Bad Bargain: A Space Rules Adventure Part 1

by Ian Cannon

  He groaned, “Okay. I’m assuming that wasn’t an ore mining facility, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was probably something else.”

  “Okay.”

  “It was probably a headquarter of some kind, maybe an outpost or something.”

  She crossed her arms. “I’m following.”

  “They’re way out here in uncontested space. This isn’t even non-partisan. This is where people go to hide.”

  She nodded agreement. “Yeah.”

  “Only these aren’t criminals and pirates and cutthroats, you know, like the Guild. They’re very organized, very powerful. And they’re big.”

  “So what are you thinking?”

  “Okay, this is where it gets stupid. Geez, I’m so embarrassed.”

  She stamped her foot at the end of her patience, the battle-mech making an unintended echoic bang. “Just say it!”

  “Okay, here goes.” There was a pause as if REX were gathering his courage, and he spit out, “They’re a conspiracy group!”

  Tawny blinked, thinking. It actually made sense. She said, “Conspiracy group…”

  “Like a secret society or something, like an underground party.”

  “Yeah, go on.”

  “Well, what if they’ve been with us forever, in fact they run large corporate or economic entities like the IBS or the Currency Reserve.” His voice grew as he went on, “And what if we’ve known about them all along in, like, myth and lore and wives’ tails—you know, the boogey man and Saint Dread and things like that.” He grew louder, more feverish. “And, get this, what if their plan is to operate in secret for the purpose of creating corrupt, internalized power structures to topple governments internally. Maybe they have sleeper agents inside every planetary government, even right there at Orbin. And—here’s the kicker—” Now he was out of control, barely clinging to rationality. “What if they’re in league with the Mythic Ones from another star system who are using them as pawns for their ultimate goal of taking over the universe and stripping all known planets of their…”

  “Okay, REX!” she cut him off. “I get it.”

  “See. Stupid. I told you,” REX cried.

  “No, it’s a good theory. It’s, uh—yeah, it’s a good theory.”

  “So what do we do?” he said, settling down.

  She leaned on the table with both hands staring daggers into the rotating, flickering images. “All I know is that they have my husband and I want him back. I left him down there.”

  “You didn’t leave him, Boss. You didn’t have any options.”

  Now she punched the table, said, “But he’s down there all alone.”

  “And you would be too if you hadn’t gotten the heck out of there. It was the right thing to do.”

  “Fine,” she snapped. “But how do we get him back?”

  “We’d have to get through their armada.”

  “Can we do it?”

  “Odds aren’t good, Boss,” REX said this like delivering a terminal prognosis. “They nearly snagged me once already, and I wasn’t even approaching. I was running like a scolded monkey.”

  “We have to try.”

  “It’s risky.”

  “They’re going to kill him!” she yelled.

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Yes, we do.” Her words were angry, resolute. “I know these people. I know their type. They’ll use him to get to me. As soon as Ben lets them know he won’t give me up, they’ll kill him—my husband.”

  REX didn’t respond at first. He allowed the silence to settle between them, cool things off. He finally said in an even tone, “Okay, then, let’s think. What do we need?”

  She paced through the passenger hold cringing and fuming. She hated this. She needed a strategy. She needed her husband to help her free … her husband. What would Benji do, how would Benji think?

  Very basically. Very fundamentally.

  She turned around and addressed the A.I., “We need an armada.”

  “Okay, great. How do we get one?”

  She thought. They couldn’t build one. They couldn’t buy one. They couldn’t steal one. But…

  Her eyes widened. A thought. She said, “We enlist one.”

  “How?”

  Who has an armada? Another thought. It was desperate, made her close her eyes and say, “The Cabal.”

  “What?” REX said.

  “We go to the Cabal. Yeah—I turn myself in. I’m a war criminal. They arrest me, bring me before their local war consulate. We tell them about Mortus. We have them launch an attack.”

  REX paused, thinking. Then said, “That’s a great idea, Tawny. In fact, that’s so good it might be the STUPIDEST thing I’ve ever heard! And I thought I was bad…”

  Her desperate anger flared like a gas torch. “Well, do you have any better ideas?”

