by E. R. Torre
It’s gone. Probably destroyed in the fight. Or the fall.
The Merc's hand slid back down. The main oxygen controls were at his side, but he feared working them. He wasn't familiar enough with the controls, and if he should accidentally cut his life support or the oxygen...
Balthazar fought off a fresh wave of rage and forced himself to relax. What else could he do? Surely B’taav and Inquisitor Cer were finishing whatever they were doing up there and would soon be on their way down.
They were still up there, right?
But...but what if they weren't? What if they left him here to die?
The Merc shivered.
Why should they show any mercy to me?
Why should they show any mercy at all?
The Merc stared at the light, trying to see any flicker or shadow. Any sign that someone was still up there. The light held steady, and Balthazar's fears were realized.
A line of sweat rolled down his face, then another. Minutes passed, and the Merc was certain he was abandoned. A despair greater than any he had felt before gripped him. It wasn't sweat rolling down his face. It was tears.
And then he saw it. The light flickered. Only for an instant, but it did.
Balthazar blinked the tears away. He wanted to yell, to tell whoever was up there where he was, even though he knew they wouldn't hear him.
He spotted a shadowy form. Someone up there looked down into the crevasse. At him. Did they see?
Yes! Yes they did!
Balthazar was beside himself with joy. It didn't last.
Was the shadowy figure coming down to finish him off?
The figure descended, moving slowly along the edges of the wall and using the environmental suit's thrusters to glide down. The figure landed feet away from the Merc.
“Please,” Balthazar pleaded. “Please don't leave me down here.”
The shadowy figure approached.
“Please,” Balthazar repeated.
The figure was next to him, leaning over his body. Balthazar wanted desperately to reach up, to grab this person. Perhaps he could, with what little energy remained, take out one of the two before they killed him.
No, you don’t even have the strength to do that.
More time passed.
The shadowy figure examined the controls on the front of the Merc's suit before focusing on those at the side. A button was pressed, and Balthazar felt a rush of fresh oxygen.
“Balthazar,” came a muffled voice. “Your communicator was destroyed.”
“Mister Gray?” Balthazar said.
The Epsillon Industrialist leaned close to him so the Merc could see his face and their voices could more easily travel in the oxygen rich air.
“I gave you a little bit more air,” Gray said. “In the next minute, I either give you a steady flow or shut it down completely. Understand?”
The Merc didn't know what to make of Stephen Gray's threat. He nodded.
“Let’s be clear,” Gray continued. “I know you worked for Francis Lane. I know you and your mistress intended to kill us all. So killing you won't bother me one little bit.”
Stephen Gray offered the Merc a cold grin.
“I know once Veil Mercs take on a job, they complete that job. Unless, of course, their employer betrays them. Francis Lane betrayed you, didn't she?”
“Yes,” Balthazar managed. “She told...told me to use the fusion gun on Inquisitor Cer. If I had done so…”
“You would have killed yourself as well. Very clever. She knew B'taav was still alive. Had you fired the shot as you were told, all three of you would be dead now, which is precisely what she wanted. Do you still carry any allegiance to her?”
“None.”
“Good. She is on one side and Cer and B’taav are on the other.”
“What about—”
“Saro Triste? He's dead. You and I are the odd men out.”
“How...how did you find me?”
“When they called me at my room that the Argus was in sight, I ran down to the Xendos' decompression chamber. I placed my own micro tracers on each and every space suit we had, just in case. Even those currently worn by B’taav and Inquisitor Cer.”
Stephen Gray paused to let the words sink in. He produced a hand held tracker monitor.
“If you join me, this is yours. It'll tell you where Inquisitor Cer and B'taav are.”
“What...what is your offer, Mister Gray?”
“Work for me or perish.”
“It’s you...and me...then.”
“Do you swear to aid me?”
“I do.”
“You will be paid for your work,” Stephen Gray assured the Merc. “In fact, whatever Francis Lane offered you, I will double. That is my guarantee.”
A fresh wave of oxygen entered Balthazar’s suit. It didn't take long for the Merc to feel his strength return. He lifted his right hand and pressed down hard on his Accelerant patch and, for a second, felt lightheaded. He drifted on the edge of unconsciousness, but that ended as a wave of warm energy rolled through his body.
Balthazar sat up. He was energized. He was alive. Stephen Gray gave the Merc the hand held tracker monitor. He pointed to two dots far from its center.
“That's where B'taav and Cer are,” Stephen Gray said. “We must get them before they leave us stranded.”
“Yes, sir.”
Balthazar wiped the remaining oil from his faceplate. Once done, he gritted his teeth and said:
“I’ll tear their hearts out with my bare hands.”
CHAPTER FIFTY NINE
B’taav and Cer entered the Argus' enormous decompression chamber and aimed their lights at the back of that room, exposing the crumpled far wall and jagged holes that opened to outer space.
B’taav and Cer approached the gash with the intention of quickly exiting, walking along the exterior of the ship, and re-entering the super juggernaut through the demolished landing bay doors.
Their haste almost proved fatal.
