Lasswitz Depot, Satio System 12th January, 3304

“Docking clearance granted, Tango-Alpha-Romeo One-One. Set down on pad five. Welcome to Lasswitz Depot, Commander.” The automated voice isn’t very welcoming, more bland digitized tones than the words might otherwise indicate, but I don’t care. I’m here for a very singular purpose, and all I needed from the local flight control was clearance to land. Booted feet and purpose will get me the rest of the way to where I am going.

Two hangarounds and a half dozen grunts from the Posse meet me as soon as I cycle the airlock into the station proper. It doesn’t take an expert in personal security to know that all of them are armed, but they’re armed, but only with pistols so as to not alert the system authority goons to what we’re doing. The hangarounds and the grunts have their pistols stuffed into their waistbands or hidden under their jackets on shoulder rigs; I’m the motherfucking man, and don’t give a shit, and brandish my Sigmund 580’s with cocky aplomb, each one strapped to my thighs in easy reach of my hands. I’m also wearing my duster, full rockers on display, just one more thing I don’t care about. This is meant to be visible, meant to be seen as we stroll our way through the open passages of the Depot, an indiscreet sweep through the Satio Blue Street Exchange’s last vestige of control in our system.

What am I about to do, you wonder? It’s simple. I’m starting a war, and I’m doing it the old fashioned way. All the other pieces are in place; all I have left to do is knock over the first domino. The office to the head CEO of the BSE is guarded by a pair of suited goons who look like they’d fall over if it started to drizzle. In seconds they’re swept aside by Posse grunts and put on their faces, and I walk right through their submission and into the office of one James M. Barlow. As I enter I can see he’s quickly trying to crouch behind his desk, and two secretaries are scampering to get out of the room before the hangarounds get wrap their arms around them to force them, as well, to the floor.

“Come on Barlow!” I shout with perhaps a bit more glee than I really should have. “What are you doing down there? Stand up and face me like a real man!”

To his credit, he actually does, though slowly and shakenly at first. I give him a moment, a brief, short, moment, to collect himself. Sure as shit, just as I expected, he stands straight up, fixes his ties and pulls on the edges of his coat to make himself more presentable. I almost want to hug the man, and I move to act as though I am, but stop short just on his side of the desk and place both hands on his shoulders, looking him squarely in the eye even though he’s a good six or seven inches taller than me.

“What is this, Tarm? What is going on here?” he spits out in a rush finally.

“What do you think, man?” I laugh, curtly, though; I don’t want to be too presumptuous, after all.

“We had an agreement,” he starts to stammer again. “SigAndro for the security of this depot,” he stutters at me.

And just like that my patience is up. I pull him in towards me with that grip on his shoulders, which immediately throws him off balance, and drive a knee up into his lower abdomen. He’s double over now, coughing, trying to catch his breath, but that might become something of a challenge – a blunt uppercut to his jaw sends him reeling backwards. He settles onto his back and begins rolling over to one side, curling up as though he’s about to take on the fetal position.

“Consider it rescinded,” I say as I step over to where he lays. “I mean, seriously, you really should have seen this coming a mile away.” I squat down right next to him, one hand already pulling out a pistol and then resting it on my thigh as I keep talking to the man. He’s looking up at me with a heady mix of confusion and fear. To be fair, we did have a deal, but what Barlow failed to take into account what the Posse’s – and by that note, the Gunslinger’s – true final intentions were. “Did you forget that we kicked the piss out of you only a couple months ago and took over Ford? How could you let something like that go?”

I raise my empty hand as though I’ve had an epiphany. “Oh! I get it now! It was about profits!” I sneer. “That’s why you let it slide that we kicked your asses and rubbed your noses in our shit!” I emit a short chuckle. “How fucking stupid is that?” I glance over at the hangarounds and Posse grunts, see their own leering smirks at my mini-lecture. “A man tries to kill you, and you roll over?” I shake my head with a clear coat of disdain on my face. “Nah, that’s not how you do it. Someone tries to kill you, you kill them first. That, my friend, is the way of the ‘verse.”

