by Nick Webb
“It’s Crash,” he replied, noticing the incredulous look Jake shot him. “No really, man. Crash Jackson. Pleased to meet you.” He held his hand out to Ben, who gripped it firmly and nodded. Crash turned back to Jake. “You’re telling me that you spent our whole year and a half together on the Viper squad thinking that Crash was my callsign?”
“It was your callsign. You crashed your bird on the flight deck your first time out, right?”
“Wrong. People called me Crash because it was my name, and then everyone assumed it was my callsign.” He looked at Jake askance. “You really think I’d crash my bird, Shotgun?”
That’s how everyone gets their callsign,” said Jake, shaking his head in amazement, and embarrassment. How could he go nearly two years and not know his best friend’s name? “Everyone does something stupid, and their buddies slap a dumbass name on their back.”
Ben interrupted, looking quizzically at Jake, “Yeah? So where does Shotgun come from?”
“Uh, well, you know. I’m a straight shooter and all that.…”
Ben didn’t look convinced. “Straight shooting from a shotgun?”
Crash burst into a deep belly laugh. “Let me tell you the story, man,” he said, resting an arm on the shoulder of a grinning Ben Jemez. “We’re in a bar, just like this, down in Miami one weekend, and he’s got a girl on each arm, drunk as a monkey and happier than a dog with two dicks, when in burst this wacko with his twelve gauge, yelling his head off. Seems his wife was sleepin’ around, and he saw Jake enter the fine establishment and mistook him for the guy screwing his wife.” Crash paused and closed his eyes tight, a wheezing noise escaping his nose—his trademark uncontrollable laughter. He was laughing so hard Jake hoped that his friend wouldn’t be able to finish the story.
“And? What did he do?” Ben eagerly asked for more—Jake had always declined to tell him the story of the birth of his callsign.
Crash took a deep, labored breath. “He shoots once into the air, and immediately he’s tackled by MPs, it being a bar right next to the base there in Doral. They hauled the guy off, and Jake here doesn’t even skip a beat with his lady friends and invites them for a ride in his bird, saying it wasn’t safe there anymore or some shit like that.”
Ben stared at Jake. “You took civilians up in your fighter? What the hell were you doing with it down in Miami, anyway? You were stationed at Eglin!”
“Longer story,” said Jake, waving him off as he was trying to listen in on the conversation behind him. Two loud, foul-mouthed construction technicians were arguing, and Jake had heard a name that stuck out to him.
Pritchard.
One of the voices continued. “Yeah, Admiral Pritchard himself. On the Fury. That’s what my buddy said, anyway. The little fucker blasted the orbital station with everything he had for over five minutes—”
His friend cut him off. “But everyone knows Pritchard is dead. The Novembers killed him. They say the Resistance High Council is actually thrilled, since he’s become such a damn lightning-rod.”
“Lightning rod my ass,” the clearly drunk man slurred, slurping another swig of beer. “He was a traitor, along with every other ass-wipe Resistance fighter. Fucking traitors.”
Jake started to turn, but Ben placed a hand on his shoulder, giving his friend the barest hint of a head shake. Jake grit his teeth.
“Good thing the empire took out Dallas, or they’d still be running around acting like they owned the place. When I saw that on the vids that day … best day of my life. I sat down, grabbed some popcorn, and watched the whole thing. Thought I was going to get a replay of Belen, when they got their whole planet nuked. Fucking Terrans. They’ve always thought they were better than us outworlders.”
The friend made a rude noise. “Whatever, man. Even you’re not that big of a prick. I—”
“Hey,” the man said, in the half-whispered, half-slurred voice of a drunk man trying to be subtle, but failing utterly. “Watch this.”
Jake couldn’t help but glance over his right shoulder. A waitress walked past the table behind him. She yelped and dropped the tray she was carrying. The bottles crashed to the floor, spraying the legs and feet of nearby patrons and the men at the table behind Jake laughed.
“Hey little honeybuns. I’ve got a nice thick sausage here for you,” the man said, reaching back to grab at the waitress’s rear-end again.
