Tales from the Void: A Space Fantasy Anthology

by Chris Fox

  It was a tiny chip, around the size of a baby’s fingernail. Like the floor where it was lying, the chip was stained brown. The stains were dried blood, and the chip was the Sherrerr child’s transmitter.

  8

  Carina forced down the bile that was rising in her throat. She’d seen plenty of blood and death in her time, but she couldn’t imagine how anyone could harm a small, innocent boy.

  As she gazed at the tiny chip in her hand, other things started to add up until finally it all made sense. The whole mission has been too easy. They should never have made it that far with their shitty weapons and no armor. “Sir, we found the boy’s transmitter. I think it was put here to lure us in. It’s a trap. The Dirksens want to capture us.”

  She waited for Speidel’s reply, but none came. Perhaps he was distracted.

  “Captain?” Nothing. “Sir?”

  A loud crunch.

  Carina turned to Atoi, her eyes wide. “We have to get back to them.”

  They flew out of the room and across the large basement, steering around the shadowy shapes of discarded machinery in the dim light from the doorway. Atoi gave a cry as she ran into a piece of equipment low down on the floor. She tumbled over it and landed on her face. Carina ran back and helped the woman to her feet. Blood was flowing from her nose and dripping off her upper lip, dark in the dim room.

  She drew her sleeve across her face and spat. “I’m okay.”

  They climbed the stairs together, slowly. Carina hadn’t heard a sound from the captain since his most recent words to her, and there had been no sounds of fighting from the next level. But then, pulse fire wasn’t noisy and she wouldn’t have expected to hear it above the continuing noise of the emergency klaxons.

  They crept around a corner in the stairwell and found themselves staring down the muzzles of guns.

  The two guards who were waiting for them were kitted out more like Carina would have expected from employees of the Dirksens. They were dressed in full armor and bearing gleaming new weapons of a kind she’d never seen before.

  Their order didn’t need to be verbalized. Both Carina and Atoi put down their guns in one slow, measured movement. One guard led the way while the other went around behind them. The group climbed the stairs to the corridor, where Carina was relieved to see that Speidel was still alive. She even felt a mild satisfaction that Smitz also wasn’t dead.

  He was facing the wall next to the captain. Two of the Dirksens’ thugs were holding weapons to their heads. Carina and Atoi were pushed against the wall next to them.

  “Which one of you was it?” Atoi asked between her teeth.

  “Shut up,” said a guard.

  “Which one of you held the kid down?”

  Speidel looked from Atoi to Carina, a curious expression on his face.

  The guard raised his voice. “I said, shut up.”

  “Who was it that dug it out of him?” Atoi yelled.

  The guard fired, and Atoi screamed as a thread of light shot from the weapon and made contact with her back. She fell to the ground, writhing and jerking in agony. The guard kept his finger on the trigger, seeming to enjoy the spectacle. When he finally stopped firing, Atoi lay motionless, barely conscious and covered in sweat. Next to her was the captain’s comm, which had been ground to pieces.

  “We have orders to try to deliver you all alive,” the guard said to her, “but the Dirksens won’t mind if we slip up once or twice along the way. I was just playing with you then. Don’t make me use the lethal setting.”

  He nodded at another couple of guards, and they hauled Atoi to her feet and pushed her against the wall once more. She swayed and staggered as she struggled to stand upright, gripping the wall with both hands.

  The Dirksen thugs seemed to be waiting for something. From the corner of her eye, Carina saw the one who had tortured Atoi murmuring into his helmet mic.

  Tense seconds ticked past. Carina wondered what the new weapons were that the Dirksens had. Pulse guns fired bolts of concentrated energy that burned the target or, at a lower setting, shocked him into temporary unconsciousness. The Dirksen guns seemed to emit a continuous flow of power that kept the victim in constant pain. Perhaps the lethal setting would stop the heart. She wondered what range the weapons had.

  The men and women guarding the mercs were growing agitated and throwing glances from side to side along the corridor. Something was up. One of the women jabbed Carina in the back, and she gasped as the hard metal muzzle drove into her spine, causing a sharp jab of pain.