I stand up straight and pull the slide back on my pistol enough to expose the brass coating the round in the chamber, just to make sure I actually chambered a round before getting off my ship. Sometimes I get paranoid, and sometimes a little extra double check is vital.

“Guess you didn’t get that memo, huh?” I ask dryly. He starts to shake his head as if to answer that final question, but I don’t give him the chance to answer it fully. Two slugs rip apart his skull faster than the telling of the tale, and I’m already turning to head back to the docks.

“Torch the place, do what you want with the people inside,” I say as I walk out the door. The hangarounds follow me; that’s their job. The grunts? Who cares? Really didn’t care if they even came along, but ol’ Gail insisted, so I said whatever.

Before too long, I’m already lifting off and turning my nose towards Ford Orbital.

------***-------

“That’s the ship,” Liao muttered as he eased the throttle back another notch or two. “That’s one of them, anyway,” he corrected himself as he read off the scan data. He watched from the comfort of his command seat as the Federal Gunship drifted by, one eye on the ship itself and the other on the computer displays offset to his right-front. On that screen two varying wavelengths were played out, one showing the original emissions pattern of the stolen vessel, the other showing that there had been modifications to the vessel, but not so much as to truly give it wholly original emissions patterns. Of course, for Liao, none of that mattered just yet, anyway. Regardless of his combat skill, regardless of the load out of his Fer de Lance, and no matter if he was able to get himself into a superior position, he was not about to trust himself to take on this mark while he flew around in a Gunship. He had watched him in action not long before, when his club-mates went to war against that Sigma Andromedae group. To call his mark a true combat ace wouldn’t necessarily be accurate, Liao had learned, but to discount his abilities would deadly, if not outright dangerous.

Instead, Liao would wait. Eventually Tarm Wallunga would exit Ford Orbital flying his Type 7, a ship that Liao had realized of late didn’t carry any armament. That would be when he struck.

Satisfied with his scans, Liao edged the throttle back up and headed back for Ford Orbital.

------***-------

Luther had thought about taking the Anaconda on this trip, but decided he would be better off with something for more agile and much less recognizable. Mk III Cobras were a dime a dozen, he knew, and so that was the ship he had chosen, complete with a fresh coat of black paint lined in crazy disjointed green lines.

“Find the boy, Luther,” Tarm had said, weeks ago, now, “and bring him back here.” A simple mission, Luther had thought at the time. As it turned out, such was definitely not the case.

First, he stopped in Inara, hitting up the local bars until he found the contacts he needed in order to prepare a full series of identity credentials that would allow him back on Earth. Then, because they were all new credentials, he had to earn the access permit that would allow him to actually enter the Sol system – under his false ID, that is. And then finally he made his way back onto the surface of Earth. Briefly he swung by the ruins of Wallunga tower, just to see what he and the rest of the Gunslingers had wreaked there. The superstructure of the tower was stunted, now, missing more than a dozen stories from the top. The rest was a shambles of twisted steel and exposed skeletal girders. Only the bottom twenty or so stories had remained even remotely intact, and Luther judged that most likely only the first few floors were even in regular use. Construction crews from all around the old city were working around the clock the clear the debris and damage, and would, most likely, tear the place down.

Continuing his search from there, however, is where things really got open ended. Wallunga Corporation, as a corporate entity, had ceased to exist. This complicated matters when it came to finding documents regarding the company itself but Luther was an accomplished hacker, among other things. Finding the files regarding a Wallunga Corporation CEO and his son proved only slightly more difficult, given precedents in preventing personal information from being released. Those safeguards were bruised through in brutal course, and Luther found the birth records of one Seamus Joseph Wallunga, born on 30th November, 3303. So, if nothing else, he had proven that Tarm indeed had a brother.

