by Jake Bible
“Bishop played us. He played us all from the start! Get Nimm and meet me in the cargo hold now!”
The lift doors opened and Roak stepped out onto the catwalk above the cargo hold.
“Roak? Have you gone mad?” Hessa asked. “None of this is… None of… Roak? What’s happening to me?”
“She’s offline,” Ti’Ya said. “I can’t access ship’s controls.”
“Of course not,” Roak said as he took aim at the back of the man standing in the center of the cargo hold. “Can you see where we are?”
“We were supposed to still be in trans-space, but we have stopped,” Ti’Ya replied, sounding shocked. “We exited a wormhole portal ten minutes ago.”
“My best fighter,” Bishop said as he turned to look up at Roak, the compression pouches of chits strapped to his body. A body already inside an enviro suit. “But hardly my best thinker. And before you get offended, neither is Reck. Amazing fighter too, and incredible with tech, but not the most perceptive personality I created.”
“Your eyes aren’t red,” Roak said as he stared at the face inside the enviro suit’s helmet. “You aren’t controlling that body. That is your body.”
“Yes, Roak, it is,” Bishop said. “Not always. There once was a Bishop, but I burned him from this husk. I am sorry you lost a friend, but I can say I have enjoyed working with you these past three years. You are impressive at what you do.” He tapped his helmet. “Too bad what you do best does not include thinking everything through.”
“You’ve pointed that out already,” Roak said.
The lift opened and Reck raced out then stopped next to Roak. She held a plasma rifle in her hands, but it hung limply.
“He’s Father,” Reck said. “How did we not see it?”
“Because I trusted Hessa,” Roak said. “And he knew that. I trust none of you, but I do trust Hessa. And the second she put the comm implant in his body, he’s had access to her. I’m an idiot.”
“Not an idiot, just more human than I designed you to be, Roak,” Bishop/Father said. “You were always the most human of your siblings and that was why you left.”
Klaxons blared and the cargo hold was bathed in red light.
“Roak, there is a ship approaching,” Ti’Ya reported. “I cannot evade it. I am locked out.”
“Yes, you are,” Bishop/Father said. “And don’t bother sending Nimm to the bridge to take over manually. All ship’s controls have been disabled. Otherwise what would be the point in all this planning?”
“Planning for what? Chits?” Roak snarled. “All of this was for chits?”
“Of course not!” Bishop/Father exclaimed. “But the galaxy does run on chits. I may have power that most cannot comprehend, but power does not come free. We all have bills to pay, Roak.”
“Why you?” Roak asked. “Why come here directly? You could have sent someone else. Controlled someone else. You manipulated Skrang, it wouldn’t be a stretch to manipulate a different being. You took a risk, Father.”
“I wanted to see my children work,” Bishop/Father said. “A bit of pride, if you will.”
“You two need to strap in!” Ti’Ya yelled over the comms as the rear hatch began to open.
Atmosphere swirled and pulled at Roak and Reck, but Bishop/Father was not affected.
“Lock in,” Roak said to Reck, but Roak saw with a glance down that she’d already magnetized her boots.
Roak did the same, but that only solved the issue of being sucked out into open space. It did nothing for the complete lack of oxygen that was about to happen.
Reck took aim with her rifle, but Roak grabbed her arm and dragged her back to the lift.
“Override the doors!” Roak shouted over the howl of wind. “Get us inside!”
Reck started to argue then nodded and slung her file. She popped open a panel and yanked at wires.
“Goodbye, Roak. Goodbye, Reck. I doubt we will cross paths again,” Bishop/Father said. “That saddens me, but it is true. By the time you extricate yourselves from your situation, if you extricate yourselves, then it will already be too late. I will have accomplished what I set out to accomplish so, so many decades ago.”
Roak felt his lungs grow heavy as the last of the atmosphere left the cargo hold. He managed one final gulp before the wind ceased and all was silence. Bishop/Father waved at Roak then disengaged his boots. He floated casually out into open space. Roak watched him go as his chest burned with the need for breath.
