Date Point 3 Years 1 Month 1 Week After Vancouver
Cavaras, Corti Directorate Core World
Adrian Saunders was still trying to make his apology. It wasn’t coming easily, but he’d been led to believe that anything worth doing was worth doing well, and that this will generally be a lengthy process. This did not seem to apply to destroying untold amounts of everything, so he suspected that the sayings mileage varied. In this case, however, he didn’t doubt it was dead on.
“I don’t understand how you’re so bad at this,” Jen told him. “That’s the third Checkmate in a row. You’re not letting me win, are you?”
“I wish I was,” he grumbled. “It’d be less murderous on my self-esteem.”
She was confused. “But you keep asking people to play,” she said. “Why do you do that if you’re not any good?”
“I just sort of like the little horses,” he grudgingly admitted, despite the fact it embarrassed him. “These look more like lizards, though.”
She laughed at him, cupping her hands to her mouth in amazement. “Oh my god, that’s completely adorable!”
His face was flushed with heat, and he was sure he must have gone bright red. “Yeah, well… I don’t know about that.”
“Well…” she said, still smiling to herself, “I do. Now, would you like to play with the horsies again?”
She held one up, grinning madly at his embarrassment.
“I think I’m good,” he said. “Besides, we’ve got to go soon. You are up for this, right? You’re feeling fine?”
“You mean considering that I’ve eaten my own weight in food tablets in the past few days?” she asked. “Well, I suppose I might enjoy eating anything else once we’re out of here, but besides that I feel good. Really good.”
“Yeah, it’ll do that,” he said. “Just try and avoid situations where you’ll need medicine of any kind because your body will just start to filter it out.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you can forget about pain relief,” he explained. “Any other long-term medication as well. It makes things like a broken arm a whole world of joy.”
She looked at his arm, it was set but still broken. Even with his regenerative abilities he couldn’t heal a fully broken limb in just a couple weeks. “So that…” she began, then locked eyes with him. They were blue eyes, beautiful eyes, and right now they were full of concern for him.
“Hurts like hell, yes,” he confirmed, clearing his throat and breaking eye contact once it became too awkward. “The ribs are worse, though. You can’t laugh or even take deep breaths, but at least those are healed up now.”
She sighed softly. “Maybe I should be the one asking you if you’re up for this?”
It was his turn to sigh. If he was honest with himself, he wasn’t up for this, and he wasn’t going to be until his arm mended. But the simple fact was that they didn’t have that sort of time. “Not sure I get to say I’m not,” he said. “We can’t wait for me to be one hundred percent, so we’ll have to settle for eighty.”
She studied him intently. “Aye, you’re right. But remember that I’m going to be with you.”
“I won’t let you get hurt,” he told her quickly.
That was evidently the wrong thing to say, because it brought on a scowl. “No!” she said abruptly. “I don’t need defending anymore! I’m going to be helping you, Adrian, do you hear?! What I meant was you can rely on me to help, okay? We can stop each other from getting hurt.”
That didn’t feel right to Adrian, although he was aware that women could fight as well as men when push came to shove. Hell, he’d even served alongside some of them and he hadn’t given it a second thought. But those women had been trained soldiers, and they hadn’t been Jen.
But that didn’t matter, because Jen had changed. She wasn’t the same, helpless I.T. girl he’d left behind. This Jen was someone who launched an organised – although admittedly ill-advised – attack on a large squad of robo-slugs to try and save his life. This Jen wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
“Alright,” he said, “but no heroics.”
She raised an eyebrow at him, and he knew why.
“From me either,” he said. “But if it comes down to it…”
“It won’t come down to anything,” she said sternly. “Will you stop playing at being the hero for once? Stop trying to sacrifice yourself for others! I swear you’ve got some sort of mental issues.”
“You’re probably right,” he admitted. “Let’s get ready to go.”
