Bad Bargain: A Space Rules Adventure Part 1

by Ian Cannon

Her words sank in. A moment of silence flittered by. King Oto shared a glance with General Ona’Oona who hadn’t said a word. He finally nodded his head in the affirmative and said, “Time is of the essence. If her husband is killed at their hands, she will not comply.”

  King Oto gave him an affected look. He asked, “How soon can we deploy?”

  Ona’Oona said, “We have three armada wings at the ready, each in orbit.”

  “Within the hour,” the king assumed.

  Ona’Oona nodded.

  King Oto gave his council one last look, each in the eye. “Final word?” he said.

  “Let us see.”

  “Let us see.”

  “Agreed.”

  King Oto looked at his general, firmly. “Then give the word. And we will see.”

  The council turned back toward the entrance to the dais, but Ona’Oona grabbed Olan by the arm, turned him around privately. He gave him an untrusting stare and said, “Not you.”

  Olan’s stare went to the floor.

  Ona’Oona snuffled with disgust and went to face this new Raylon ally with the rest of the council. It was time to prepare for battle … on multiple fronts.

  Word was given. REX’s surveillance data of the armada was shared among the Orbinii. The plan was simple. Approach the moon, kick some narse.

  The war machine was already preparing for inner-warp by the time Tawny got to the ship. She couldn’t suppress her glee. Her plan, against all odds and with very poor diplomacy, had worked. They were headed into combat … right now.

  She exploded into the cockpit.

  “Congratulations, Boss,” REX said, “I think.”

  “You ready, REXY?”

  “We’re set, all parameters met.”

  She plopped down excitedly and declared, “Burn, baby, burn!”

  Everything stretched out—stars, space, time. And they were off with Tawny pumping her fist and hollering for joy. She wanted to be first. She wanted to see the looks on their faces when she dropped out of inner-warp with the Orbinii 1st Home Fleet behind her. And then…

  Even at top speed, the surrounding Orbinii battle cruisers looked like star shots stretching out into the distance and then disappearing altogether. Within seconds, the entire Orbinii war machine was gone, one at a time—boom boom boom boom—heading toward Mortus, leaving them in their space wake. Tawny was left looking a bit mystified, her fist frozen in the air.

  REX grumbled, “Uh, they’re a little faster than we are.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ben was on his knees hunched over counting each breath. His hands were cuffed behind his back at agonizing angles. He couldn’t move. All he could do was sit and think about the pain that was sure to come his way. They’d torture him, just as they had Rogan. They’d beat him, remove parts, pull eyeballs, until he agreed to the disagreeable, or he died. This was horrible.

  He put his face up to the ceiling.

  Where was Tawny? He needed to see her. Not to be saved, not to be freed. But simply to know she was okay, to know he wasn’t alone.

  The door to his cell whisked open. Zelit strode in looking grim. He didn’t seem happy to have his captor, but rather operated with a morose sense of duty. He stood over Ben looking down. He finally said, “I have something you should see.”

  “I bet you do,” Ben muttered.

  Zelit laid an emitter cube on the floor. It opened an image cone. It was surveillance. The torture room. The long viewport. The row of stainless steel tables. Ben dropped his head.

  There was Rogan laid out on the central table. A trio of physicians stood over him, two holding him down, the other working at him. Rogan’s feet kicked defiantly, despite their ankle cuffs. He struggled like a trapped animal.

  Zelit murmured, “Volume.”

  The screaming blasted through the image cube filling Ben’s cell. That was Rogan, all right. He recognized the screaming. It was high-pitched, full of neurotic mindless wailing. Ben shut his eyes hard, wishing he could cup his ears.

  “Turn it off!” He yelled.

  Zelit flipped a wrist at the cube and the image cone zipped away.

  Ben cried out, “Why are you doing this?”

  He started his pacing, back and forth, around and around. “Rogan doesn’t suit our needs.”

  “He brought me to you, didn’t he?”

  Zelit tilted his head. “Well, he doesn’t fit our standards, either.”

  Ben huffed, “He’s not good enough for you, huh?”