A metal crate crashed against the floor before them and just inches from B’taav. Its top slid open and, in the zero gravity, skidded along the floor at a dangerous speed. The contents of the box, including heavy machine parts, spread out. B’taav and Cer fell back and away from the still moving debris.
They simultaneously spotted a figure approaching fast. From the oil stains on the environmental suit, they knew it was Balthazar. The Merc's speed in the environmental suit was almost superhuman.
“He’s on Accelerant!”
Cer drew her fusion gun. Now that they were away from the oxygen rich chambers, she was free to fire the weapon. She aimed and fired several times, but the Merc anticipated her attack and hid behind a stack of crates and out of sight.
“Who freed him?” Cer asked. “And how did he find us so quickly?”
B'taav stood beside Inquisitor Cer. He eyed the back of her environmental suit, at the crack between the oxygen and life support equipment. He spotted a small object wedged in that crack.
“I don't know the answer to the first question,” B'taav said as he pulled the small object out. “But here's the answer to your second one.”
Inquisitor Cer eyed the tracking device and swore.
“You probably have one on your suit, too.”
“No doubt,” B'taav replied. “We don't have time for this.”
“Agreed. Turn around.”
B'taav did. Inquisitor Cer examined the back of the Independent's environmental suit.
“You see it?” B'taav asked.
“No,” Inquisitor Cer replied. “Maybe whoever put the device on my suit didn't put one on yours.”
“Then again, maybe it's inside,” B'taav said. “Either way, we're wasting time. Let's move.”
The two pushed forward. Soon they were at the base of one of the jagged tears in the Argus' outer hull. Inquisitor Cer carefully stepped through it and on the ship's outer surface. It was like slipping out of a tunnel and onto a long abandoned city that stretched out fo
r many, many miles. Structures as tall as the largest buildings in the Empire rose from the ship's surface. Some of them were shattered or wilted, like burnt flowers.
Inquisitor Cer adjusted the magnetism on her boots and clamped down. She noted the enormity of the asteroid field surrounding the super juggernaut. The blackened cityscape before her, bizarrely, stood in the middle of a frozen rock slide.
B’taav stepped through the hole seconds after Inquisitor Cer. He carried Balthazar’s gun and aimed it at the opening.
Inquisitor Cer pointed past B'taav's right shoulder.
“That way,” she said and began moving.
B'taav, however, remained in place.
“What is it?” Inquisitor Cer asked.
“Balthazar, and whoever else knows of these tracker signals, sees where I am and where I'm going,” the Independent said. “They can't see you anymore.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“We split up. I lead Balthazar, and whoever else might be tracking us, away, while you go to the Xendos.”
“What if there is another tracking device on me? What if you don't have a device on you?”
“The odds my environmental suit has a tracking device on it is far greater than either of your scenarios. You know that.”
“Yes,” Inquisitor Cer acknowledged. “But you're facing a killer on a full Accelerant rush. You saw how he moved. To him, we're in slow motion. You spoke of odds. What are the odds of you surviving Balthazar?”
B'taav didn't answer, but they both knew she was right. Even with a fusion gun, an Accelerant engorged Veil Merc would be almost impossible to stop. But there was no alternative. They had to get to the Xendos, or all would be lost.
“When you get back to the ship, be quick,” B'taav said. “The only one on board you can trust is Maddox, and I'm afraid he may not be of much help. Don't linger, take control of the craft, by whatever force necessary, and then come for me. I'll hold off Balthazar as long as I can.”
“I will come back for you,” Inquisitor Cer said.
“I'm counting on it,” B'taav replied. He handed her his computer pad. “And I expect nothing less from the finest Inquisitors of the Phaecian Empire.”
Inquisitor Cer stared deep into the shadowy pools of B’taav’s eyes and B’taav stared back. For a brief second, there was a connection.
Inquisitor Cer turned away from the Independent and began the trek to the Argus' landing bay entry.
Balthazar lingered behind several crates and watched as Inquisitor Cer and B'taav exited the Argus through a hole in the outer wall. He let out a laugh.
The two could run to the very ends of the super juggernaut and back but they weren’t getting away from him. He eyed the two small blips on the tracker monitor.
Not only wouldn't they get away, they couldn’t get away.
The Merc approached the ripped wall and paused. Behind him, inside the decompression chamber, lay utter darkness. The Merc could not see Stephen Gray back there, even though the man followed him until this point. For a moment, the Merc wondered where he was.
“What difference does it make,” he growled. To his ears, his voice overflowed with bloodlust. All that mattered was killing Inquisitor Cer and B’taav. He searched for and quickly found several other holes leading out of the super juggernaut.
“You can't cover them all,” the Merc muttered.
Though there was no way B'taav or Inquisitor Cer could hear him coming, a fusion blast screamed through the hole the duo just exited. The blast blackened a crate a few feet behind the Merc. The shot was a blind one, yet came dangerously close.
“Lucky shot,” the Merc said. He bit his upper lip so hard he drew blood. “Now it gets exciting.”
Balthazar spotted a long metal tube along the edge of the wall and picked it up. He approached one of the tears in the ship’s outer wall and pulled himself through.