“Excuse me, gentlemen.” Jake turned around and walked over to the men, still in their technician’s uniforms and filthy from grease, grime, and the black marks of torch weld burns. Their drunk-red faces wandered up to his. “I couldn’t help but overhear your comments to our wonderful server.”
The man who’d groped the waitress grinned, and stood up. And up. He towered at least half a foot over Jake, and his arms looked as if he’d single-handedly shaped the NPQR Phoenix out of a solitary piece of steel.
“And?” He looked from Jake down to his still-seated buddy, and burst into a bellowing laugh.
Jake took a step forward, trying not to limp as he put weight on his still tender sprain. “And, I suggest you apologize to her, and then take your leave of this fine establishment.”
The man stopped laughing, but leaned down, breathing his fetid, sickly-sweet alcoholic breath into Jake’s face as he replied. “Make me.” He glanced down at Jake’s uniform, seeing the insignia representing his service in the Resistance Space Fleet. “Or are you too much of a coward?”
Ben leaned over to Jake’s shoulder and mumbled, “Careful, Shotgun,” but as he looked into his friend’s eye, Jake saw the signal—the look. The look that said Ben had his friend’s back.
Good old Ben.
“You know what?” Jake began, starting to walk past the unshaven drunk, “I think I’ll just start walking this way,” he inclined his head toward the exit, watching as the man kept his bloodshot eyes locked on Jake’s.
“That’s right, coward. And keep walking!” He glanced at the waitress who had knelt down to clean up the mess with her rag, leering as he thrust a hip in her direction.
And suddenly he was on the ground, his feet swept out from under him by a powerful kick of Ben’s leg, and before the man knew what had happened Jake started kicking him in the face, in the groin, in the stomach—any target he could find, kicking as hard as he could, knowing that if he didn’t end the fight then and there, he would lose it, being in no condition to fight with a half-broken arm and a sprained ankle.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed at the edge of his awareness that Ben had one of the other men, still seated, in a choke-hold, and Crash loomed menacingly over the other two, eyeing them with as much malice as he could muster. But all Jake could think to do was kick.
And kick.
The drunk’s face was a misshapen, bloody mess, and he held his crotch in one hand and his broken nose in the other, but still Jake kicked.
The waitress grabbed his arm. “Honey, he ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
He stopped, his chest heaving from the effort. Crash nodded at Jake. “You good, buddy?” and all he could do was nod in response. The man on the floor groaned, and cursed, and spit out a tooth, but did not get up.
Ben released his blue-faced thrall, shoving his head forward as he stepped away, before smoothing out his uniform and running a hand through his perfectly gelled brown hair.
Jake leaned down to the man, who now held his face in his hands. “I believe you owe our friend here an apology.”
“Fuck you.”
“Well, in that case,” Jake swung his foot back.
“Sorry! Okay? Fuck. Sorry,” he said, without even looking at the waitress.
“It’s ok, honey, I get it all the time,” the waitress reassured Jake, patting him on the arm as she left.
Ben tapped his wrist again, indicating the time, and Jake straightened his uniform as he followed his friend out after saying his goodbye to Crash.
“Shit, Jake, did you have to maul him?” Ben walked fast, without even looking back.<
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“If I didn’t, he’d have gotten up, and I’d be in a world of hurt. Today’s my first day on the Phoenix, and we can’t have that.”
“World of hurt my ass. You know I would have stopped him,” said Ben in a self-assured voice. Jake laughed inside, marveling at his friend’s hyper-developed sense of confidence. As a youth, his doting parents had enrolled him in every class they could find, seeking to give their prodigy every advantage, and that included training with world class specialists in combat—MMA, jiu-jitzu, even fencing. Not to mention all the extra summer science classes, math competitions, and robotics courses. Yeah, Ben was a real renaissance man.
“I had to win. On my own,” said Jake.
“With a little help from me, of course.”
“Of course.” He grinned. “Thanks for that.”
