All My Sins Remembered

by Brian Wetherell

  In another shocking move announced scarcely a month later, Hawke announced that the company was drastically downsizing, reducing its workforce by nearly two hundred and fifty thousand, leaving the company with only fifty thousand employees, most of which were experts in all manner of scientific fields. This left only twenty thousand personnel that were made up of pilots, Marines, and other support personnel. Also announced was the commissioning of Heaven’s Gaze, one of the few privately owned capital class ships, a carrier, which would be heavily modified to be used specifically for the purposes of research and exploration. Again the Company’s stocks were bought and sold frantically as nervous investors sold, and excited ones bought, but after it was all said and done, Hawke didn’t care. Not one of the remaining Talons was worried about getting paid. Every last one of them wanted nothing more than to see what was out there, beyond the confines of the four empires, which had all but given up on space exploration, content on their border disputes and petty bickering. They too longed for a better future for mankind.

  “You’re missing your party.” Nathan’s gruff voice interrupted his thoughts. Hawke glanced at Nathan, giving him a weak smile, though he really didn’t feel like smiling. “And you are thinking of both past and future, unless I miss my guess.” Nathan added, holding out a glass of scotch towards Hawke in one hand while he took a sip from his own glass. Hawke took a deep breath, and let it out with a soft sigh as he accepted the offered glass.

  “Maybe.” Hawke allowed, then added, “I am just...thinking.” Nathan joined Hawke in gazing out the window. Nathan nodded as he let his gaze drift out towards the planet on the other side of the window. He had been with Hawke since the beginning. He was one of Hawke’s drill instructors during boot camp in the Republic Marines, then met up again with Hawke as his commanding officer nearly a year later during some fierce action against the Rejai Empire. Soon Hawke’s rank equaled his own, and Hawke had already made it clear he was a Marine for life. Then there was The Reformation. All four empires disbanded a majority of their standing military forces in favor of private military contractors. Of those military forces that were outright disbanded were the Gadari Republic Marines. Hawke did not deal with it well, drinking himself into a drunken stupor for nearly six months until Nathan smacked some sense into him. After that particular brawl, a bruised Hawke Bakore created the Talons, and an equally bruised Nathan Schultz was its first member.

  “You think too much.” Nathan accused. Hawke chuckled, his faint smile genuine this time.

  “And you never think enough.” Hawke replied, finishing one of the many friendly rituals they had built between them over the years. Nathan grunted, then finished off his glass of scotch.

  “Don’t be long. It’s your party, you should be there.” Nathan said. Hawke nodded once as Nathan turned to leave.

  “Ah! There you are!” Commander Adam Spears smiled as he saw the two by the window. “Congratulations on a long and illustrious career, my friend. I, for one, will not be happy to see you go, nor will the Gadari Navy.” Hawke’s thoughtful expression was replaced by a smile, though anyone that knew him recognized it as him trying to exhibit at least a little social grace. The Commander, after all, had been the Talon’s handler for nearly as long as they had been in business. The professional relationship between Spears and Hawke had grown rocky sometimes, but Spears always handed out the choicest, and usually the most critical, assignments to Hawke’s Talons. Hawke, for his part, always got the job done.

  “I am honored you could make it.” Hawke lied. In truth, he thought Commander Spears was a fake. He always put on a facade so obvious it was irritating. Sometimes he wished he could just yell at the man to be himself, but he knew his words would be lost on him.

  “I would not have missed it. After all, the Talons have been at the forefront of every military action for the last twenty years. You, and your company, will be sorely missed.” Spears replied. “Are you sure I cannot get you to reconsider?” Hawke smiled politely, and shook his head.

  “I am afraid not, my friend. The Heaven’s Gaze is being loaded with supplies even now. It is my intent to launch her by the end of this week, and be on our way to begin our explorations after a one month shakedown cruise.” Hawke said.

  “Ah...well, I had to try.” Spears said. “But can you stop by my office in the morning? I have one last thing I have to talk to you about.” Hawke’s grin became a little more forced as he nodded.

  “Sure, Adam. I’ll be there first thing.” Hawke promised. Spears nodded once, satisfied with Hawke's reply, and then sighed as he saw his empty glass, and held it up.

