fogstar.

  “GR—how many times will you ask me that? It doesn’t deserve an answer.”

  The droids bickered, heading toward the exit. They entered a shaded aisle when a man sprang upon them. Blasts rang out before either droid could make a sound. In the fading energy of his blasted circuitry, XJ mustered the energy to speak one question to their hooded assailant:

  “Who—are—you?” he sputtered, the amber light in his eyes flickering.

  “I am the force of darkness,” the man said. Both of the droids’ eyes dimmed and turned off. They were lifeless on the ground. The attacker picked up one leg from each droid and dragged them away. Though neither droid was alive to hear the man, he spoke further to them:

  “And all the things man calls good will perish before my day is ended. For all that humanity has produced, and called good, hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain. And we are here as on a darkling plain swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night.”

  46

  Through acrid smoke, as if rising from a grave, one of Sera’s victims reanimated.

  “Where’d he go? Where’s that tainted motherfucker?” he said, twitching. The innards of his neck, exposed and cauterized from a gun blast, leaked brackish fluid. He reached into his pocket and grabbed a syringe, jabbed it into his thigh, then grunted.

  “They ran off. Three of them,” said a shaky bartender. “I already called it in to the UCA, Graice. You can’t go chasing after them, you need medical attention.”

  Longjaw wiped a glob of blood from his shoulder and threw it to the floor. He looked down at his two dead companions.

  “He’ll pay with his life. They all will.”

  “You’d better not kill them. You want a reward don’t you?” came a voice from the corner of the room. A face poked through the haze.

  “Who the hell are you?” asked Longjaw.

  “A nightmare to those I hunt.”

  “What’s my bounty mean to you?”

  “Half of the reward is mine.”

  “Like hell it is.”

  From the choking cloud stepped a greasy face speckled with black grit and wire. The left side of his face was gone, sunken behind a globe of rubbery flesh. His right eye shined predatory hunger.

  “I know how to get them,” the half-headed man said, licking crusted lips.

  “Bullshit.”

  “I followed them since they landed. They left their droids. They’ll be back.”

  “How do you know they won’t abandon them?”

  “Because I’m tracking the bitch’s taint right now. They’re heading back to por
t, twelve blocks down, at Griswall Station.”

  “Half—and if you’re lying—”

  “Thought you’d come around. I’d do it on my own, but I can’t collect the bounty. No license.”

  “Shut the fuck up and start moving.” Longjaw grabbed another syringe and repeated his injection.

  47

  “You ready?” Sera asked.

  “Sure, why not?” Mick replied.

  “You sure you want me to hang back?” asked Axa.

  Sera looked at her body, wrapped like candy in a bodysuit. “You draw too much attention. Watch the cargo.”

  The Fogstar’s bay door opened. They stepped down into the hissing blue light of Griswall Station.

  “Follow me,” she said. They ran between a row of docked light-classes toward the nearest skyscraper alley.

  “What street was their stand on?”

  “XJ said he’d be hopping all over. We’re going to need a lot of luck.”

  “This might not be worth it—you said you might be tainted. What if they’re tracking you?”

  She stopped and turned to him. “It’s not a question—I am tainted—they are tracking me. And there’s not a damn thing either one of us can do about it.”

  “So why run the risk?”

  It’s her lot or mine now. Every second we stay here fucks my chance to get home even more.