Ben glared at him. “Yeah, thanks to you too—we’re ten minutes late.”
With a laugh, Jake shot back, “Don’t worry, Manuel, I’m sure you’ll be Captain Watson’s favorite no matter what you do.”
***
Captain Titus stood indecisively at the ready room door, listening to the crashing, pounding sounds from the space beyond the door. More heavy metal, this one with more powerful harmonic tones, Titus noted, picking out the perfect fifths climbing higher, then lower as a voice croaked out some irreverent lyrics.
He took a deep breath and opened the door, and almost wished he hadn’t.
Admiral Trajan stood in the middle of the room, eye closed, holding what looked to be a guitar, with some sort of acoustic amplifier attached. His left fingers grasped the neck and his fingers slid along the strings, pressing them down to the frets in pulsing, rhythmic motions as his right hand beat on the strings. Music from some nameless band sounded over the speakers, and the Admiral played along with them, only occasionally missing a beat or straying from a chord.
The music stopped. Trajan opened his eye. “Captain. Good, you’re here.”
“I didn’t know you play, sir.”
“I play all instruments, Captain.”
Titus did a double take. “All of them, sir?”
Trajan fixed Titus with a steely, cold glare. “All of them,” he repeated. “My father insisted.”
Captain Titus almost felt sorry for him, before he remembered who he was dealing with—one of the most feared and respected military tacticians of the age, and possessed of a fiery, merciless temper. At least, so the rumors went—Captain Titus had yet to see any evidence of the sort.
“I see, sir. Very admirable.” He wandered over to the wall, examining the pair of pipes displayed as a cross, their bells intertwining around each other at the top to form almost a skull shape.
“The Panreh pipes. Very popular on the continent of Panreh, on Fijiaan, a world in the Vitari sector.”
“They look like blowpipes, almost,” said Captain Titus.
“Yes, they do, don’t they? The people on Panreh were ruled for over a hundred years by the people of the other continent of Fijiian, and being both a highly musical people and one that valued its freedom, they modified their main instrument into a blowpipe into which thick darts the size of your thumb could be inserted. The darts, of course, were dipped in the most deadly of poisons. Death follows quite quickly after being pricked.”
“Did it work? Did the people of Panreh free themselves?” Titus didn’t know the Admiral was a galactic historian as well.
“Not at first. Their enemies crushed them with a brutal hand. But early on in the conflict the leader of the oppressors was invited to a concert by the people over whom he ruled, as an offering of peace. Halfway through the concert, the player of the Panreh pipes aimed at the governor’s head and blew. The dart sunk right into his forehead, killing him almost instantly, and the player kept right on with his performance. The music was so beautiful, they say, that no one even got up to help the governor until after the final note had played.”
Titus stared at the pipes, unsure of whether to believe the story or not. Societies out on the peripheral worlds tended to descend rather quickly into folklore and magical tales. “And the player? What happened to him?”
“The story ends there. I doubt it is true. Nevertheless, the pipes were used as both an instrument of music, and an instrument of death.” Admiral Trajan continued his strumming of the guitar, his voice sounding more distant as he listened closely to the music in the background. After another moment the music stopped, and Captain Titus noticed that the Admiral had flipped the music off and set down the guitar.
“And you, Titus? Any musical talent?” The icy stare softened, and Admiral Trajan turned to the console to bring up a schematic.
“Viola, sir, but only when I was young. I played in our academy orchestra when I was a teenager.”
“Corsica, correct?” The Admiral, of course, would have studied the backgrounds of all his senior officers in excruciating detail, but Titus supposed he was making polite conversation.
“Yes, sir. Born and raised in the heart of the pax humana.”
“Then you are lucky, indeed. I, however, was born on Hadrian’s World. Do you know it?”
“A mining colony, if I’m remembering correctly, sir.”
“You are. And not just any mining colony. Hadrian’s World is actually a giant chunk of metal orbiting the smallest gas giant of an average star in the Hades sector. Nearly one percent of it is gold. The rest is tungsten, uranium, silver, palladium—all the other usually precious metals.”