But where in all the universe is this baby, now, Luther wondered.

He set the Cobra down on Burnell station to look up an old friend there, maybe have a few drinks with him, and then toss back and forth some ideas on how best to find this infant. Whatever happened after that, Luther supposed, would just have to wait for the right time.

Satio System, Pegasi Sector Mid to Late December, 3303

Nice, quiet, peaceful moment in the cockpit of my recently acquired gunship. I decided to name it War Pig long before I ever actually managed to get my hands on it, and it still seems a fitting name, especially now that I’m actually using it specifically what she was meant for. The utter destruction of my foes, starting with those bastards, SigAndro.

For weeks we’ve been manipulating the various shotcallers, group leaders and VIP of the half dozen factions of Satio, a project we’ve been working on since Luther suggested we come out after dealt with….family issues. Election tampering, that being the technical term for our ensuring that the right people won, taking over Ford Orbital, and now, the final stroke in removing an outside power from the system – pushing the BSE into a shooting match against SigAndro that will, with our generous assistance, of course, ensure that they not only pack their shit get out, but never, ever, come back this way again.

When the BSE finds out what we have in store for them, though…..well, we’ll just burn that bridge when we get there. In the meantime, however, we’re on their side….until SigAndro burns from the sky, that is. And speaking of which….

“Hey, ground crew – when the fuck you gonna let me get back up there?” I growl towards to the ground crew of Block Relay, who were supposed to swiftly rearming and refueling my ship. There’s a crackle of static over the comms net, and finally some dry, raspy voice that sounds like it belongs to some prepubescent puke speaks back to me.

“War Pig, reload complete. Awaiting clearance from tower to proceed back to Launchpad,” the boy-man says.

“Well tell them I said to hurry the fuck up, I got Gunslingers up there and I’ll good and goddamned if I let them keep fighting while their president is down here sipping mai tais!” I’m really not that worried about it, to be totally honest, but you can never let the servants see that shit. They’ll just try to capitalize on it and then next thing you know, they’re walking all over you.

“Understood, War Pig,” raspy boy replies in a somewhat shaken voice. “I’ll put a rush on it.”

“We were in a fucking rush to begin with!” I snarl right back. “There’s a fucking combat zone all around Satio Four, what did you think this was, a pleasure cruise? Fuck it…and fuck YOU, while we’re at it.”

I hastily snap the comms over to the flight control tower. Really tired of dealing with middle men, even if I’m not really in a rush. The advantage now is that the Gunslingers, through our affiliation with the Posse, own Block Relay, which means we control the flight tower. I should be off the ground just as soon as the ground pukes put the gas cap back on.

“Tower, this Tango-Alpha-Romeo One-one. Clearance for departure and immediate transit to SuperCruise.” I say confidently. There are several seconds before there’s a response, presumably some tower boy looking for my transponder.

“Romeo One-One, clearance denied. Standby.”

Now I’m fuming, and any rush I might not have had a moment ago, just became a crucial immediacy the likes of which I only feel under combat. “Get. Me. The. Fuck. Off. The. Ground.” I snarl into the mic through clenched teeth.

Around me the ground crew is suddenly dispersing, and I can feel Block Relay’s inhibitors releasing my ship back to my control. The hangar deck-pad is shifting back forward, meaning they’re about to put me back on the surface. Good. Finally someone is using their damn brain and expediting this process. In only a handful of seconds, my ship is slid forward then upward through parting doors in the hangar ceiling, and the moderately bright light of Satio streams down.

“Clearance granted, Romeo One-One. Ascend at your discretion, flight path is clear.”

I’ve heard that bullshit many times before, only to have to suddenly juke to one side to evade some incoming craft passing through the mail slot at the same time as me, but then again, I’m launching from the surface, and there’s plenty of sky above me. “Romeo One One, departing,” I mutter just barely loud enough for the mic to pick it up and transmit. I’m already moving onto the launching of these beast of a ship.