  “Move,” the woman said, jerking her gun to the right.

  The other mercs were being pushed in the same direction. It seemed a good time to stage an escape attempt. Once the Dirksen thugs had secured them somewhere, getting away would be a lot harder. But Carina couldn’t see how any of them could make a move without being immediately shot with one of the torture weapons.

  The klaxons had finally stopped, and the lower levels of the plant were quiet as they went along. Carina was at the end of the line. A muzzle was thrust into her again, hitting her kidney. She bit back a yell.

  “Faster,” said the guard.

  Carina imagined what she would do to the woman if she got a chance.

  A whompf of detonation came from the corridor up ahead, the explosion deafening her. Cracks appeared in the ceiling and walls. Carina swung her elbow upward into the guard’s helmet, toppling the woman. She snatched her weapon from her and fired. The thread of intense light shot out, but the woman only jerked in pain. Her armor seemed to absorb some of the energy.

  The guard snatched at the muzzle and tried to stand. Carina pushed the weapon against the woman’s chest and fired again. That time, the guard’s body spasmed and was still.

  “Fire against their armor,” Carina shouted, her ears still ringing from the explosion.

  An agonizing flame shot through her, but was cut off abruptly. She turned to see Smitz grinning and pulling his weapon away from the helmet of a falling Dirksen guard.

  Three of the mercs who had planted the diversionary explosives came running down the corridor, shooting. Carina ran at a Dirksen thug who was about to return fire. She thrust her weapon against his back and pressed the trigger.

  Speidel and Atoi were struggling with their captors. The captain screamed. His guard had shot him in the eye. He fell, clutching his face. Brown ran up and body-slammed the guard, at the same time relieving him of his firearm.

  “Press it up against his chest,” shouted Carina.

  The third Dirksen thug died.

  Carina was wondering if they should try to take the fourth alive when Atoi killed him. It was the one who had tortured her.

  Brown was helping Speidel to his feet. The captain’s face was a ruined, blackened mess, but he was alive. The staff sergeant pointed down the corridor, in the opposite direction to the area of the explosion, and the mercs began to run.

  Carina’s hearing was gradually returning.

  “There’s a hole in the fence north-north-west, where the chimney exploded,” Brown said. “If we get split up, make for it and head back to town. We’ll meet at the back of the hostel. We leave for the shuttle at 0600.”

  He didn’t say it, but the implication was clear. Anyone who didn’t make it to the rendezvous point in time would be left behind.

  9

  Things were turning ugly aboard Duchess. The five mercs who had set the explosives had encountered Dirksen guards roaming the complex, and neither Carver nor Lee had survived. Brown, Halliday, and Jackson had fared better and headed to find out what had happened to their captain after they heard the fateful crunch of his comm.

  Setting a small explosion in one part of the corridor provided the distraction to give the mercs the edge they needed to turn the tables on the Dirksen thugs. After escaping over what remained of the fence, the surviving mercs had eventually made it to the shuttle and returned to their ship.

  That was where the shitshow really started.

  Carina had a
lways known that Sasha Tarsalan was a nasty bitch, but she’d never witnessed the level of fury the woman unleashed on the mercs who had failed their second mission in a row.

  The heavily bejeweled woman ranted and raged at the six mercs, spittle flying from her mouth. Speidel was in the sick bay, where the ship’s doctor was removing what remained of his ocular implant. Carina and the others stood to attention, facing the full brunt of Tarsalan’s fury in silence.

  ‘Incompetent’ and ‘inept’ were among the nicer words she used to describe them. According to her assessment, they were also ‘moronic grunts,’ who were a ‘waste of oxygen’ and had ‘brought the company to ruin with their pathetic efforts.’

  After a while, as Tarsalan explained how ‘real’ soldiers would have behaved like professionals and done the ‘simple job’ they were asked to do, Carina tuned the woman out. She watched her gesticulations, red face, and bloodshot eyes but paid little attention to what she was saying. Tarsalan’s hair was piled into a tower on her head, and as Carina watched, the tower began to slip and hang at an angle. She wondered if, and when, it would fall down entirely.

