Historians Proper

by S David Acuff

  “Ready breach in 30 seconds,” Dash said, his heart pounding in his chest.

  “Ranger Force in position,” Gigsby confirmed on the other end.

  “15 seconds,” Stephanie informed them all, “til history is made.”

  “Come on, Dash!” Gator exclaimed.

  Strouthers watched as the water line rushed toward him. “Come on, baby,” he muttered under his breath.

  The Mustang breached, spewing the ship high into the air. Sea Condors scattered this way and that. Back in the cockpit, there was a brief moment as the Hydros detected oxygen intake and switched over to the Atmospherics. Dash watched the Engine lights blink from Green Hydros, to Yellow Hydros to Green Atmos in a split second. And with a loud burst the Atmospherics kicked in and continued the Mustang on its upward ascent.

  “Atmos are go,” he said excitedly, “I repeat, Atmos are a go!”

  There was a small celebration in the control room when Stephanie broke in, “Roger that, Mustang! One for the record books. Confirm Ranger visual.”

  Dash rolled the ship and, indeed, there were the four Ranger birds closing in fast. “I got ‘em, Step. Visual confirmed!”

  The Rangers assumed formation around the Mustang as they all climbed through the clouds. The pattern, with an assist by the NAVgear on board, would help scramble the Mustang’s footprint in the sky. The last thing they wanted was to attract the wrong attention to their secret base and especially to this latest project which would be a game changer.

  Dash’s eyes swept over the controls and all the ship’s vitals were green.

  “Bravo Bay, I am throttling up to 45%,” he informed them.

  “Roger that, Dash. Shoot the stars!” Stephanie called out.

  The Mustang increased its speed and the Rangers began to struggle to keep up. As the distance between them increased, Dash called out the speeds. “Mach 15… Mach 18… Mach 21… Mach 25…”

  Dash reached down and engaged engine number three. “Ions coming online!”

  “Ions coming online,” Stephanie echoed to Base. “10 seconds to Sub-Space.”

  “10 seconds to sub-space,” Dash confirmed, adding playfully, “To the Moon, Alice!”

  Those would be the last words recorded by Captain Michael Strouthers. His only sign of any problem would be the split second when the yellow warning light flicked on over the supposedly inactive Hydros, just before the Ions kicked in. And then there was a massive explosion which marked the end of that H2X-Ø Prototype. And the end of Dash Strouthers.

  CHAPTER 1

  The Hunted

  Out of the blackness, a fuzzy bright light cut through the fog and with an abrupt and painful jerk, Jacques Bastille re-entered consciousness. His first thought was, who the hell is Dash Strouthers? His eyelids flapped open and he tried to make sense of the warm pillow his head had been resting on. But, it was no pillow. It was sand. Blue sand. Some sort of beach, perhaps. He could faintly make out the roar of the ocean’s surf in the distance as his hearing returned and the ringing diminished.

  Fortunately, the planet’s atmosphere was breathable because of the huge gaping hole in his helmet and the fact that he was still alive. He hit the release lever and the helmet unlocked and he peeled it off. Why couldn’t he feel his other arm?

  Bastille ran a quick internal systems scan. In the retinal HUD there were warning message after warning messages of internal damage to the cybernetics of his byno-core. Then, something caught his eye a few feet away from him. It was a hand buried in the azure dune. Struggling to his knees, he sat up. His body-armor was charred and trashed; most likely the only thing that had kept him alive absorbing the bulk of… whatever had happened. Swaths of his tattered desert cloak caught in the wind and swirled around him. Kneeling there, for all intents and purposes, Bastille looked exactly like an older, bearded and battered version of Captain Dash Strouthers.

  He grabbed the hand whose glove looked identical to his own and pulled. The arm came free from the sand; loose grains rushed in to fill the void as if nothing had ever been there. The cybernetic arm was, in fact, his own. He looked to his right shoulder, in shock. Where the arm should have been was just a tangle of wires hanging out, sparking from time to time when the tips crossed.

  What the hell...

  Bastille forced himself vertical. And what were these small black floaties drifting in the air? He grabbed at one. It looked like burning fabric and turned to black powder in his fingers. Turning around slowly, his heartbeat skipped. That was no ocean. That sound was the plume of fire from a gigantic, crash-landed C-Class Freighter, going up in smoke.

  My ship!

  Another explosion sent more blackened debris and fireballs raining down all over the area. Bastille shielded his eyes with his loose arm. From the looks of it, the ship had skidded for a quarter klick, digging a channel into the soft ground before it nose planted and settled where it now lay.

  I don’t remember being thrown clear. Or escaping. I don’t remember — anything!

  The front half of the ship was destroyed, but the back half was still intact - for the moment. The entire shell was riddled with holes. Very recent battle damage. Very precise battle damage. The fact that there were Sig Cannons retrofitted to the hull meant this was no casual freighter. Artillery meant there was a weapons hold; even partially stocked, between that and the fuel cells, this whole ship could atomize into stardust at any moment.