Vertical thrusters maxed for a few seconds into the up direction, War Pig lifts up off the ground, slowly at first, and then steadily more swiftly. A flick of a toggle switch and the landing gear recede into their storage positions and are sealed for flight. One last look around, I nose up even as the ship continues to rise on momentum having an advantage over Satio 4-A’s one-quarter standard gravity, and I punch the afterburners. Gravity induced by maximum thrust propels me back against my seat, and I don’t give not one damn. Even as the ship reaches its max thrust output for those crucial few seconds, I’m easing the throttle to full power to continue my climb from there. Next thing I know, mass lock is gone, and I’m floating into super cruise. We have a fight to win; I can’t just hang back here forever.

Block Relay, Satio 4-A Early January, 3304 “Listen, Gail,” I grumble from my seat on my side of the desk, “this is all good. All gravy.” I lean forward a bit over my desk and take a bite of the sandwich that I was trying to enjoy before this asshole showed up. Gail Roberson is, for all intents and purposes, the second or third ranking member of the Posse. In a way, the dumb old bastard, who, by the way, appears even more old and wrinkled than Clayton, our previous point of contact, thought he was our boss. Or my boss. And let me tell you now, that shit doesn’t fly with me. I’m my own boss. Not some ancient windbag second tier shotcaller.

Apparently Gail doesn’t like my attitude, my tone or my confidence. I can tell this from the way he still hasn’t taken a seat in what only passingly passes for my office, and in the way he’s standing there with his hands on his hips, like this is his show and someone owes him for his performance. I finish chewing my sandwich, chase it with a mouthful of beer, all while waiting for him to finally take a seat.

I’m kept waiting. Fuck it. I take another bite, ending that sandwich’s existence as such, and then lean back into my chair, cross my ankles up on my desk. This is my show, I don’t care who the fuck you are, and I aim to show that. “I’m guessing I’ll have to explain this to you again, aren’t I, Gail?” I ask in as sickeningly sweet of a voice as I can muster without twisting my sated stomach.

“I need to know why you were helping our enemy!” Gail answers in a stern voice that spoke a volume or two of disappointment and betrayal.

“Then sit the shit down and listen to me as I explain it,” for probably about the fourth time, but I candidly neglect to mention that part. I swear, some of the Posse’s people are just shit for brains. Good for muscle and fodder, but not much else. This is part of the reason why I am sure that if I had just a few more people wearing black and orange rockers, Gunslingers would own this system, and not these stupid pieces of filth.

Gail seems to consider the notion for a moment, but finally grabs the back of the chair I offered him when he first showed up, and slides his old sack of bones into it with a suppressed sigh.

“We fought alongside BSE to reduce SigAndro’s influence in Satio,” I start off, trying my best to not sound like some sort of political science teacher, and lean forward onto my desk. “This move on our part actually served two purposes.” I smile a bit at this part. “First – SigAndro’s presence in Satio is already severely diminished – their own people are protesting them, in fact! I’m sure you’ve heard of the demonstrations?”

I pause a moment. I know he’s heard of them – he has to have, since they started on Ford, and that was where the news broke. He had to have heard of the problems SigAndro’s having even with their own people by now. He nods slowly, and then I continue.

“Good. So, they lose the war with the BSE and are even now packing their shit to get the hell out of the System. My guess, they won’t be coming back for good long damn while.” I smile a bit more broadly. “You’re welcome,” I smirk. “You know, since you had such concerns with them not that long ago,” I continue to smirk.

Gail shifts ever so slightly in his seat, the specifics of that body language I’m not able to decipher. No matter. I continue, anyway. “Secondly, BSE now trusts us. Which means, by extension, they trust you and the rest of the Posse. But,” I smirk some more, and hold up an accusatory finger. “But aren’t they having a problem on Lasswitz? Some virus in their cattle pens, or some shit?”