  “The answer—no. He’s not,” Zelit declared almost proudly. He stared into Ben, said, “Do you feel differently? Does he fit your standards, Benjar?”

  Ben looked away, angrily. He suddenly didn’t like the answer. No, Rogan was a moron, a disreputable space insect, dim as a broken bulb, always getting in the way. Shoot, he was always getting in his own way. Ben drew a big breath as if in admittance. Despite the fact that he and Tawny were in this mess specifically because of Rogan, he felt the tinniest stab of pity for the man.

  Zelit read him with those black eyes, showing fascination, and asked, “Aren’t you beginning to see where you fit into the great scheme? There are a million Rogans in the system, but very few of you and Tawny. Have your eyes opened at all?”

  Ben shot a look up at him, stabbed him with sudden fury. He blurted in one powerful breath, “What I see is a sick, delusional nutjob who suffers from bi-gods complexia and who would rather watch the world burn around him so he can stand among the ash heap proclaiming authority to the few humanoids that might be left, rather than step the hells out of the way of true peace and true liberty!” Out of breath, he inhaled large.

  Zelit laughed at him. “That’s pretty good. You are an impressive character, even in the face of execution. You’re truly a disappointment, Benjar.”

  Still heaving he growled, “That’s never bothered me.”

  They shared a moment in silence before Zelit said, “Come. I’ll allow you to share a final conversation with a member of your chosen ilk.”

  The flagship League sat above the Mortus lunar division of the Faction proudly bearing the broad blue stripe of its designation as armada leader. Her secondary crafts, each enormous in their own right, hovered around her, some sliding through the vacuum from several miles below giving the distant Mortus surface a grand dimensional reference.

  League’s forward command hangar was perched at its uppermost point overlooking the long, swooping design of her upper deck. On terraces, a set of radar dishes wheeled about constantly probing for lurkers in the deep—vessels on approach, or other star cruisers that might move to intercept.

  Its captain stood with the armada leader, both tall, both bearing the prototypical stoicism of their affiliation, proudly at the upper catwalk with the viewport open to space on all sides. They observed the other vessels of their armada as they moved in a graceful column formation.

  The communication center for the entire armada was set in a row along the starboard wall, technicians constantly relaying message points to designated craft. Voices hummed lowly over the soft, organized commotion.

  One of the technicians listened to the alpha-wave hum of space, waiting to detect the slightest glitch in an otherwise perfect etherium. And there it was. She squinted, leaned closer to her instrumentation. Yes … a voice from the deep. Her indication light lit up overhead showing a positive find. This signal was not errant. It was real time, displaying a potential threat. She flagged the signal and sent it on down the line.

  The shift manager sitting in his lead cubicle received the finding. He tapped into the tech’s particular radar stream, listened. There it was, a frequency. He referenced it to any known vessel motion within the sector and quickly discovered it was alien. Likewise, he sent the finding off to the upper platform where a windowed command center housed the operation officers.

  The comm officer, a tall, chiseled woman with platinum hair in a bun was notified. She sent the data through her identification program and waited momentarily. The comput
er’s type and brand suggestion came back. The information made her eyes go wide.

  Vessel. Attack craft. Cruiser class. On approach. Bearing twelve-twelve-point-three, one degree on vertical plain. Inner-warp speed. Likely match: Orbin.

  She strode from the command center and to the forward bridge where the captain and armada leader stood with their hands behind their backs gawking out at the depths of space. “Sir,” she said on approach getting the captain’s attention. He turned to her as she showed a holo-display of her findings.

  He made a concerned face. “Orbin. How many?”

  “Not certain.”

  “This is an errant signal. Notify me when there’s more.”

  “Yes, Captain,” she said and turned around, but froze. The communications deck to the starboard was alight with indication blips. More signals were flooding in. Her techs were beginning to scurry around. This wasn’t errant. These were multiple signals. She turned and said, “Captain?”

  He noticed the commotion across the comm deck and shot a look out the viewport at twelve-twelve-point-three, one degree on the vertical plain. The first Orbin battle cruiser zipped in from inner-warp. It was enormous with large, rounded decks and wraparound viewports, gun bays forward and cannon platforms at the rear. Then another. And another. They were landing in perfect combat formation—a central battle unit, flankers to the left and right, wings of fast attack corvettes above and below.