  “I’m just saying—you’re a criminal, Boss. You said it yourself. They wouldn’t bargain with you. They’d just incarcerate you. Can you say, hello mindwipe? Oh, yay!”

  Something caught her by the brain stem. That word. Bargain. She repeated it. “Bargain. That’s what we need. We need a bargaining chip, something to bring to the table. Something with leverage.” She stood perfectly still for several seconds as something else caught her by the brain stem. Another thought. Something hopeful. Her face broke into a clever grin. Then she started chuckling. Then laughing. Laughing out loud.

  Then REX offered a few huffs of curious laughter himself. He said, “What? What is it? Tawny!”

  She said, “Bargaining chip! We’ve got the biggest bargaining chip in the system. Oh, REXY, baby, you’re brilliant!”

  “I am?” he said.

  “Yes you are!”

  “I am!”

  Tawny bolted from the passenger hold, down the main corridor and into the cockpit. She said, “Set a new course, REX, top speed.”

  “Okay. Where we going?”

  She swung down into the pilot’s chair and declared, “We’re going back to Orbin!”

  REX suddenly groaned. The mood broke. It shattered. He grumbled, “Oh, shit.”

  “Heiress Orona,” Zelit said slipping a forkful of steak into his mouth. After leaving the command center he’d brought Ben to the leadership dining area. It had a nice atmosphere, plush for an out-of-the-way moon stuffed in the backwaters of uncontended space, with a full view of the facility across a lunar mountain valley—large windowed terraces jutting from rock face and built into the mountainside. Escalator passages zigzagged through the jagged formations. Zelit continued, “She was a very small part in a much greater plan.” He grinned with contempt. “And you foiled it, Benjar.”

  “That was your attempt at conspiracy, huh?” Ben hadn’t eaten much. His appetite was understandably gone. He was worried about his wife. Worried about himself. Admittedly, what food he did eat was delicious—bovine steak cuts from Molos with steamed sweet vegetables and an odd, thick but tasty carbohydrate that held its shape quite nicely.

  Zelit said, “When one strikes from within they have to accept that their role may include the unsavory.” For a gaunt character, he ate like a Molosian land slug, all mouth and throat.

  “You mean like kidnapping certain royal members of certain royal families, things like that,” Ben said matter-of-factly.

  “In deed it does. But in all things there will be unforeseen contingencies. You and your wife were that contingency. Let’s just say, you were brought to our attention.”

  “And now I’m here.”

  “Yes. As will be your wife, very soon.”

  Ben looked at him across the table. He glared a red-hot spear into him momentarily. He melted back into his seat. “Where does Rogan fit into all this?”

  Zelit smiled sardonically and wiped the corners of his mouth, a sign he’d completed his meal. “Rogan—a tiny cog in a greater machine. We needed him to serve a purpose.” He sipped from a glass of green wine.

  “You used him.”

  “As he
used you, yes.”

  “He still hasn’t gotten what he wants, though.”

  Zelit cocked his head to the side, assumed, “The million yield.”

  “That’s right.”

  “He’ll be reimbursed. Or you will.”

  Ben nodded. That’s right. They were the Interplanetary Banking System. The Monetary Reserve. Print the money. Spit it out. Make the payment.

  “Would you prefer him to receive it or no?” Zelit asked.

  “You can do what you want, but no, I would prefer him not to get my million yield.”

  “Then, he will be a problem.”

  “What’re you going to do with him?”

  “Perhaps he can be used as leverage, yet.” He picked a last piece of food from his dish, plopped it in his mouth and pushed his dish aside. Leaning forward with his fingers locked, he gave Ben a serious look, and said, “Honestly, we haven’t gotten what we want, either.”

  Oh boy, here it comes. “I’m afraid to ask,” Ben said.

  Zelit stared at him for a long time, an uncomfortably long time, and finally said, “Join us, Benjar.”