A ship appeared from out of nowhere, its own rear hatch open, and sucked Bishop/Father inside. Then it disappeared as fast as it had arrived. Bishop/Father was gone.
Roak continued to stare at the spot where Bishop/Father and the ship had been until Reck grabbed him by the shoulders and yanked him into the now open lift. She slammed her fist against the controls and the doors slid closed. Sweet atmosphere filled the space as the lift rose.
“I don’t know what to say,” Reck mumbled after a couple seconds of silence.
“Ti’Ya?” Roak asked. “Do you have controls back yet?”
“No, Roak, I do not,” Ti’Ya replied. “Partitioning Hessa has triggered a protocol I cannot get around.”
“Of course it did,” Roak said. “He knew it would.”
“I can bring her back, but until she is able to self-repair, the risk is considerable,” Ti’Ya said. “Only she will know how she was compromised. Keeping her partitioned is the only fix.”
“Yep,” Roak said.
“Why not just wipe Hessa?” Reck asked. “He could have overwritten her.”
“Because that is a lot harder than simply letting some bugs run their course,” Roak said. “An attack to wipe her would have played his hand. He did exactly what he wanted to do.”
“He left us alive,” Reck said. “That was a mistake.”
“Was it?” Roak asked.
He rubbed at his forehead as the lift doors opened. Roak walked onto the bridge and found an unconscious Nimm in the pilot’s seat, a line of blood trickling down from her hairline. Roak checked that she had a pulse, which she did, then sat down in the co-pilot’s seat and worked at the console until he was able to finally bring up scanners.
“Get Nimm to a med pod,” Roak said. “We’re going to need her at her best.”
“Why?” Reck asked.
Roak swiped at the holo of the scanners and the view shield was filled with the sight of a Galactic Fleet destroyer.
“Because this is why Father left us alive,” Roak said. “We’re the best distraction he could invent.”
“Attention Borgon Eight-Three-Eight,” a voice called over the coms. “Stand down and prepare to be boarded!”
23.
“How’s Yellow Eyes?” Roak asked from behind the energy field of a Galactic Fleet brig cell.
“The being is stable,” Beem replied from the other side of the cell’s energy field. The free side. “Quite a complex specimen.”
“He’s not a specimen,” Roak said. “He’s a good being. Treat him right.”
“He will be treated as you all will be treated,” Beem said. “As enemies of the Galactic Fleet. Consorting with Skrang. Consorting with Edgers. Consorting with criminals and galactic scum. Causing havoc and chaos wherever you go. You have been playing too many sides, Roak, and those sides have now caught up with you.”
“Believe what you want, but you are way out of your depth here, Beem,” Roak said and eased his back against the cell’s wall. “Where’re Reck and Nimm?”
“Being interrogated,” Beem said.
“Don’t mess with Nimm’s synthetics, alright? No need to go there again,” Roak said.
“I will not be using that method twice,” Beem responded. “Her body is of no concern. But her mind is. As is the mind of your sister, Reck.”
“Not really my… Never mind,” Roak said. “Nimm I’m sure you’ll crack. Reck? Yeah, good luck with that.”
“I do not have to crack either if you are forthright and answer my questions,
” Beem said. He snapped his fingers and a guard brought a chair to the lieutenant. Beem sat down and folded his four hands in his lap. “I shall make you a deal, Roak.”
“Not in a deal-making mood,” Roak said. “You got questions? Ask them. Maybe you’ll ask the right ones and I’ll give you the answers you need, not the answers you want.”
“No deal? Are you sure? I was willing to allow your friends to live semi-comfortable lives in a Galactic Fleet prison in exchange for your cooperation. But if you are going to answer my questions anyway, then there is no need for me to trouble myself with the forms it would take to make that happen.”
“You still got plenty of forms, Beem. You’re GF. The GF is all about the forms.”
“I’m not going to argue with you, Roak.”
“Not arguing.”