+++++
Orbital service runs were grunt work, and for the most part the vessels flew themselves. It was just the cargo work to be done, and babysitting the controls in case anything went wrong, so just about anyone could get a job doing it.
They didn’t though, because the pay wasn’t much better than the work so you usually only had deadbeats doing it. That was why it was easy to get signed on to the job, even while the spaceship restrictions were in place. Askit had barely had to try to get the group hired for the run, the agency had been eager – almost desperate, really – to hire them for the work. It almost made all this too easy, but this was supposed to be the easy bit.
The part where they docked with the station would get significantly harder.
“Alright, everyone,” Askit said, “are we all aware of the plan?”
Everyone was. That was good, he’d spent enough time going over it with them, making sure everyone knew what they needed to do. Once again he’d have to rely on the humans for their resilience, and once again they’d be wearing hairy masks. From what Askit had gleaned, that was starting to become ‘a thing’ of sorts, as was the species name of ‘Uman-hay’ that they laughingly adopted.
Yet another human in-joke, this one relating to butchering one language to resemble another in some sort of poorly veiled secret code. That it was enough to completely fool members of a race who had been in space while humans were still coming to terms with the fact that poop was not good eating was something Askit was having greater difficulty coming to terms with.
But at least it worked, and he kept telling himself that was the main thing.
The Orbital Service Vessels themselves were lightly crewed vessels, but still employed enough individuals to shift the considerable cargo they held. With their numbers, Askit expected to have most of a crew, at least enough that they wouldn’t be saddled with any extras. That was also important.
“You know,” Jen said as she saw the vessels for the first time, “most ships I see are all gleaming and nice, or at least menacing. This is basically a very large and dirty brick.”
“The square shape provides optimal cargo space,” Gdugnir explained. “Kinetic fields take care of the aerodynamics. It would have been nice if they washed it from time to time, though.”
“Out of interest,” Adrian asked, “what would happen if the kinetic fields were to fail while we were moving through the atmosphere?”
“We would die very soon,” Gdugnir replied, although without any emotion to suggest that this was the kind of thing she thought actually possible to occur.
“Maybe let’s just double check that system,” Jen suggested.
Margarita laughed. “I remember when I was young and recently abducted,” she said, “everything looked completely strange and I thought that this thing, it must break!”
“But you got used to it?” Jen asked. Askit had observed that the two women seemed to enjoy each others’ company, despite much different personalities and, from what he gathered, ages. He hoped that would help them work together.
“No,” Margarita replied. “One day it failed and we all nearly died. That is why we now always double-check!”
“If that story was meant to reassure us, Margarita,” Adrian interjected, “I think you’ve failed.”
Margarita laughed uproariously, which for reasons unknown the two other humans found funny enough to join in.
“Humans are very strange,” Gdugnir said to Askit on the quiet.
He nodded.
+++++
Geosynchronous orbit of Cavaras, Corti Directorate Core World
There wasn’t much for Jen or anyone to do, besides Gdugnir, until they reached the space station. The vessel did not even offer a view, but relied on instruments to navigate.
Jen suspected that was for the occasion when the kinetics failed and you didn’t want to see when, where or how badly you were going to crash into the planet below. Sort of like a ‘what you don’t know, can’t hurt you’ sort of thing, and equally as true.
Really, Jen thought, she could have done without this sort of experience, and she had plenty of other things that weren’t getting done while she was flying around in the worst spacecraft ever. Cimbrean wouldn’t run itself, for example, and nor would the pirating operation. Those wormhole beacons weren’t going to steal themselves either.
That said, this experience had also allowed her to resume her confusing relationship with Adrian, but at least some things had changed between them. Jen herself, for instance, was no longer the frightened I.T. girl who’d pictured herself as a Princess in need of saving by her Prince Charming, and she no longer even wanted to try forcing Adrian into that role.