  Jacques collected the arm and willed himself to his feet. Moving unsteadily away from the ship his foot caught on a strap and down he went again. Some sort of black duffel. Military grade. There was an electro-lock whose PIN most likely floated around the foggy abyss of his fractured databanks, along with most every other bit of memory.

  So, maybe he wasn’t so much thrown from the ship, rather he had walked away headed… somewhere. Nowhere.

  A new sound pricked his ears and he instinctively crouched low behind a smoldering section of fuselage. It was a small battle skiff like the bounty hunters favored.

  Bounty Hunters!

  That much was coming back to him now. The Bounty Hunters were still after him. They had shot him from the sky and were there to finish the job. But, why? Bastille checked his gun belt. The holster was empty.

  The ship landed, spraying a cloud of sand his direction; handily erasing the last vestige of footprints he’d left behind. Bastille ducked, holding his desert cloak against his face to block the sandy assault.

  An access ramp lowered and a Bounty Hunter stepped cautiously down the gangplank, rifle leveled. Powered up. His headset was performing a scan on the wreckage for survivors but there was just too much heat and smoke for the sensors to return anything useful. He moved toward the wreckage. Seeing an open hatch he went quickly in that direction. He was either crazy or desperate. Neither bode well for Jacques.

  He watched the enemy hunter enter the freighter and then moved forward quickly as he could. He faltered when a second Bounty Hunter emerged from the Battle Skiff!

  Since when do Outworlders work in pairs!?

  Well, it was too late to duck for cover. He was out. Exposed. Jacques veered and used the skiff’s landing strut to mask his line of sight approach as much as he could and gambled that the Bounty Hunter would be too fixed on the wreckage before him. The Hunter began to scan the area, dangerously close to turning around, when a small explosion near the Cargo Transport’s nose - what was left of it - riveted his attention forward again.

  Suddenly, Bastille was upon him, charging low and throwing his good shoulder right into the Bounty Hunter’s back, sending he and his rifle flying to the ground. The Bounty Hunter slammed into the side of some wreckage and Bastille landed a couple more blows with his good arm before the thing wheeled on him and its armored elbow cracked into Bastille’s head severing a loose connection that caused an excruciating short circuit.

  Fzzzzzzzzzzht.

  NeoTokyo. Dash Strouthers lay in a Medical facility with a very pregnant Mizuke by his side. He looked around to ta
ke in his bearings. Very confused. A doctor to his left had clearly just administered an anesthesia boost to his arm. There was a restraint on his head holding him perfectly still. Not that he could move anyway.

  Mizuke leaned forward to trace her delicate fingers across Dash’s furrowed brow. “Shhh shh, Dash. Easy. The procedure is going great. You’re going to be okay. Even better than before, right, Doc?”

  “Or your money back,” the Doctor smiled.

  “What’s happening?” Dash asked to both, to neither.

  Off of Mizuke’s look, the Doctor said softly, “slight disorientation at this stage is normal.”

  She maneuvered closer — which was awkward due to her large pregnant belly — and leaned close into his ear, whispering, “Listen, Hot Shot, with these KACorps implants you will have your pick of any ship in the AirCorps! It’s what you’ve always wanted, Dash! Bravo Bay is this close.”

  She smiled and kissed him on the lips. Dash opened his mouth to talk but no words would form. Doctor Morrisey motioned for Mizuke.

  “Mrs. Strouthers, if I can have you step back into the theater, we’re ready to continue.”

  She stood, smiled encouragingly and then followed a byno nurse escort out the door. She appeared again on the far side of a raised window and took a seat alongside some other mystery spectators. Dash’s head was swimming now. He found it difficult to focus. The Doctor moved from his view to the other side of the shielded curtain that began at the crown of his head.

  As the meds kicked in, the Doctor settled back into place at the top of the bed where the scalp of Dash Strouthers had been splayed open and brain tissue and new circuitry was exposed. With a small pair of tweezers, the Doctor placed a tiny chip onto the circuit in Dash’s brain. And as it snapped into place, it sparked once.

  Fzzzzzzzzzzht.

  Jacques Bastille regained consciousness with another blow to the head from the Bounty Hunter. Up close, Bastille could see the clan markings all over this guy’s grey lizard-like skin. One of the Snakes from the OutWorld Colonies, most likely. Human, but in the loosest sense of the word. So genetically modded up and mutated, there wasn’t much of a person left. Quite literally the perfect cold-blooded killer.

  The Bounty Hunter bent down for his pistol and when he straightened, Jacques met him swinging his loose arm like a club. The impact of titanium bone against an enhanced carbon-fiber helmet sent the Snake up into the air and then flat on his back, senseless.

  Bastille dropped the arm, picked up the pistol and, planting the barrel tip firmly against the Bounty Hunter’s chest, pulled the trigger and with a flash, ended him. Blue contrails spread from beneath him as the desert absorbed the shockwave from the blast. Jacques watched the entrance to the ship, but the other Snake didn’t emerge, so he set his arm atop the black cargo bag and stuffed it behind the landing strut.