Gail nods to this, and this time his non-verbal communications are easy to interpret. “Yes, yes they have….”he trails off.

“Yes. Seems to me that if you’re administering over a colonial outpost, such things shouldn’t be happening, and didn’t they have another dozen cases reported just earlier this morning?” I wondered aloud.

“I see where you’re going at with this,” Gail says as he finally pieces together my comments, not to mention everything I’ve been pushing over the last two months.

“Indeed.”

“It seems to me,” Gail says after a moment, “that new leadership might be needed in Lasswitz.”

“And I have just made you a king,” I smirk, throwing my arms wide to further illustrate the point.

“A king?” Gail asks.

“Yeah, fucker,” I smirk as I settle into my seat and fish out a joint of O. “King of the Satio system. Or Czar, if you like. I don’t fucking care.” I light my stink, inhale the first puff deeply.

“Hmm…” Gail ponders.

Hmm, indeed….I just made you king. That makes me emperor, bitch.

Early to Mid-December, 3303 McMonagle Dock, Paiyung

Sitting all pristine in dark colors, illuminated only by the handful of lights lining the perimeter of the landing pad, was my ship. Angular lines, razor edges, and hard panels gave it a blocky, yet somehow sleek, deadly silhouette.

Okay, so technically it wasn’t mine. Not yet. But it was the reason why I was here, and not flitting about the Pegasi as is my usual order of business. The Federal Gunship was only a hundred meters or so away, and stood in silent triumph to a years’ worth of planning and aspiration.

We were going to steal it; daddy wants a new starship.

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve been in love with Wayfarer ever since I first prepped her for the Beagle Point run, and Opportunity will always be my baby. I’ll never drop those ships – whether brand new or worn with light years of travel or the dings and scrapes of a thousand tons of smuggled “illicit cargo”, those two ships got me where I am today.

Well to be fair, Luther and Sigurd are what really got me where I am right now, what with hacked ID chips and gaining us access to Federal controlled docking spaces. But now? A literal stone’s throw from the prize I’d had my eyes on since leaving the Navy, and the chance to shove a big-knuckled, fat middle finger into the eyeballs of the Federation’s top brass. I am going to steal that Gunship, hell or highwater. And the best part? Hah. You’ll laugh at this.

She’s already got all the trimming and shiny lady-bits I wanted, custom fit by order of some regional Admiral Asshole, approved by System Administrator Dickhead, and paid for by Federal Citizen John Q. Dipshit. Luther’s connections and Sigurd’s hacking are, evidently, excruciatingly exquisite.

“Alright,” Luther says in a low voice, “Tarm’s the pilot, we’re the flight crew.” He looks at me and Sigurd in quick succession, then continues speaking, as if we didn’t already know the plans for today. “Today’s flight is a test of the FSD and weapons by jumping out-system…”

“We get it,” I mutter, shutting him up. “Let’s just do it, already.” I adjust the flight harness over the stolen Federal gray and black flight suit, this whole get-up makes my skin itch like I haven’t showered with real soap and water in days. Shrugging it off, I step forward, leaving behind the cluster of access tunnels that lead to service bays and storage areas, and with supreme confidence and only a little swagger, walk right up to the crew access hatch at the rear of the ship.

Security’s light, thankfully, but then again this isn’t an actual Federal Navy installation, either. Just a subcontracted facility that does the engineering work before sending the “finished product” off to some staging base. No one stops me as I close with my new ship, and only have to flash an ID chip at a small scanner to gain access to the landing pad. Of course, so far as the automated system is concerned, we really are the flight crew for today’s previously and properly logged and filed test flight.

I settle into the pilot’s seat and start keying on the computer and other systems to get this ship up and running while Luther and Sigurd take the co-pilot’s chair and an engineer station further aft. There’s a faint purr in the back of the ship and it steadily hums to a low, energetic growl, and I smile at the sound of the ship’s power plant coming online.