  Their intentions were clear.

  The armada leader grinned, dawning a wild fiery look and said, “Our trial begins today.”

  The captain turned to his inner-ship comm officer and yelled, “General hail! Battle stations!”

  Ben entered the stainless steel torture bay with his hands cuffed at his front, Zelit paced behind. Rogan reacted when he heard the door whisk open. His head raised from the table where he was bound, and he looked around. Ben noticed immediately …

  Rogan wore a medical swath across his face. He had zero eyes. They were gone. Both of them.

  Ben sighed sadly and moved to Rogan coming to a stop at his table. Rogan muttered frightened little noises and turned his head side to side as if to see. But he couldn’t.

  “Ae’ahm, Rogan,” Ben said. “Look at you.”

  “Benji?” he whimpered.

  “They took your other eyeball?”

  He laid his head down. “I can’t see nothing. Now I need two eyeballs,” he said in a small, frightened way. “I’m never going to get that kind of yield. Can’t get no yield if I can’t even see.” He sputtered for a moment and said, “It don’t matter. They’re going to kill me anyway. I’m a goner. I’m so wasted.”

  Ben was torn. He hated seeing him like that. But deep down, he knew better than to show sympathy. Rogan was a villain. He’d cornered Tawny, and he’d trapped Ben. This whole situation was his doing. Ben’s anger flared in a miserable, self-loathing way and he said, “Well, that’s kind of what you get, Rogan. Why are you even here, huh?”

  Rogan said, “They said I’d be impotent.”

  Ben shook his head, said, “They probably said important.”

  “Yeah, that.”

  He kneeled down and said, “No, Rogan, you came here to take something that wasn’t yours, and you trusted the wrong people to help you do it. These people used you because you’re a fool, Rogan. You’ve always been a fool, and now it’s going to cost you your life.” Ben stood back up and walked to the window. He looked out sullenly. He should have listened to his wife. She had known the score. He hadn’t. Looking out the viewport he said in a low, even voice, “But don’t worry, Rogan. In the end, you’re not alone.” He turned around. “I’m a fool, too. And I’m going to die right next to you.”

  “Benji?” he said.

  The name curdled his blood. Only Tawny called him Benji. It forced patience. He groaned, “What, Rogan?”

  “Why don’t you just give them what they want?”

  There were rules he couldn’t break. But more importantly, there were ethics. This place flew in the face of his very code. He had his wife to thank for that, and gods willing, he’d get that chance. He shook his head and said, “No, I won’t do that.”

  “How’s come?”

  “I guess it comes down to,” he took a big breath and said, “character.”

  Rogan flapped his lips in a show of hopelessness. “Then you’re more fooler than me. I don’t know nothing about no character. I don’t know nothing about no love, neither. Maybe I don’t got neither one. Guess I’m just lucky. You and me—we’re just like two birds in a bush.”

  Ben scrunched his face. More bad context from Rogan. He said, “That doesn’t even make sense, Rogan.”

  Rogan said so low Ben had to bend over to hear, “Makes all the sense in the world to me.”

  And that was the difference. One was stupid, the other not. One had no ethos, the other did. But they were both going to die. And neither of them deserved it.

  Ben got close to Rogan and said, “I don’t know how yet, but I’m going to get us out of here, Rogan.”

  Rogan twitched. A spark of hope.

  From behind, Zelit said, “It’s very touching. See, enemies can be friends.”

  Ben turned to face him. “I know what you want.”

  “I want peace.”

  “Peace, huh? Then why don’t you, oh I don’t know, deliver water. Transpo med supplies. Shoes for the orphans. Toys for the tots. Maybe even rescue the occasional heiress, that kind of thing.”

  Zelit grinned. Hubris painted across his gaunt face and deep, dark eyes. “You and I have very different views on peace, Benjar.”

  “I’m not the one with the armada.”

  “No—you just carry plasma pistols on your belt.”

  Ben shrugged with humility. He wished those plasma pistols were still there. They’d taken them, stored them away. “Hey—there’s a lot of people out there want to kill me.”