“Are you sure you do not want to make a deal? I am feeling generous. I have even ordered your ship’s AI not to be erased. She has been extracted and is held in a stasis drive that is unconnected to any outside source, so she is harmless for the moment. But with a word that can change. I could dump her into a drive too small and watch as her consciousness slowly erodes to fit her new environment. Pieces of the personality you have come to know will be stripped away until all that is left is utilitarian intelligence fit to run harvesting combines or a slot machine network on Ballyway.”
Roak grinned.
“Do you find that funny, Roak?” Beem snapped.
“No. You said Ballyway and it made me think of something someone said.”
“Excellent. I am glad your memory is working. Shall we begin with the questioning?”
Roak shook his head. He leaned forward and placed his forearms on his knees. He had been stripped of his light armor, of his usual clothes, and was wearing a GF jumpsuit. The material was itchy and coarse. Roak couldn’t care less.
“I am going to save you some time and tell you the whole story,” Roak said. “From beginning to end. When I’m done, you can choose to believe me or not. That’s up to you, Beem. Just know that you aren’t going to get more information from me than what you are about to hear.” Roak waved a hand in the air. “This is all being recorded, I assume.”
“It is.”
“Great. Let’s get started.”
And Roak explained everything. Who he was. What he was. Father, Reck, the siblings. How he killed Father, but didn’t really. His life as a bounty hunter. How he first met Bishop. The jobs he’d completed over the years. How Bishop stopped being Bishop. Finding Reck again. Father’s return.
Everything.
Except for one detail. Details, really, but intertwined enough that both never passed Roak’s lips.
Beem said nothing when Roak was finished. He glared at the bounty hunter. He took several deep breaths then stood.
“I see you have decided not to cooperate,” Beem said.
“Yeah, I think you missed the entire point of everything I told you,” Roak replied with a shrug. “But I tried. When all this shit is over, at least there will be a record of me trying to warn you. Father is going to take down the GF. He’s also going to take down the Skrang, which I never thought was on his agenda. Oh, and the Edgers are a lost cause. Kiss them goodbye too. Not that either the GF or Skrang will be too sad.”
“ Your capacity for delusion is remarkable,” Beem said.
“May I ask a question?” Roak said.
“You may, but I am not obligated to answer,” Beem replied.
“Where’s my ship?”
“It is docked on this ship. My techs are going over it very carefully. There are some modifications that Research and Development would very much like to see.”
“I’m sure. Now, these techs of yours, how experienced are they with advanced AIs?”
“I have my best AI techs monitoring the stasis drive, Roak. Your AI cannot escape.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt you have that stasis drive more secure than the Commandant’s underwear drawer,” Roak said. “I’m asking about the techs currently on my ship. What’s their experience with advanced AIs?”
“That is irrelevant. Your AI is locked up for good, Roak. It will never be a part of that ship again.”
Roak rubbed his cheeks over and over.
“Fine. Don’t answer my question. But would you mind telling me when they are done going over the ship’s storage drives? I may have saved a few images I’m not proud of.”
“You are worried I will find your pornography collection?” Beem laughed.
“What? Oh, no, these are images of Galactic Fleet officials in compromising positions. My fallback plan if I ever needed quick chits. I don’t have to tell you how desperate some officials would be to keep their predilections secret.”
Beem’s glare intensified. He studied Roak for a minute then said, “I want a status on the Borgon’s storage drives.”
“Hey now, don’t even think of crowding in on my insurance there, Beem,” Roak said.
Beem ignore Roak and pressed a finger to his aural opening.
“They have? Good. Relay the data to my personal console. I will sort through it myself.”
Beem sneered at Roak.
“Excellent. Where are we with Nimm and the Reck woman?”
Beem’s sneer grew then diminished.
“Sedate her. We’ll take her back to Galactic Fleet headquarters and let the experts there pull her mind apart.”
Beem stood.
“Our time is over for now, Roak,” Beem said. “I will have a meal brought to you shortly. Maybe once you have food in your belly you will be able to think more clearly. We will try this again later and I do hope for you and your friends’ sakes that you are more honest with me.”