I won’t deny it – I’m excited, more so than the simple excitement of nervous energy on what might be expected in the middle of a heist of this magnitude. Its almost as if the reactor coming online was inside me instead of the ship, and all that power is radiating through me and into the ship. As if I am the source of power aboard this vessel.

I fish around the pockets of the flight harness with jittery fingers. I can feel Luther’s eyes on me, but I ignore him. Come on; where is it?

Ahh, there it is, that joint and lighter. I was gonna wait until we were underway for this, but I need a little smoke to smooth some rough edges.

“Really?” I hear Luther say.

“Yup,” is all I answer with, and spark the O to burning life. I may or may not have pushed that first mouthful of smoke his way, too. Just because.

“All systems online,” I hear Sigurd report in the ear-bud in my left ear.

“Request clearance for departure,” I reply. Federal Flight Control responds almost automatically with our egress vector, and I’m smiling, ear to ear as I lift the fat-assed gunship up off the deck. Twenty meters up and the landing gear retract and stow, and power is diverted to thrusters.

Its go-time, bitches. Fifty meters a second, then seventy-five as we slide through the mail slot and everything around us goes dark – no more lights from within that cavernous docking bay.

“Course set,” Luther reports, and I turn the nose towards the marker indicating the relative position of the Tan’gika system, our first stop. She turns with all the grace of a rusted-out bathtub, but I still like it, either way.

“Frame shift drive charging,” the female voice of the computer reports.

“Here we go,” I mutter, and then I stab the -JUMP- button. Space trembles, goes cloudy, then white lines explode all around us like a laser show in a 3-D acid burn. A few seconds pass…

And we’re staring at the fiery ball of Tan’gika’s primary star, a ball of fiery red-orange fury. Uneventful jump, my favorite.

I wait while the FSD cycles through its safety cooldown. Luther and Sigurd say nothing, each monitoring their screens for anything out of the ordinary. Stolen or not, she is a new ship with new, not to mention a few questionable, parts; this is still a test flight, after all.

Everything seems fine, though. No warning lights, no sirens or savage indicators spelling our impending doom. That’s good. Next stop – Satio, and another uneventful jump. Excellent!

Another red dwarf, then over eleven thousand light seconds to Ford Orbital for a few last-minute touches on War Pig, and dumping every last serial number associated with her.

That was far easier than I expected. Perhaps, dare I say, too easy?

Li’ao Khaoth eased the throttle back as his Dropship slipped through the welcoming lights ringing the outer edge of the mail slot. By mere habit he flipped a few switches, ignored the computer’s accounting of his ship’s landing gear being deployed. Six pads ahead, the big brother of a gunship set down just as he started his own descent onto his own pad. An automated flight control spoke a welcome to him even as dexterous fingers keyed in an order refueling his ship and shutting everything down.

“Ford Orbital, eh?” Li’ao muttered. “Nothing special.” He exited his ship, shouldering a small pack in the process, and headed for the nearest bar.

“So, the Revolutionaries are set,” Johnny was saying to everyone seated around the table, and I pretended to pay attention. These meetings, while periodically needed, bored the ever-loving Jesus out of me. Of course, today’s meeting would definitely be ending on a positive note, so I was probably, to be fair, more impatient than I was bored. “Our man won, of course,” Johnny says, smirking.

A few chuckles flitter about before Johnny goes on. “Clayton’s expressed a few concerns…”

“But he’ll stay quiet because he knows it’s the best play,” Britta grumbles from her corner of the table. I smirk at her, try not to make things too obvious, too. Not that everyone doesn’t already know who’s been tussling the Shield Maiden’s sheets these last few weeks, but still – gentlemen don’t kiss and tell.

“What about Gold Electronics?” I ask before I end up revealing too much, locking eyes with Sigurd. Pressing Gold Electronics Holdings into a shooting match with SigAndro was originally his idea.

