Mission Pack 3: Missions 9-12 (Black Ocean Mission Pack)

by J. S. Morin

  His lips moved again, and Esper tried to lip-read. There was too little movement to discern the words he was trying to form.

  With a glance over her shoulder to confirm they were alone, Esper used her thumbs and forced open both Hiroshi’s eyelids. The pupils were dilated, but they flicked over in Esper’s direction. She looked him in the eye, and she had him.

  # # #

  Esper sat in a cozy parlor with lace curtains and chairs with floral-patterned upholstery. A low table was set out for tea. Pleasant aromas wafted from the teapot and two cups waiting to be filled. Lining the walls were portraits of family and old friends, rendered in oil paint by an aspiring amateur. An old number wheel clock ticked the time, but there were no hands to show it, and the ticks came far apart indeed.

  Across from her, Hiroshi was frozen in confused terror. His eyes scanned the room, perhaps noting the oddness of certain details that Esper had yet to master despite virtual decades of practice. She had never mastered realistic wood grain, and she knew from previous guests that anywhere outside her field of view became blurry.

  “Am I… dead?”

  Esper offered a warm smile. “No. This isn’t heaven. And you’re not dead—not yet at least. Your body is still lying on the floor of the rec room of the Hatchet Job. I haven’t the means to save you. I do, however, have the means to bring your mind into my own, where time passes much more slowly.”

  Hiroshi’s breath quickened. He looked around as if caged. “I’m where? What is this place?”

  “I call it Esperville. It’s made up. Invented. All in my head. And if you had something you were trying to say, now’s your chance to say it.”

  But if Hiroshi had been inclined to make deathbed pronouncements, getting sucked into Esperville had distracted him fully. “So you’re some sort of Valkyrie or something?”

  “No. You’re not listening. I’m a wizard. This is the inside of my head. You’re a disembodied consciousness inhabiting a mental construct that just looks like your physical form. You’re actually still lying on the floor of your ship, shot with a blaster.”

  “Blaster…” he looked down at his chest, feeling along the unbroken fabric of his jacket. “That wasn’t real. It can’t have been real. I’m Hatchet Samuelson. I don’t get shot; I do the shooting. This is some sort of trick.”

  Esper looked up to the crucifix that hung above the doorway. “Lord preserve me from the babbling ignorance of my fellow man. Hiroshi, you need to pull yourself together, or I’m going to have to let you slip back into your own mind.”

  As Esper stood, Hiroshi leapt from his chair to grab her by the wrist. “No! Don’t leave me!”

  Putting a hand over his, Esper nodded. “I won’t. Come. Let’s take a little walk. It’s a beautiful day outside.” She didn’t need to mention that in Esperville, the weather was whatever she wished. While some days she enjoyed watching the concentric rings of raindrops falling across the surface of the pond, mostly it was bright skies and puffy white clouds.

  They walked arm in arm, Hiroshi gawking in wonderment all the while. She pointed out the sights: the old wooden dock, the forest, the one-street town with the coffee shop and florist, the old-Earth cathedral on the hill. Time was in short supply, even stretched to the point of breaking, but it seemed to be calming Hiroshi’s panic.

  “And you magicked all this up inside your own head?”

  Esper shrugged. “It’s no big deal. Mort’s got a whole country in his head, full of people and everything. I’ve been at this for what feels like years, and all my imagination can conjure is a holiday town in the off season.”

  “And you’re sure this isn’t heaven?”

  Esper bit her lip. It would have been cruel just then to imply that there was little chance heaven was his destination. “I’m sure this wouldn’t be your idea of an eternal reward. I don’t think I’d mind, though. Are you ready to tell me what you wanted to say on the floor of the Hatchet Job?”

  Hiroshi sighed. He wasn’t nearly so imposing inside Esper’s dreamland, but even then, he seemed to deflate. “I wanted to tell Ramsey I was sorry. I mean, I can’t even believe I aimed a blaster at him, let alone pulled the trigger. I got what I deserved. Did he… did Ramsey survive?”

  “He’s fine. Not a scratch,” Esper assured him.

  Hiroshi stopped in the middle of the cobbled street of Esperville. “Couldn’t be. I had him dead to rights. I mean, I’m glad he’s OK, but… not a scratch?”