Adrian was different too, in some way she couldn’t quite put her finger on. The intensity remained, but its edge seemed worn. He wasn’t pushing her away anymore, but nor was he drawing towards her. Perhaps, she thought, he simply did not know what to do, and was afraid of doing the wrong thing.
She thought about that a bit more. It would explain a lot, she thought, but who could tell what was going on with a man? At times they were every bit as complex as a woman, and when that happened nobody knew what to fucking do about it.
“We’re coming up on dock five,” Askit said, interrupting her chain of thought. “It’s not far to the wormhole system from there. Remember you just need to connect the wireless jackpoint and I’ll be able to bypass standard security.”
“We know,” Adrian replied, “we’ve been over this about half a million times.”
“Just make sure you get back fast,” Askit told him. “Wormhole jumps are instantaneous, so as soon as it kicks we’ll need to be ready to undock. We’re not going to be able to wait if you’re late.”
“Masks on then,” said Jen, giving Adrian a wink before they covered their faces. “Like old times.”
“Didn’t Chir say we looked like the hind quarters of something last time?” Adrian asked. “A Kulterk?”
Gdugnir laughed at that. “A Qltrk? It’s true!”
“As long as we’re discrete,” Jen said, “I don’t care what we look like. Are we docked yet?”
“(30 seconds) and we will be,” Gdugnir advised. “Get ready to go.”
Everybody was ready.
Everybody knew what they were doing.
The service vessel docked, and shit immediately hit the fan.
+++++
It was absolutely amazing how quickly well-laid plans could turn to absolute shit, Adrian thought to himself. Everything had been so smooth up until they had docked, and then it had suddenly not been.
The robo-slugs had been waiting for them, and they’d known all about their intentions. The service vessel had immediately been the target of a focused assault with heavy weaponry that pounded huge holes into its hull. There was no way this thing was going to be spaceworthy again, and pretty soon it wouldn’t even be half-decent shelter from a light rain.
“They knew we were coming!” Askit snarled. “How could they possibly have known?”
“We’ve got to have a traitor,” Jen said. “It’s the only way!”
Everybody looked at each other, ignoring the hammering of anti-tank weaponry on the hull.
“We can’t think about that right now,” Margarita said, going for her gun. “We’ve got to-“
Adrian stopped her. “Whoa… no, I do not think I’m letting you anywhere near a gun.”
“You think I’m the traitor?” Margarita demanded. “They blew up my home!”
“You can buy a very large home with a big bribe,” Askit noted. “That can also buy friendship.”
“Cocksucking Corti!” Margarita spat. “Maybe you’re the traitor? This was your plan after all?”
“Why would I sabotage my own plan?” Askit asked angrily. “That would be an awful lot of effort when I could have just shown them where you were all staying!”
“At least nobody thinks that I’m the traitor,” Jen said quietly. “It’s nice to not immediately be the subject of suspicion.”
“I’ve never done that!” Adrian protested, or at least he didn’t remember ever having done that. “Have I?”
“Technically Jen is the only one here not from our team,” Gdugnir said, giving her own two cents.
“Jen is not a traitor!” Adrian said firmly. “I know her!”
“I suppose it’s just nice to be included at this point,” Jen said with a sigh.
“What about Gdugnir?” Margarita asked. “Our pilot of few words!”
All eyes turned towards a startled Gdugnir. “I am no traitor! I owe Adrian for helping me attain my vengeance!”
The vessel shuddered and the power flickered, dropping the interior into total darkness. The dim, emergency lighting kicked in a moment later to reveal a scene of everyone pointing guns at everyone else.
“This situation has not fucking improved much,” Adrian mused. “We should all put our guns down.”
“You drew yours as well!” Askit told him. “Suddenly I’m not sure we can trust you!”
“I just didn’t want to be the only one unarmed,” Adrian replied. “I could hear everybody else drawing.”
“You are suggesting everyone puts down their weapon,” Gdugnir said. “That seems awfully suspicious.”