  Wrapping his cloak around his mouth and nose, Bastille, climbed up into the burning freighter. The second Bounty Hunter was nowhere to be seen, so Jacques picked his way quickly through the smoky corridors. Emergency lights flashed as the last of the ship’s power drained. A message repeated through the Comms overhead:

  “Hull breach imminent. Please make your way to the escape pods. Hull breach imminent,” it continued over and over.

  He slowed down when he came to a cross-corridor. Peeking stealthily around the corner he saw the Snake further up ahead working on a dead crew member. The lizard brandished a curved blade, lifted the corpse up by his hair and sliced off the relay box at the base of his neck. Dropping it into a pouch he let the body slump back to the floor. He was collecting evidence. No, more than evidence, witnesses.

  Jacques was already moving back up a separate familiar hallway. His mind was a dark abyss concealing every memory so he leaned into that vague familiarity, almost a deja vu, as he maneuvered on instinct. Moving quickly. Left. Right. Right, again, until he arrived at what he knew to be his Captain’s quarters. Power throughout the ship was waning so he had to muscle the sliding door open manually.

  The room was a disaster. Jacques entered and began to kick through stuff on the floor searching for any clues or anything helpful. He found his Mauzer pistol amid the debris. He grabbed the barrel and the gun snagged on a hand that held it firmly. He twisted the pistol loose and returned it to his holster and threw a mattress and rubble to the side to reveal a female form, crumpled beneath. Electric blue hair. The wall next to her showed the full impact of her body. Bastille bent down and checked for a pulse, but he could already tell from the strange angle of her neck that she was gone.

  Who are you, blue goddess?

  He rolled her onto her side, took out his own knife and pried the relay box from the base of her neck and tucked it into a pocket. He studied her face again, but there was no mental information pulling up a match. On-screen in his retinal HUD the facial recognition reported an “Error”. Just a glitch and a mysterious ache in his heart.

  Another explosion at the front of the ship rocked the whole structure and shifted everything at once. Outside in the hallway, the Bounty Hunter had just turned a corner when a form came at him. He drew and fired quickly at it, putting a huge hole in its chest. But it was just another dead crew member, or at least the top half of him, knocked loose in the shaking.

  Bastille felt the explosion, too, and heard the gunfire and knew his time was up. He ran out into the corridor and there was the Bounty Hunter, head lamp cutting through the smoke, advancing his direction. The Snake saw him, too, and they both drew and fired at each other, diving for cover. Jacques was the first to his feet, scrambling down the corridor to find an alternate exit.

  He jerked open another large door to reveal the cargo bay, bent all to hell. The entire tail section was vertical and the only exit portal 40 feet up. Bastille climbed up the boxes and debris and used the floor grates to scale his way toward the door. He pulled an escape latch and the doors blasted open to the outside. He could see the Bounty Hunter’s ship, the dead Snake and the black duffel right where he’d left it 30’ down on the ground.

  The Bounty Hunter trailing behind him ran into the cargo bay just as Jacques was climbing out. They caught each others’ eye before Jacques smiled at him. The Snake raised his rifle and would have had a clean shot, but a high pitched whine distracted him to his left. It was a magnetic detonator Jacques had left on the wall.

  The Snake barely had time to jump back into the hall before the explosion threw him into a wall. He scrambled to his feet and limped back into the Cargo Bay but Jacques had already jumped clear. The Bounty Hunter latched his weapon in place on his back to free both hands for the climb. As he finally reached the portal, he heard the engines of his own ship spinning up.

  Bastille dropped the black duffel to the floor and climbed into the pilot seat on the bridge of the Snake’s Battle Skiff. He tossed his loose arm onto the dash and sand granules splashed around it. The support relay at the base of his neck glowed blue as it uplinked with the ship’s systems. He half expected it not to work, but with a thought, he lifted off, swinging the nose of the skiff around toward the rear exit of the C-Class transport. The Bounty Hunter was just climbing into view and drew his rifle on Jacques. Jacques switched on the targeting system and as he powered the skiff backwards and away from the transport, he let loose a barrage of missiles. The bounty hunter attempted to jump free, but it was too late.

  A large chain-reaction of explosions triggered one after the other, blowing a huge crater into the desert floor.

  That cargo ship was armed to the teeth! For what?

  Jacques spun the skiff around and kicked the throttle wide open. Metal pieces and debris rattled against the back of the ship as he cleared the blast plane. Barely. There was even a nuclear-sized explosion and mushroom cloud.

  “Holy crapsticks!”

  Jacques pulled up and aimed for the stars. He was only too happy to leave the desert planet of Da’karh behind. As he climbed, he jacked the ship’s umbilical cord into the relay box at the base of his ne
ck and snapped it into place. Suddenly, his Retinal Heads Up Display synced with the ship’s HUD. He checked over the monitors and something caught his eye down in the corner of the display. It was the same 3D picture of Mizuke holding two precocious little twins.

  Quinn. Nadia.

  What the hell is going on?

  As Jacques broke into sub-space, the Atmos drives kicked over into the Ion Drives and he instinctively winced, but the ship pulsed safely forward.