  “Count your blessings. They’re few enough as it is. If you have any sins to confess while you still have time, I’m here to listen.”

  “Lady, I don’t have time to start. Besides, I’ve never believed in that soul and afterlife mumbo jumbo.”

  Esper spread her arms. “Even standing here, in a place that doesn’t exist? And Hiroshi, all you have left is time and very little of it.”

  # # #

  The balcony overlooking the Ithacan jungle wasn’t a popular locale for the members of the Ramsey Syndicate. All too often, there was an ill-tempered wizard there, retreating from the omnipresence of technology in the downed Odysseus. On this occasion, a wizard was only half the trouble.

  Mort sat across the bench from Don Rucker, the two of them each holding a bottle of Hartscharf spiced ale. It was too fancy a beer for Mort’s liking, but humoring Don’s choice of beverage was a concession he was willing to make, especially since they were from Don’s private stock.

  Don glared Mort’s way as he took a long pull of his beer. “Never pictured you as Carl’s lapdog. Always figured you were more of a mentor and a guiding hand. You oughtta have more brains than this.”

  “Brains aren’t my problem. One—properly applied, of course—has always been plenty for me. It’s my choice of associates that’s the problem. Carl may be a knucklehead, but I’m not going to undercut him without knowing what he’s got planned. And if that involves sitting on you and your hired muscle so you don’t run off into the jungle after Tanny… small price to pay.”

  “I could make your life hell.”

  “I could make yours short.” Mort shrugged and took a sip from his over-spiced beer. “Pointless having a pissing contest with an elephant. Even if you win, elephants are sore losers.”

  Don’s grin was filled with dark promise. “I know you’re a family man, Mort. You can understand how important my daughter is to me. I don’t like the idea of her living like a savage on some vegetable-farm moon. I’d do anything to keep her safe.”

  Setting down his beer, Mort slid his hands into opposing sleeves of his sweatshirt. “You like family men, don’t you, Don? Gives you a lever to yank around hard men. Takes a monster to ignore the safety of his own family. Well, whether I’m a monster has always been up for debate, but I’ll tell you I don’t appreciate these oh-so-practiced veiled threats of yours. Sure, maybe you might be able to get to my dear wife, but she rarely leaves Earth, and Boston Prime’s Convocation turf as much as anyplace in the galaxy. Cassie’s old enough to look after herself, and last I heard, she was at Oxford, working her way toward tenure. Cedric’s the one you might go looking for outside of Sol space, and best of luck to you if you do. He’s a terramancer, which means any wizard you try to hire’s going to think twice about harming a hair on his head. And if you were to get implicated in the murder, abduction, or blackmail of any of them, the Convocation would take umbrage.”

  “You act like I don’t have ins with those fancy-hat Earth wizards.”

  “You don’t,” Mort replied. “Not the kind you’d need. I don’t doubt you’ve put money in the pockets of a few street-corner hucksters and back-alley charm salesmen, but you seem to be overlooking that I’m the black sheep in my family. I’ve got aunts and uncles and cousins all over the Convocation hierarchy, not to mention my father being rather fond of his grandchildren. And for that matter, if you were anyone else, I’d have probably incinerated you on the spot just for bringing up the topic.” To emphasize his point, the bottle in Mort’s hand shook. Beer vapor rose
and erupted forth in a miniature volcano before the bottle itself cracked and disintegrated into sand. “Plus, your beer’s shit.”

  Not to be deterred, Don drank the rest of his in a long series of gulps. “An acquired taste. You don’t fool me, Mordecai The Pain-In-My-Ass. You’re not doing this for Carl. You’re enjoying knocking skulls with someone who matters. You’re bored on this sad little rock.”

  “I’m not accustomed to inactivity.” Mort raised an eyebrow. “You could give me your theory on where Devraa is hiding…”

  “Lotta good that does me. You’re the one with the death wish.” Don snapped his fingers, and a man emerged from the balcony doorway. He replaced the empty bottle with a full one. When a second replacement beverage appeared, Mort warned it away with a glare.

  “Yes, but if I end up offing the impostor god, then presumably I could end the anti-science effect that still permeates most of this moon. You could use that fancy ship you’ve got up there and find her in a jiffy, I imagine. And I bet a squad of marines with flabby muscles and rock-tipped spears won’t pose much of a challenge for your goon squad.”