  The patience and stoicism Nai Nai had taught her from a young age meant it wasn’t difficult for her to bear Tarsalan’s dishonest, unfair ferocity. The other mercs, however, were not so well-equipped. Though none moved nor spoke, their growing rage was almost palpable.

  Predictably, Smitz was the first to snap. He didn’t say a word, however. He strode over to the woman and stood glaring down at her, his hands in fists at his sides and his broad, heavily muscled back tense.

  Tarsalan’s words dried up, and she seemed to suddenly realize that she’d spent the last ten minutes insulting and berating six professional killers, and that she was alone with them. She swallowed and looked up at Smitz. Her previously puce face paled, but she said tersely, “What do you think you’re—”

  Perhaps if she’d apologized, Smitz might have mastered his rage. Even if she’d said nothing at all, there was a chance he would have calmed down and stopped himself from doing something stupid. Though he was undisciplined and often offensive, Smitz had spent so long skirting the line of report-worthy behavior that he knew exactly where it lay.

  As it was, Tarsalan’s continued arrogant attitude made the man snap. He grabbed her throat, lifted her with one arm, and slammed her against the wall, where she hung, wriggling. The company owner’s eyes protruded from their sockets and her mouth was forced open by the pressure of Smitz’s hand on her neck. Her tongue waggled wildly but not a sound nor breath left her mouth.

  She plucked uselessly at Smitz’s fingers while her feet kicked and jerked, suspended several centimeters above the floor.

  Carina and the other mercs enjoyed the spectacle for a few moments until, halfheartedly, they tried to make Smitz release his hold. Staff Sergeant Brown gave him an order to drop Tarsalan immediately, and the others tried to open his fingers and pull him away from her.

  With apparently great reluctance, Brown finally fired at Smitz and stunned him. As he collapsed, Tarsalan fell to the floor too. She was unconscious but still alive. The marks of Smitz’s fingers on her neck were already showing.

  “Good one, Smitz,” spat Halliday. “Now we’re out of a job for sure.”

  “We were out of a job anyway,” said Atoi. “If he hadn’t done it, I would have soon enough. He only did what we all wanted to do.”

  Jackson agreed. “I would’ve punched her, though. Probably more than once.”

  “Quit it,” said Brown. “Lin, help me get her to sick bay. This son-of-a-bitch goes to the brig. You understand, Atoi? Halliday? Jackson?”

  The three nodded glumly. Transporting Smitz to the brig would be no mean feat, whether he was unconscious or awake.

  After notifying the doctor they were on their way, Brown and Carina managed to carry Tarsalan to the sick bay between them. She had begun to regain consciousness by the time they arrived. The two of them lifted her by her shoulders and legs and put her on a bed.

  Brown quickly left. He might have been avoiding Tarsalan’s fury, redoubled after Smitz’s attack, but the man’s hand had damaged her neck to the extent that she could barely croak. The doctor told her to be quiet while he examined her and motioned Carina away. She had hung around in case the doctor wanted to know what had happened, but the evidence apparently said everything.

  Carina had passed a curtained bed on her way into the sick bay. She guessed the occupant had to be Speidel. She peeked in. The captain was awake and reading an interface with his remaining eye. A patch covered the place where the other had been.

  She opened the curtain wider. “Hi, sir.” She spoke quietly so that the doctor wouldn’t hear and maybe make her leave.

  Speidel’s smile when he saw her eased her concern for the older man somewhat. He put down the screen. “Come in, Carina. It’s good of you to come and see me.”

  She stepped close to the bed and drew the curtains closed.

  “Did doc get all of your implant out?” she asked.

  “All that was left of it,” Speidel replied, pulling himself into a higher position before relaxing on his pillows. “Several thousand creds gone in a single shot. But I was lucky, really. If the beam had hit my real eye, it would probably have fried my brain. Better one-eyed than dead, huh?”

  “I’d say so. Are you going to get another implant or a new bio eye?”