“That must have been nice, sir, living in a place rich with precious metals. I’d imagine the streets are pretty clean there,” said Titus, trying to make a joke. It was clear from Trajan’s expression that the attempt fell flat.
“Then you would be imagining wrong. You’ve been to Praetoria—the seat of the empire of Corsica. You’ve seen the golden city, where the skyscrapers, the streets, even the dumpsters are overlaid with gold to satisfy the emperor’s and the aristocracy’s fancy. Hadrian’s World is indeed the treasure chest of the Empire, but its inhabitants enjoy none of it. Our streets? Paved with chemical-infused waste tailings from mining operations. And my father, seeking to ensure a future for me that did not involve digging metal out of the ground, forced me to play music. All day long. Every day. With no food or water until I had mastered whatever lesson he had given me for the day, under threat of extreme punishment, until I was sixteen years old.” He paused, glancing up at him, grinning ever so slightly. “Do you know what I did then?”
“No, sir.”
The solitary eye returned to the console, and the Admiral pressed a few more buttons.
“I killed him.”
“Sir?” Titus couldn’t help the look of horror that he was sure spread over his face.
“I jest, Captain. What boy could kill his own father?” Titus had no answer to that, and said nothing. He wondered if it was truly a jest.
The Admiral continued, “No, Captain. I left. I snuck onto the first freighter I could find after my sixteenth birthday, and I left Hadrian’s World, and I have never returned. Nor do I plan to.”
“Yes, sir.”
Admiral Trajan drew himself up to his full height and turned around to face him again. “Now then, Captain. The freighter arrived moments ago filled with the minerals promised to us, did it not? And we sent the promised oxygen tank?”
“Correct, sir.”
“Good. Detain the crew of the freighter. Be discrete. Arrange for our security chief to take them to the holding cells on deck fifteen, the ones right next to the shuttle bay, and keep them there for the next several days. Do not let them see anyone in an imperial uniform. In fact, have the security chief change into a Resistance uniform before he escorts them to the brig. Tell the freighter’s crew that when we release them, they will be making a delivery for us to the Terran system. Understood?” He turned back to the console as he waited for Titus’s answer, and retrieved a data pad plugged into the terminal.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then give these
instructions to our chief engineer. Mr. Lombardi. He has a background in chemical engineering, does he not? Take this, and hand deliver it to him. Show it to no one, and tell him not to print it off, or to connect this data pad to any terminal. After he has read the orders and the accompanying material, he is to commit it to memory. You will stay with him for as long as it takes for him to memorize it, ensuring that the pad never leaves your sight. After he hands the pad back to you, he is to have a security escort stand guard on the fighter bay, where he will do his work. He is to speak to no one. Not to his engineers, not to the security officers, not to you. When your task is complete, incinerate the pad. Do not read it. Do not just throw it in any trash incinerator receptacle, but personally carry it to waste management on deck twenty-nine, and put it in an incinerator yourself, visually confirming its complete destruction.” He took a deep breath. “And tell no one of these orders. Understood, Captain?”
How very odd.
“Understood, Captain?”
“Fully, sir.”
Trajan took a step towards Titus, coming face to face with the man. Titus willed himself not to flinch as he stared directly into the Admiral’s eye socket. “Captain, this is perhaps the most critical part of our mission. Fail at this, and I will be most disappointed. Do exactly as I tell you, and the Resistance will be ancient history within the month.” The Admiral placed the data pad into the Captain’s outstretched hand.
The man was certainly ambitious, he thought. But he only said, “Yes, sir,” and seeing the Admiral lazily salute, he nodded, spun on his heel, and walked out the door.
All the tales of the legendary war stories and tactics of the Admiral danced around in his head as he walked down the hallway to the elevator, and he fought off the temptation to look at the pad.
What in the world could he be up to?
***
“Lieutenant Commander Mercer. Lieutenant Commander Jemez.” Captain Watson saluted, standing at stiff attention. Jake and Ben mirrored him.