Stephen Gray watched from the safety of the far side of the decompression room as Balthazar exited the Argus. A graphic display on the corner of his faceplate showed the position of the Merc and the two he pursued. Stephen Gray smiled.
His way was clear to get back to the Xendos, and he would make it there well before B'taav or Inquisitor Cer. Provided, of course, they should somehow overpower Balthazar.
But Stephen Gray didn't understand why they retreated to the decompression room after being in sight of the Xendos. He walked the corridor outside the room and approached the communication amplification beacon. A few steps away from there he paused by the windows overlooking the landing bay and the vessel. He now understood why the Independent and the Inquisitor back-tracked.
“Oh, Inquisitor. You parked her a little too out in the open,” Gray muttered and laughed. “Anyone could see you coming and close the Decompression doors before you got there.”
He eyed the beacon and noted its controls were set to dampen rather than amplify any signals.
“Clever,” he said. Balthazar told him, back in the crevasse, what the codes were for activating the beacon, but either B'taav or Cer had already cracked the code and didn't bother setting up another. The equipment had served its use, so Stephen Gray shut it off.
The Epsillon industrialist began the walk to the Xendos. Unlike the Independent and the Inquisitor, he didn't fear anyone seeing him approach. In fact, he fully expected Francis Lane to try to shut him out. She wouldn't. Stephen Gray had seen to that before he left.
For as Balthazar was originally setting up the amplification beacon, Stephen Gray hastily changed the computer codes used to close the decompression chamber doors as well as activate the Xendos’ flight controls. Because Saro Triste was near him all that time, Stephen Gray was forced to keep the encryption codes simple. But even simple codes would take a few minutes to crack, and that was all the time anyone needed to enter the ship from here.
He imagined Francis Lane's despair as she furiously tried to shut him out and fly away.
He laughed.
He could only imagine Francis Lane's face when he finally confronted her...and squeezed the life out of that scheming bitch.
B’taav saw Balthazar exit through one of the holes above him.
He fired a shot but the Merc ducked away. B’taav jumped past a series of twisted and melted antennae and landed in a small service pit. The Independent ran its length before climbing out. Once again he looked for Balthazar, but there was no sign of him.
B’taav ran away as quickly as he could, taking a moment after each series of steps to look back. Now and again he thought he saw some movement, but could not be certain if it was the Merc or his imagination.
The asteroid dust on the outer surface of the Argus was very thick and B'taav's steps kicked it up. His footprints and the cloud of dust made him an easy target.
And that's ignoring the trackers, B'taav thought. He still held Inquisitor Cer's tracker unit in his left hand. He could have thrown it away, but he wanted to lead Balthazar as far from the Inquisitor as possible.
A shadow flickered behind him, and B'taav whirled around. His eyes opened wide in horror as a metal tube slammed against his right arm. The impact shattered the bone and sent the Independent flying backwards. He lost his grip on Cer's tracker unit and it too went flying.
Fortunately, B’taav still held his fusion gun, but at the moment, and despite the intense pain, he was more worried about the condition of his suit. If the metal tube ripped a hole in it, he would be dead in seconds.
B’taav quickly assessed the damage while in mid-flight. He was relieved to find there was no tear in the suit's fabric.
B’taav slammed against a twisted post. Waves of pain splashed throughout his body. Several meters away and approaching fast was Balthazar. The Merc no longer bothered hiding.
B’taav raised his fusion gun and fired, but again the Merc was quicker. He dropped low and scurried away.
Though B'taav could fire well with his left hand, his accuracy, especially in these zero gravity conditions, simply wasn’t as good.
And given his injury, if the Merc got close enough to engage in hand to hand combat, there was no way the Independent could offer even the ghost of a fight.
B'taav stumbled away from the twisted post. As he did, he once again spotted the Merc approaching.
Balthazar had no intention of letting B’taav get away.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Inquisitor Cer jumped the melted remains of a defensive cannon unit and looked back. B’taav was a small figure moving farther away from her with Balthazar following close behind. The Inquisitor aimed her fusion gun at the Merc, not caring that she might draw his attention. If she could take him out...
Just as she was about to pull the trigger, the Merc slipped out of sight behind a rectangular post.
Inquisitor Cer tried to re-acquire her target, but the Merc was gone. So too, she realized, was B’taav.
For several seconds she remained where she was, hoping to catch sight of either man. The clock in her head told her she couldn't afford to waste any more time. Reluctantly, she turned away. As much as it pained her to abandon her ally in the middle of a fight, the mission was too important. If she didn't make it to the Xendos in time, they were both dead.
Maddox fought off a fresh wave of nausea and resumed his slow crawl. His mind was a jumble of images from the past and the present and nothing made much sense anymore. Nothing but one thought:
You need to kill Francis Lane.
The words gave him strength. Strength enough to crawl another few feet.
“I need to kill Francis Lane,” he muttered. Each move was a small victory. Each move got him closer to that woman.
When he heard a voice coming from down the corridor, Maddox stopped. He feared he was suffering a hallucination. The voice persisted. He listened to it, tried to identify it. It was Francis Lane. With a start, Maddox realized he was only feet away from her room.