  Ben gave him a sympathetic look. An escape plan began screaming through his brain. Nothing yet.

  Zelit continued, “You can play a much larger part in bringing about an end to the war than you ever thought possible. If you despise this war as I believe you do, this is your chance to help end it. Put a stop to it—you and Tawny, both.”

  And here it was, right in front of him. It was almost laughable. One contract. One war. One moral dilemma.

  Ben nodded his head, hoping to look amicable. “So, this whole thing is a recruitment effort.”

  “Yes,” Zelit said. “We have very particular standards in those we invite into the Faction. I’d like to think it says something about…” he looked up reading Ben, and said, “our character.” A pause. He continued, “Compare, Benjar. As a Golothan youth, you yourself were drafted into the war. Your wife—she was raised for the single purpose of fighting. Never given an option. Never offered any real path or purpose. You were lambs to the wolves and nothing more.”

  Ben put his hand up stopping him politely and asked, “Why us?”

  Zelit rolled his tongue against the inside of his cheek, sucked his teeth studying him. “We see in you and your wife precisely what we’re looking for. You’ve already abandoned the war. What’s even better, you joined forces. You represent both sides and yet you’ve found togetherness and unity. You share our mission. Plus, you’re resourceful, capable. Who better to help us lead our people into a better future, one without death and misery?”

  A decent sales pitch, Ben had to admit. But—no.

  Ben said, “You mean by committing espionage, intrigue, kidnapping, conspiracy, that kind of thing.”

  “A means to an end.”

  Ben shook his head with a huge breath and got up from the table. He moved to the viewport and stared out. All he could think about was Tawny. Where was she? When would he see her again? How could he serve her now? He shook his head no, and said, “It breaks every rule we live by, every code we share.” He turned back around. “It’s sacrosanct.”

  “Would you rather have war?” Zelit asked, his words lined with the vaguest silhouette of anger.

  “This war was never mine to end,” Ben said. “It was only mine to fight. My wife and I—we’ve chosen a different path.”

  Zelit cleared his throat, gathered his words. “The war will go on and on. Moons will disappear. Planets will turn to rubble. One day, our solar system will collapse. There will be nothing left.”

  “I’ve destroyed enough of it,” Ben said trying not to sound defensive. He failed. “Not anymore.”

  Zelit got to his feet. “Benjar, you must reconsider.” Now moving around the table. “This is your purpose. This is why you’re here.”

  “No,” he said quickly, cutting him off. “I was just here to deliver water.”

  “Then you must see with greater vision.”

  “Than delivering water to the thirsty?”

  “Yes!”

  Ben couldn’t tell if the man was demanding or pleading. Maybe both.

  Ben looked at him curiously and said, “You thought I’d come in here and you’d show me all this cool, sparkly stuff and I’d just go along with it, didn’t you?”

  “We’re talking about putting an end to this war, Benjar.”

  Yep—now the guy was insulted.

  “But you never will,” Ben snapped back. “You know why? Because no one knows how this war even started. Was it them, was it us? Was it a thousand years ago, two thousand? Three? Does it even matter? No one cares! They don’t fight for sides. They just fight to … to avoid a conversation. It’s ideology. There’s no logic to it. You can’t reason with it; you can’t change it. It just goes on and on.”

  “Then someone must act. It must be our mission!”

  “And to what end? When you’ve succeeded and both sides are in shambles, squabbling for whatever’s left over, what then?”

  Zelit smacked the table hard—WHOCK! “There will be only us, and then we can orchestrate a new peace!”

  The following silence was resounding. Ben let it cool the room. He said, “Ah—and there it is. It’s all about control.”

  “It’s about bringing peace!” Zelit roared.

  Ben roared back, “Then stop! Just stop!”

  Zelit heaved at him. He’d abandoned his composure completely, hunched over the table, one hand planted onto its surface, heaving like a hunchback. He finally whispered, “There is no stopping it. The machine is in motion. The future will come. It’s too late. There is no turning back now.”

  Ben gave him a sad look, full of pity, full of hopelessness. “Then, you’re just feeding the organism,” he muttered.