  “Well, I suppose I should go get a refill. Congratulations again!” Spears said.

  “Thank you.” Hawke said. Extricating himself, Commander Spears made his exit, and Nathan gave his customary snort.

  “Sycophant.” Nathan grunted. Hawke could not disagree. As much as he liked Spears, he was very much motivated by his own ambitions, a fact which had gotten the Talons into more than one scrape with poor intel, not enough men or ships, and often lower than usual pay. Those were usually the times Hawke and Spears went head to head afterwards, and Hawke found he had to help Nathan write letters to the next of kin of way too many dead Talons. Hawke sighed, and glanced distastefully at his scotch.

  “I wonder what he wants.” Hawke said before gulping down the remainder of his glass.

  “I wouldn’t trust him. We’re too close to being done with him.” Nathan cautioned. Hawke nodded absently in acknowledgement as he stared out the window.

  “I know, but you know me.” Hawke said. “I don’t like to burn too many bridges unless I have to.”

  “This is one bridge you can afford to burn.” Nathan remarked. He never thought too much of Commander Spears, yet he knew Hawke was right. It would not be professional not to show up in the morning. Plus, Commander Spears could still cause them no small amount of difficulty so long as the Heaven’s Gaze remained in her berth at the nearby shipyard.

  “Well my friend, shall we?” Hawke said, giving Nathan a hearty slap on his shoulder. Nathan nodded, and motioned for his friend to lead the way back to the party.

  ***

  Hawke rubbed the heel of his palm into aching eyes, as he tried to ignore an aching head. It was 09:00 standard time, and he found himself wishing he would have just rolled over and gone back to sleep. If it weren’t for his promise to visit Spears this morning, he would have. He still considered it, even going so far as to hit the snooze button twice, which was a very rare occurrence for him, but then his sense of responsibility kicked in as he grudgingly forced himself out of bed and into the shower. After twenty minutes and a short ride on train, Hawke was stepping into the Naval Contracts Office once again. The Naval officer sitting behind the desk made brief eye contact with Hawke and held up a finger, indicating she would only be a moment as she talked to someone on a vidcam, which was blurred out to protect the identity of the person on the other end, a routine practice for anyone actively in the field working intel, Hawke noted. He also noted that the background told him that the person was on a ship. Ending her conversation, the woman behind the desk took note of a bleary-eyed Hawke standing before her. Oddly, it was the same woman he had seen the day before. He idly wondered if she ever was not talking to someone.

  “He’s expecting you, Sir. Go on in.” She said as she pressed a button on her console. With an audible click, the magnetic locks to the Commander’s office disengaged, letting Hawke in. The office was well appointed, with a dark navy blue carpet complimented by walnut-paneled walls. The use of wood was a rarity in space, where most things were made of naked steel, or other more durable metals. Spears sat behind a massive desk with the Gadari Republic flag standing in the right corner of the room, and a flag with the Gadari Navy emblem on it sitting in the left corner of the room.

  The meeting began well enough. Commander Spears was even cordial as he smiled and waved Hawke to a seat across the desk from him, but after a few minutes of ex
changing pleasantries, Hawke finally fell silent as he suddenly realized what was going on. This had an all too familiar feel to it, and he didn’t like where this meeting seemed to be heading. There they stood, with Spears shoveling the verbal crap Hawke’s way, and Hawke waiting for Spears to drop his proverbial shovel and finally speak his mind. They both knew it, but it was almost tradition by now. Thankfully, the tradition was cut short when Commander Spears let his smile drop as he sat down heavily in his office chair with a defeated sigh.

  “I need you to go to Farstar Sector. Ships are being destroyed all through the systems there, and we don’t know why.” He said without preamble.

  “I Can’t. I’m out, remember? I’m retiring. You were at the party.” Hawke replied. Spears held up a hand, warding off Hawke’s comments.

  “I know, I know, and I wouldn’t ask if this weren’t important. Vice Admiral Caldwell has asked me to make sure this gets done, and quite frankly, you’re the only one I trust with this.” Spears said. “I need you on this, Hawke.”