  “Quit calling ‘em that. They’re professional guns for hire.”

  Mort shrugged. “Sorry. Forgot I was dealing with criminal aristocracy. But whatever you want to call them, getting Devraa out of the way first is the surest way to find Tanny.”

  “You’d disobey Carl’s orders and let me go looking for her?”

  “Orders schmorders. I don’t particularly like having enemies camped in my back garden. You give me what I need to kill Devraa, and I’ll help you find her myself.”

  Don Rucker studied him a moment. There was moneylender’s look in his eye, the kind meant to put a man off his guard while a sly thumb pressed down one side of the scale. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

  Mort snorted. “A wizard’s word is as good as the ears that hear it. Sure, I could lie to you. Wouldn’t lose a minute’s sleep over it. But I think we’ve got enough common ground here to come to an understanding.”

  Don set down his drink and extended a hand. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

  # # #

  The hangar bay of the Odysseus hummed with life. Light and jungle fragrance flooded in from the open bay door, taking the edge off the stink of hydraulic fluid and scorched metal. Mechanics and maintenance crews worked on a variety of small ships and pieces of freight-handling equipment. Years of hopping around the galaxy had taught Chuck Ramsey a thing or two about human nature, and these fine folks were doing their damnedest to make a whole lot of nothing look like hard work.

  Strolling through the hangar with his hands clasped behind his back, Chuck made as if he were a dignitary on an inspection tour. Here was a pair of techs disassembling a perfectly intact fuel converter for a load lifter. Over there was a senior mechanic showing a novice how to calibrate a repulsor emitter for one of the hover-cruisers. One project caught his eye, and Chuck meandered over for a better look.

  He peered over the shoulder of a mechanic with his head inside a stripped-down single-seat fighter craft. “Sure you should have the outer hull plates off this bird? There are ladies present.” By Chuck’s count, it was a nearly even mix in the hangar.

  The mechanic banged his head on the inside of a compartment, startled by Chuck’s sudden appearance behind him. He gritted his teeth through a curse. “What the hell…? Oh, sorry, sir. Didn’t know you were in the hangar. Give me a minute, and I’ll find someone to give you a tour.”

  Chuck waved away the notion. He reached down and helped the mechanic up, heedless of the grimy hand he had to grab in doing so. The gesture doubled as a handshake. “Forget that. I’m qualified to walk around a hangar on my own. Looks to me like you’re building Typhoons here. I have a son who used to fly those things.” He said it as if no one around here had heard of Brad Ramsey.

  “Close, but not quite, sir. This is Ramsey’s Squall. We’re refitting it with an armored hull and combat systems to make it functionally a Typhoon, though the engine specs and oversized maneuvering thrusters are making it tough.”

  Chuck laughed. “Go figure. Take out a shield generator and plasma cannons, and some smartass ship designer’s gonna fill the empty space.”

  “Well, Ramsey didn’t seem interested in excuses. He just wanted someone to figure out how to do it. Way I see it, with Niang off with the Mobius, this is my chance to make a good impression.”

  “What’s your name, son?”

  “Daniel. Daniel McIntyre. Midshipman, Earth Navy… formerly, I guess.”

  “Well, Danny, if you’re trying to take this Niang guy’s spot on the Mobius, I can try to put in a good word.”

  Danny looked aghast. “No! I want to move up the food chain in the maintenance department, not get dragged into the Black Ocean in that death trap.”

  “Someone telling unflattering stories about Brad and his ship?”

  Danny stared like Chuck had sprouted a third eye. “Yeah… Ramsey. Maybe he doesn’t see it that way, but he makes it sound like every time they leave atmo, they’re flipping a coin that they survive the trip. And just because that lucky bastard’s coin keeps coming up heads doesn’t mean he’s not one bad flip away from getting everyone on board killed.”

  “Becky and I were married.”

  “Huh?”

  “Brad… he’s not a bastard. But the rest you said was true enough. I taught my son everything he knew. Then he went off and joined the navy and picked up a lot of bad habits regarding people putting his life on the line. Most of the stuff I taught him about caution and responsibility went out the airlock. But Danny, if you don’t want to get assigned to the Mobius, I can say what I need to in order to make sure you’re on hangar duty as long as you like. I know Brad. I can pull his strings.”