“It’s not suspicious!” Adrian snapped.
The cargo door was ripped open by a robo-slug in an ultra-harness that proceeded to try its luck pressing its way into the vessel.
It experienced its last moment as every gun turned against it before snapping back to where they had previously been aimed.
“There!” Adrian said. “I just killed another one. That proves I’m trustworthy.”
“That was always going to happen,” Askit said. “And it provided ample opportunity to present yourself as trustworthy.”
“I don’t know,” Gdugnir said, “is he really that underhanded? I’ve seen him play chess.”
There was a silence, and Adrian found all eyes on him.
“There is no way he’s that underhanded,” Askit decided with a heavy sigh. “Everyone but Adrian lower your guns.”
“Fucking thanks,” Adrian said irritably, shooting the next robo-slug that tried to force its way in with a few more rounds than necessary. “Now what the fuck do we do to get out of this fine mess?”
“The vessel is too broken for us to re-enter an atmosphere,” Gdugnir said. “Soon it will be too broken to hold an atmosphere.”
“So we’re not completely screwed, then?” Jen asked. “It still flies through space?”
“I’d suggest the use of a Vacuum Suit,” Gdugnir replied. “But yes, it will.”
“Then the plan can still work,” Jen said. “We’ve just got to- Adrian, are you alright?”
“That pounding is giving me a fucking headache,” Adrian replied, growing irritable from the incessant pounding that was slowly annihilating the small vessel. “You all stay here for a moment.”
+++++
Everybody had watched Adrian leave the ship, but nobody thought to draw a weapon again. Jen was glad to see they were past that, and after a few bursts of gunfire they were past the endless rumble of anti-tank guns demolishing the hull as well.
Adrian rejoined them shortly after, toting a set of fusion blades, deactivated and slipped into the space between his sling and his body. Jen hadn’t made much use of them, but given the relative ease with which she could dispatch most aliens with other weapons – even her bare hands, really – she considered fusion blades to be more useful as tools, and those times she had used them had been when their cutting edge was more valuable than either distance or raw power.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “We were just about to go back to the plan.”
“The plan is in fucking tatters,” Adrian said flatly. He did not sound pleased, like he was about to undertake some extraordinarily unpleasant task. “It’s time for Plan B.”
“If you’re going to kill everyone on the station,” Jen said, “I am going to come with you.”
“May I posit Plan… uh… three?” Askit asked, interrupting with enough volume to get everybody’s attention. “It takes the best parts of Plan A and Plan B.”
“What is it?” Margarita asked suspiciously.
“Everybody in here puts on Vacuum Suits,” Askit said. “Everybody in there dies. I got the idea from one of Adrian’s war stories.”
“Put on your fucking suits,” Adrian said, fiddling with his immediately and moving in the kind of hurry that Jen had never seen before.
“What is it?” Margarita asked. “What is it you’re planning to do?”
“I’m planning to open all the doors, Margarita,” Askit said. “And then I’m planning to switch off kinetics and vent station atmosphere.”
“It’s what I did to a whole lot of Hunters,” Adrian added. “It’s what started the Great Hunt.”
“That was you?!” Margarita asked, wheeling on Adrian. “That fucking Great Hunt is your fault?”
“Just take it as proof that I know what I’m talking about,” Adrian said. “You do not want to be exposed to hard vacuum.”
“Only an idiot would do that!” Margarita replied. Then turned her eyes back to Adrian. “You did that, didn’t you?”
“Once again, take it as proof that I know what I’m talking about,” Adrian said with a wan smile.
“All I need you to do,” Askit said as he suited up, “it put that jackpoint into the door terminal. Access to one gives me access to all.”
“I don’t see that as being a problem,” Adrian replied. “Things got suddenly quiet outside a few moments ago.”
“I’m coming with you,” Jen said firmly, and for a moment Adrian thought he might try and resist. But he didn’t.
“Fine, he said; it seemed he was learning.