“Buddy, I have never been more honest with anyone before, ever,” Roak said and shrugged as he leaned back against the wall once more. “But feel free to come by and chat again later. I’ll be looking forward to it.”
Beem studied Roak for several seconds before turning abruptly and leaving the brig.
Four guards remained in the main area, all heavily armed, all staring intently everywhere but at Roak.
“You boys have families?” Roak asked. None of the guards responded. “Tell you what. I’m going to assume you do and take it easy on you when I get out of here.”
Still no responses.
“You’ll thank me later.”
Roak whistled low as he looked up and studied the cell’s ceiling. He mentally ticked off the seconds, letting a good fifteen minutes pass before he activated his comm implant.
“You onboard?” he asked, watching the guards to see how they’d respond. Like with everything else he said, they ignored him and continued staring at spots of the brig that were not Roak. “Come on, now. Time to speak up.”
“What? Oh, sorry, Roak, I wasn’t sure who you were speaking to,” Hessa replied in his ear. “I’m so busy checking on Nimm and Reck and poor Yellow Eyes. Not to mention using this ship’s diagnostics system to make sure I am free of any trace of Father. Which I am. And, by the way, I was never actually contaminated by him. He planted a seed of doubt that forced my partitioning, which you ordered I might add, in order to take me out of play and allow him to escape.”
“Glad to hear your voice,” Roak said.
“Yours too, Roak. I watched all of the security vids of your interaction with Father. He was Bishop all this time. Feels a little on the nose, don’t you think?”
“Being Reck would be on the nose. Being Bishop was just a dick move and he knows it.”
One of the guards stopped staring past Roak and fixed him with a questioning look.
“Alright, so my time in this cell is about over. Care to give me an assist?”
“You can leave anytime you’d like. The cell’s energy shield is fake. I switched out the containment protocol for a light show. You can get up and walk out right now.”
“Thanks for that. Wake Reck up and tell her where Nimm and Yellow Eyes are. I need her to get both of them to the ship while I
confirm something. Then I’ll meet everyone at the ship and we’ll get all the Hells away from the GF and their bullshit.”
All the guards were looking back and forth between themselves and Roak. One stepped forward and raised his rifle.
“The rule is you only aim a weapon at someone if you’re willing to kill them,” Roak said and sprang into action.
He was through the fake energy shield and on the closest guard before the other three could react. Roak rested the rifle from the guard, aimed and fired at the other guards’ feet until they froze in place and lifted their arms in the air.
“Sleep tight,” Roak whispered to the guard he’d taken the rifle from. He slammed the butt against the back of the man’s head and the guy dropped. Roak brought the rifle back down before the three other guards could take aim. “Nope. Drop the rifles. Kick them here.”
They complied.
“Hessa? Fry their comms.”
“Already done. I’ve also prepared a cell for them. This one has a real energy field.”
“Good.” Roak pointed the rifle at a guard that was about his size. “Strip off the uniform. Gonna need that.”
The guard hesitated then stripped off his uniform and tossed it to Roak.
“Now, grab your pal here and go get comfortable in that cell,” Roak ordered.
As soon as the guards were safely behind the energy shield, Roak got dressed in the GF uniform. Roak salvaged the power magazines from the three rifles on the floor, tucked the magazines in his belt, checked the charge on the one he held, and left the brig.
“I need an interface that can show me the systems where Bishop’s files are stored,” Roak said.
“Uh… What now?” Hessa responded.
“You heard me,” Roak said.
“Yes, I did hear you. I’m going to patch you in to Reck now because I’m very confused by your request.”
“Hessa! Just show me the closest interface that can access system charts and planetary information. And anything the GF has on Bishop.”
“Roak? What is going on?” Reck asked over the comm. “Hessa is saying you want info on Bishop’s files. Bishop is dead, only Father is left. Those files were a red herring designed to put us on a path that has led us to our current predicament.”