  A spastic nod from Danny preceded yet another handshake. “If you could, sir, I’d be grateful.”

  Chuck clapped him on the back. “No trouble at all, Danny. I’m sure you’d do the same for me.”

  # # #

  There was a knock at Carl’s door. With a sigh, he looked up from his datapad. His crews on the Odysseus had sent over a grocery list of supplies to bring when the Mobius returned from its current mission. He’d been looking over it, envisioning where everything would fit into the cargo hold. By his best guess, it would take two more ships than he had to carry it all.

  “What? Come in.”

  Esper slipped inside and shut the door behind her. “We need to talk.”

  Pinching the bridge of his nose, Carl set the datapad aside. “Has it been two hours already?”

  “No. It’s been ten minutes. Hiroshi confessed to me before he died.”

  Hatchet hadn’t been dead. Carl cringed at the thought of what his friend heard and felt in those final moments. “Damn. If I’d have known, I’d have made sure to finish him quick. As if I don’t feel awful enough as it is. There was no need for him to suffer. Kinda cold of you, bending a guy over a barrel to bare his soul while he’s got a hole in his chest.”

  “I didn’t let him suffer. I brought him to Esperville.”

  Carl frowned.

  “You know, like Mortania. Esperville’s my version.”

  “You can pull off Mort’s trick?” Despite the circumstances, he couldn’t help being impressed. Maybe Mort had prepared her better for this assignment than he’d been led to believe.

  “Sort of. It’s a lot smaller in there, but that’s not the point. The point is, Hiroshi and I had time for a long talk, and he wasn’t in any pain, right to the end.”

  “Well, thanks for that. If he had anything he wants mentioned in the eulogy, I can be flexible. Not like I wasn’t going to speak off the cuff anyway.”

  Esper shifted her weight from one foot to the other, looking down at her clasped hands. “Here’s the thing. He told me… stuff.”

  “Yeah, I can only imagine. Guy like Hatchet’s probably got skeletons with skeletons in their closets. And those closets have loose floor-boards with pirate
treasure buried underneath. Sorry you had to listen to all that.”

  “Some of it was… relevant.”

  Carl raised an eyebrow. “Should I be hearing this?” He knew, in the general sense at least, of the seal of the confessional. Doctors, lawyers, and priests all got to keep secrets; in fact, they were expected to.

  “Probably not,” Esper said. She glanced up before looking at the floor. “He said he fired at you.”

  “Nah,” Carl replied, patting himself on the chest. “I’m all here. No holes in me that aren’t per spec.”

  “He seemed pretty sure.”

  Carl stopped a moment to consider. Esper was smarter than most of them. If she looked into the matter, she’d probably figure it out before he could sweep the crumbs under the carpet. “Fine. I had Samurai swap out the power pack in his blaster for a dry one.”

  “You knew he couldn’t shoot back!”

  “Hey! Hatchet’s the hottest hothead I deal with these days. He makes Mriy look Zen by comparison. Tempers have been up since the Sokol deal went sub-orbital. I was originally worried he’d shoot Roddy.”

  “All right. Fine! But when he drew his blaster, you shot an essentially unarmed man.”

  “Reflexes, kid. Hatchet would understand that as well as anyone. I’ve had plenty of blasters aimed at me, and lemme tell you. After a while, you get a feel for whether someone just wants a little leverage or respect, or whether they’re gonna pull that trigger. I might not have had time to stop and think whether Samurai had fixed Hatchet’s blaster like I told him, or if maybe he switched power packs or even remember that I’d taken that precaution in the first place. That’s what reflexes are for. They keep you alive when you need to act before thinking.”

  “I wish I could just look you in the eye and have you tell me you didn’t plan to murder Hatchet.”

  Carl shrugged. At least Esper knew that much. It had taken Tanny years to realize that little gem. “No one feels worse about this than me.”

  “You still egged him on.”

  “I wanted his ship. I wanted his crew. I wanted Hatchet, too, but I couldn’t have him running around murdering my crew for fucking up. Jesus, I’d have more turnover than a Noodle-O-Rama. All I needed was something to hold over his head. You know… leverage.”