  “I’m not sure. I guess it depends on whether I continue soldiering or take the hint and retire. Have you heard what’s happening with the company yet? Cadwallader isn’t answering my comm and the doctor won’t tell me anything, except to rest up and not worry myself for a while. Like it’s easy not to worry when you don’t know what’s going on.”

  “Well...” Carina wasn’t sure if she should tell Speidel about the incident with Tarsalan and Smitz, but she guessed that he would find out soon enough, what with being right next to the company owner.

  “Holy shit,” Speidel said when she reached the part where Smitz had tried to strangle Tarsalan. “What an imbecile. If it wasn’t over for the Black Dogs before, it certainly is now. Tarsalan’s definitely going to cut her losses and split after this.”

  “No doubt about it. Which kinda makes your advice to me earlier moot, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah. But it was good advice, Carina. Brown, Atoi, and the rest will find another merc band to join. Even Smitz might find someone who’s on the lookout for an insubordinate, aggressive bastard. But...listen to me, okay? I’ve gotten to know you over the years, and you aren’t like them. I didn’t realize it when I dragged you out of that fight. I never told you, but I watched it going on for a while before I stepped in. I watched you defend yourself against those older, bigger street rats, and I saw your skill and strength. But that was all I saw.

  “I thought that providing you with a safe place to live and a regular paycheck was fair exchange for what you could bring to the band. And you stepped up and did the job, after a little training. It wasn’t until later that I saw a different side to you. You can fight and kill if you need to, but you don’t like it. You aren’t immune to it like half of the others, and you don’t relish it like the other half.”

  Speidel half shut his remaining eye, scrutinizing her. Carina began to feel uncomfortable.

  “There’s something else about you too. Something more than disliking the fight.”

  Carina felt that familiar wrenching she had whenever she was worried someone might discover what she was. Time to change the subject. She had another topic on her mind anyway.

  “What’s going to happen now, sir?” she asked. “About the Sherrerr kid, I mean.”

  Speidel sighed. “Who knows? Now that he no longer has his transmitter, it’s going to be a lot harder to find him. Whatever happens, we’re out of that game.”

  “Are we? It doesn’t seem right to abandon him like that. He’s just a little kid.”

  “He’s just a little Sherrerr kid. If anyone has the money and influence to track him
down, it’s them.”

  “That’s something I don’t get,” said Carina. “They’re so rich and powerful, why did the Sherrerrs hire us to do their dirty work? Why not send in their own goons?”

  “I never got that either,” Speidel replied, “and, for what it’s worth, I feel the same as you. I’m not happy about leaving the search to someone else, assuming someone else is searching for him. But I don’t know what else we can do. He could be anywhere, and the Dirksens sure as hell aren’t telling.”

  “That’s the other thing that bothers me,” Carina said. “Why did they kidnap him in the first place if they don’t want to ransom him? They just took him and disappeared. What’s the point of that?”

  “Maybe for revenge. Maybe they already murdered him. That room where you found his transmitter, was there…?”

  “No,” Carina replied. “There was only a small amount of blood. Not enough.”

  “Whatever the Dirksens did with the kid, we’ve reached the end of the road. Even if we wanted to continue after Tarsalan disbands the company, we have no way of finding him.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Carina said, but inside she was saying, Yes, there is. She had kept the child’s transmitter. The trace of blood on it held his genetic code—his unique signature in the fabric of the universe—and that meant that she could find him, but she would have to cast.

  10

  The doctor bought the mercs some time when it came to the breaking up of the Black Dogs. He insisted that Tarsalan remain in the sick bay and leave the running of the ship to Cadwallader for at least forty-eight hours. If the company owner had had her way, Carina was sure she would have thrown them all off the ship at the earliest opportunity with no time to pack their stuff or make arrangements.

  As it was, after Smitz’s attack, no one was in any doubt that the band’s days were over, and they acted accordingly. The soldiers began to clear out their cabins and pack the items they wanted to take with them. Cadwallader transferred the monies owed to them to their credchips, and people decided where they would go next.