  “I have handled all your dirty work for the better part of twenty years!” Hawke exploded. "I've done enough!" He slammed his fist on the top of Commander Spear’s desk, anger darkening his features. Spears flinched back, surprised by the uncustomary explosion, but recovered quickly as he slowly, and very deliberately rose from his seat with his hands flat on his desk as he leaned over it. The Commander’s eyes narrowed as anger sparked in them. Hawke was just as surprised as the Commander was at his outburst, but refused to apologize for it. Maybe after so many years, he was losing his touch, but he was tired of this crap. Here he was, facing the one man responsible for brokering off pieces of his soul in service to the Gadari Republic, and now he wanted yet another piece of whatever was left. He just wanted out. He wanted peace. He just wanted to get away from the four Empires altogether. He wanted to explore, to see what else there was out there, what wonders the universe had waiting for him to discover. It was a life preferable to the endless war and death from which he had made his living. He wasn’t young any longer, and he had a lifetime of memories he wished he could get rid of, and only a few he would choose to keep.

  “Gadari Navy officers are shuttling supplies onto the Heaven’s Gaze are they not?” The Commander asked quietly. Hawke did not miss the glint in the Commander’s eye, and cringed inside. His outburst had just lost this argument for him.

  “Yeah, so what?” Hawke answered defensively.

  “It would be unfortunate if my men at the shipyards found themselves tied up with upgrading various other systems on this station, or perhaps they will realize that they should prepare supplies for their next construction order. I can’t be certain when they might get back around to finishing shuttling supplies to your precious carrier.” The Commander said. Silence descended over the two as Hawke’s stare locked with the Commander’s equally defiant gaze. Hawke saw something there this time that was strange to him. He saw a hint of desperation. In all of the years Hawke had known him, he had never known Spears to resort to extortion. On the other hand, Spears was never that fond of mercenaries. He looked at PMC's like one might look at...well, a shovel. More importantly, Hawke knew that the Commander never liked the idea of any private military company having capital ships, and the Gadari Republic Navy had simply refused to build any for PMC's. That is, until now. Hawke’s Talons would be the first PMC in the Gadari Republic to actually be able to field a capital ship. Hawke suspected that Spears would just love to put a wrench in his plans. Still, he was surprised. Usually the Commander danced around the subject. He cajoled, persuaded, finessed, and finally you gave in. This was the first time Hawke remembered him using such direct, and - by Commander Spear's way of thinking - brutish tactics.

  “What’s going on, Adam? What makes this so important that you can’t send someone else?” Hawke asked.

  Commander Spears sat back in his chair, seeming to weigh his next words carefully before responding. “I’ve already sent someone else,” he revealed. “One standard month ago, I contracted a relatively new PMC named The Regulars to investigate the destruction of those ships. As you already know, Vice Admiral Reardon was here yesterday.” The Commander sighed and leaned back in his chair, making a steeple with his fingers.

  “What you do not know is that he brought with him the only surviving crewmember of the ship The Regulars sent out there to investigate. In fact, the only surviving member of The Regulars. Based on the debriefing, what she lived through may have mentally unhinged her, I think. She kept talking about a ghost ship appearing out of nowhere and firing upon the ship, and then disappearing again only to return and repeat the process.” Spears winced, and shook his head disbelievingly.

  “It gets worse from there, but from what I can guess, the fight was short and brutal. The Captain ordered the crew to life pods, but as the life pods launched, the enemy ship began firing on them. Our survivor hid herself in some of the slower moving debris and shut down all her systems as she floated away while playing dead. She nearly froze to death! When we found her, she was suffering from hypothermia. She stated that the ship that had attacked them simply disappeared right before her eyes.” Commander Spears sighed, then added, “Myself, I find it impossible to believe.”

  Hawke’s brow furrowed as he mulled over what the Commander had just told him. “Why is it so difficult to believe?” He asked, “Our covert ops ships have similar technology, as do some of our recon units.” Commander Spears began shaking his head even before Hawke finished asking his question.

  “The power requirements for cloaking a small covert ops frigate compared to a ship of the size being described to us are too large. As it is, our covert ops frigates cannot mount any weapons because the cloaking device requires nearly the entire power plant of the ship to work effectively. As you know, the bigger the object, the more power required to cloak it.” The Commander replied.