  “Mmm, yes,” Zelit said, still dripping with that superior look. “And before we execute you as an enemy of the Faction, there’s someone who’d like to get reacquainted with you.”

  Ben’s eyes went into slits, curious. Who could he…

  The far door whisked open.

  possibly be…

  And there stood a tremendous, angry-looking fellow, armor plating over a scaly torso, and thick, spiny limbs.

  talking about?

  Ben’s face fell, shoulders went droopy. He knew that man-thing’s scythe weapon strapped long and ready behind his back, that sinister visor and those powerful arms. There was perfect recognition. He gulped, “Oh yeah, I remember you. You’re what’s-his-name.”

  The man-thing stepped inside with heavy, menacing footsteps and said through a deep, snaky voice, “I am Ravekk. I want you to know my name before…”

  “…you kill me. Yeah, I remember that part,” Ben said. “Aren’t you dead?”

  He said again, “I am Ravekk. I want you to know my name before…”

  “Oh, bi-gods,” Ben said. “You’re a dim one.” Ben looked over at Zelit expectantly.

  The man said, “I am sorry it comes to this, Benjar. I had such high hopes.” With that, he pushed the cuff release button on his wrist device, and Ben’s cuffs shed to the floor.

  Ben shook blood back into his fingers looking at Ravekk. He inhaled a large breath and took on a boxer’s stance. “Okay, one-called-Ravekk, let’s party.”

  Once all the Orbin vessels had completed their jump, all of them assuming combat positions and slipping toward the Faction, hells hit the fan. The Orbinii fired first. It started with long distance compressed light beams slicing the black of space, turning the vacuum iridescent.

  Hangar vessels among the Faction lowered tremendous bay doors feeding their auto drones out on turnstile tracks at a rapid-fire pace. They flooded into the space between armadas, entire swarms of them.

  The Orbin laser strikes seared into their numbers, and they began blinking out in tiny bursts of energy taking the initial volley with them.
Everything went still.

  It was a Faction defense mechanism. No damage had been done at all.

  Now all breath held on the Orbin side as a thousand cannon turrets turned on them and started unleashing a return volley. Strikes stitched the space erupting against the Orbin vessels. Shields held, repelling the initial blasts, flickers of flame depleting into space.

  But shields could only hold for so long, and the strikes began to cut through. One of the Orbin corvettes shuttered from internal damage breaking apart and turning into a sun. Debris littered the field.

  Communications began streaming back and forth:

  “We have lost the Oron.”

  “Gunships, impulse five. Close flank.”

  “All units, take up positions.”

  “Targeting, engage enemy ships!”

  “Bay vessels, release craft, release craft!”

  “Wave one, released.”

  “Wave two… wave three…” and so forth.

  Single-manned fighters—long, sleek fuselages and big booster engines at the rear—came zipping forward in waves leaving their larger brethren behind and entering no man’s land between armadas. The Faction fighter wings moved in kind—small, forward pilot designs—streaking at them, turbines burning hot. Zippers of blaster fire arced across the distance, and blew into each element’s numbers until they met in the middle. Both sides collided together and created a spiraling, flipping, spinning vortex of combat.

  The cruisers lurched forward, slower and more majestic, each side encroaching on the other. Swiveling gun minarets unleashed guided Orbin rocketry. The Faction got pounded. Explosions shredded through upper decks in big starbursts, incinerating battle panels and bulkheads. One destroyer class vessel began tumbling vertically before an eruption split it apart at its seems in glorious red and gold flame.

  The Faction returned fire desperately until the big boats split through the scattering fighter combat and engaged at point blank range. Cannon turrets and gun decks slid past one another. Light beams and plasma bombs fired their charged payloads. Explosions ripped through hulls scattering plumes of debris and wreckage into space. The smaller craft zipped back and forth in loops and maneuvers, each pocket of combat playing out its own life-and-death drama at the speed of a heartbeat, everything culminating into a confusing, reckless frenzy of pulsing and ebbing war; a huge, shapeless creature slowly rumbling over the Mortus moon eating everything it touched—like an organism.