  Zelit stood taught, straightened his collar. He gave Ben a deep, hard, cold look, void of warmth, no understanding, no compassion. Pure pragmatism. “No more words, Benjar. Join us.”

  Or what, he wanted to ask. But he didn’t have to. He already knew the answer. This wasn’t a choice. This was no different than Golotha drafting him into the war, or Raylon forcing his wife to fight. It was all the same. This place was just another battlefield waiting to happen. He meant—join us, or die.

  Ben shook his head almost imperceptibly, and said, “No.”

  Zelit closed his eyes, took a huge breath, and said, “Ben.”

  He repeated, this time with definitive certainty, “No.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  REX zipped in from inner-warp like the blink of an eye—VWAP!

  Orbin was still a hundred thousand miles distant, yet it was big and citrine with its deep blond glow. Tawny looked on nervously. She was here to arbitrate a deal with the Orbin king. She needed their war machine. She needed it badly. But cutting deals and bargaining with hostile party members was not her forte—unless it included beating folk into pulp. This was Benji’s arena. It made her nervous.

  They’d been detected. The Orbinii knew her vessel well even without the great mag-spires, and they’d obviously entered it into their criminal mainframe as suspect. Once their planetary defense systems spotted an RX-111 entering their space, they perked up. Security cruisers slid toward them.

  “Here they come,” REX bemoaned.

  A hail alert flashed. She took a breath, put them on. The Orbinii head that looked at them was unfriendly.

  Tawny cleared her throat and said, “This is the privateer freighter REX on approach.”

  “You have been detected by the Orbin planetary security vessel Ordan-o’ant. You will come to all stop and prepare to be towed.”

  “Cutting engines,” she said and killed the drive systems. The Ordan emerged getting bigger and bigger until it swallowed the entire viewport. They felt the internal grav systems adjust once they fell under its tractor beam. They began sliding back toward the planet.

  They were tugged back to the Orbiter 1 space frame that pulsed with life. Personnel craft moved around,
lights twittering. Everything parted as the mammoth Ordan pulled overhead and a reticulating umbilical reached up to greet them. It thumped against REX’s undercarriage.

  “We’re going to have visitors,” he said.

  “Here we go.” Tawny got up and moved toward the rear lift with her battle-mech parts thumping heavily along the main passage.

  REX said, “Hey, Boss?”

  She stopped, turned. “Yeah?”

  “Do me a favor when you’re down there.”

  “What?”

  “Think like Cap.”

  She gave him a grunt and went down to the cargo bay. When the airlock slid open the security force that looked in at her were serious and armed. She put her hands forward together at the wrists and said, “You got your man.”

  Cuffed, Tawny was led gruffly through the station and into the processing wing with two tall Orbin security officers shoving her along from behind. Her battle-mech kept pace better than the rest of her body. She didn’t like enemy combatants putting their hands on her, pushing her around. She’d broken plenty of arms in the past, but she had to think like Cap. Think like Benji. He was the one with the patience. She was the one with the fuse.

  They brought her to the front processing desk where a low ranking administrations officer watched them enter. At first sight of her Raylon red hair, he made a disgruntled face. “Is this the criminal?”

  The lead security guard said, “Yes, sir. She is the one.”

  A flat-headed, pentagonal floor bot to the left skittered its displeasure and scooted back. Tawny frowned at it and said to the admin officer, “I’m here to talk to the king.”

  He scrunched his face. “What king?”

  “The king, the king. The Orbin king. Your king,” Tawny insisted.

  He eyed her with skepticism, his thoughts clear on his face—who does this little Raylon witch think she is?

  And then his cheeks puffed out attempting to withhold laughter, but failed, and he went into a hilarious guffaw. The others followed suit, each Orbin laughing uproariously—Hahaha! Hehehe! Hohoho!

  She eyed them bitterly until they cooled. She said, “I’m a prisoner of the royal court.”

  The admin officer wiped the remnants of laughter off his face and said, “You are a prisoner of whatever we say you are.”