  “The thought of such a large and obviously powerful ship not only being able to cloak, but also being able to mount weapons and use them is not only impossible, but terrifying if true. It would mean that someone has managed to build ship power plants that far exceed the capabilities of our own by as much as four hundred percent, all while keeping a low enough power signature that it cannot be easily detected by a ship’s sensors!” The Commander punctuated his last sentence by thumping a fist on his desk, then shook his head. “No. It simply cannot be.” Hawke gave the Commander an ‘if you say so’ look, as he finally sat down in the chair across from Adam. He was quiet for a long time as he thought about what Adam had said and sighed.

  “Fine.” Hawke said, finally agreeing, “But I want double our normal rate." The Commander grimaced, but nodded, having already expected the price hike. The Talons were among the best PMC's, and their price reflected that on a normal mission. Doubling it...well, the Talons would get a nice bonus, but Commander spears thought it was the least he could do for having his men stop loading supplies that needed to be kept refrigerated, leaving them to rot on the docks. In retrospect, he regretted that decision, but now it was too little too late.

  "..and I would like to interview the survivor.” Hawke added.

  “Absolutely not!” Spears objected, “She is still in the Naval Medical Ward undergoing treatment for Acute Stress Disorder!” Hawke glared at the Commander, folding his arms in front of him.

  “Look, you called us.” Hawke reminded him. “And in order to do my job, I need intel. This woman has intel. Therefore, I need to talk to her, or I take my people and we walk.” The commander pounded a fist on his desk in frustration.

  “Don’t you understand, she’s is shock!” He yelled.

  “She’ll get over it.” Hawke replied with a hard voice.

  Chapter 2

  Tasha Altihkova lurched upright in the hospital bed as she screamed, waking from a restless sleep. It was a few moments before she was able to stop, before she was able to realize she was no longer floating in frozen space, watching through the porthole of her own life pod
as the black ship’s lasers impaled the life pods of her friends and other crewmates. Slowly, her surroundings sank in. Steel floors painted a cold white shown in the dim light of the room, and she remembered that she was in the Naval Medical Ward on the space station orbiting Jingashi. The room was cool, but she scarcely noticed as a thin film of sweat covered her body, making her tank top to cling to her. Panic forced her breath to come to her in ragged gasps. Pulling herself upright the rest of the way in the hospital bed, Tasha swung her feet to the floor to sit on the edge of her hospital bed with head bowed. Closing her eyes, she tried to focus on slowing her breathing. She both needed and hated her nightmares. Though it robbed her of sleep, Tasha tried to hang on to that fear, if only to feel something for a little while longer. They had found her in her life pod with the power set to low, which meant that the onboard environmental control systems did little to keep out the black coldness of space. Since then, she had felt as if she were just going through the motions of life. She ate when she was hungry, spoke when spoken to, and collapsed into a restless sleep when exhausted, but she found it difficult to care about anything, or to feel anything. It was as if all the destruction she had seen was a distant event instead of a mere week or two ago.

  She still remembered the screams of those around her as the ship began breaking apart while she ran towards the escape pods. She remembered one poor soul, so panicked and afraid, unable to move, and then kicking and screaming at anyone who came too close to her. It took Tasha a moment, as she ran past, to realize that it was the ship's XO, and that something seemed to have simply broken inside, transforming her into a raving lunatic as the Pripyat broke apart around her. Tasha didn't stop. Oh, she wanted to, but her will to survive wouldn't let her. Her legs continued to carry her past the screaming XO, burning lungs not even sparing a breath to say anything as she passed. She remembered reaching her designated life pod and leaping inside, frantically closing it, and latching it shut. The sound seemed so final, and it was strangely quiet inside the pod, save for the muffled explosions aboard the ship, but that lasted only a brief moment, perhaps only existed in her imagination as she powered up her pod. She remembered fists beating a desperate drumbeat on the hatch, a staccato of desperation, but there was only room for one. Fate favored her, and so she greedily took the hand she was dealt. She paused, closed eyes brimming with tears, hesitated for all of two seconds, and then pressed the button that flung her quickly into space, and away from the dying ship. She could remember everything, but only as if it were someone else, and she was merely an unwilling passenger forced to watch the horrific episode replay in her mind again and again.