“A shit show,” Sigurd answers, looking downward for a few seconds. “The deal was good,” he offers as an explanation for the plans ultimate failure, “but things just didn’t work out.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I cut in again, waving a hand. “Everything’s locked down pretty good right now. Josef and crew are set now, SigAndro is playing bones from last place. “I pause and light up a straight smoke, blow a few rings because I can. Everyone’s quiet, waiting for me.

“I hear we got some full patches to put out,” I finally say with a classic, shit-eating grin. Knuckles and palms bang on the table all around – new members who’ve proven their trust and reliability are always good to celebrate. I raise a hand to settle them all down and then make the official call.

“Fraa Orolo..rolo.. whatever his fucking name is,” I smirk. “You know who I’m talking about. Full patch – yay or nay?”

“Aye.”

“Yup.”

“Aye.”

“Yes.”

“Unanimous,” I say in something barely bordering solemn. “And the other guy – Ohen-what’s his face. Yay or nay?”

A repeat wave rounds the table.

“Unanimous again,” I say. Ear to ear grin now, though not quite as wide as when I first fired up War Pig. “Bring ‘em in, patch ‘em up!” I say happily, thumping a fist on the table.

Two new shit heads come in, hesitantly at first it seems, but who can blame them, really? Even with just the five of us, we can be quite the intimidating lot, what with silent stares and all.

“You fuckers ready for what’s next?” I ask in a quasi-grave tone, just for effect.

“Neither answer, but their eyes bounce all over the place, trying to read the others before determining what they think is the best way to answer me.

I laugh at them, then motion with both hands in a grabbing motion. “Take that Initiate shit off!” I growl. I watch as Johnny and Sigurd lurch after the two newer guys, jerk their jackets off and start cutting at their patches.

“You shits are done,” I say coldly.

And then I pause, again, for effect.

“Cuz today, you’re all in, Gunslingers!” I toss a pair of full patches – all three pieces on each set – and watch as they slide down to the far end of the table where Fraa and Ohen are standing. The look of relief passes over their stupid faces, then gives way to sheer joy. “Put them on!” I order. “And just like the Spartan’s of old – you come home wearing them, or you don’t come home at all. Get me?”

They both nod, reaching in their own way for their patches.

“Good,” I nod finally. “Welcome!”

Hugs and cheers go around, welcoming our newest brothers to the fold. “No, go! All of you! Go fucking celebrate or something!” I laugh at them as they make their way out into the bar outside our little office of sorts.

“Luther!” I call out before he can leave with the others. “I got a job for you,” I say as I move to close the door so we can talk privately. “It’s about a boy…”

(This entry covers the events spanning the first two weeks or so of December, 3303, for those interested in continuity.)

Josef was out point of contact for the Revolutionary Party of Satio. With a name like that for their group, I had always thought they were a bunch of red and gold commies with a “share your spoils” mile-wide stick up their asses. But they weren’t. In fact, they were much more democratically aligned than all that, even to the point of contending with our present arch nemesis – the Sig Andro United boys – over an election for the new Port Authority Commissioner’s post at Abe Base.

All it took for Josef to open up to us was a few bottles of Lavian Brandy, and by a few, what I really mean is several crates smuggled in. At a discount, no less. Asshole took his cut right off the top, too, before even entertaining anything with black and orange rockers on it.

“It’s simple,” Johnny said as I lit up a smoke – just regular ol’ tobacco, not O; apparently, Josef had some allergy – can you believe that shit?? “We fly some of your missions, make Sig Andro look bad in the meantime by doing so, and you’ll have this election in the bag. The commissioner position will be yours by this time next week.”

I pulled hard on my cigarette, wishing it was O. Wishing also for some of that Lavian Brandy, even though I’m much more a beer man.

Beer. So low grade.

You were supposed to come home…

Shut UP!

I growl something under my breath, louder than I thought. Johnny and Josef (god if that isn’t the opening line to some song..) both stop to look at me, questioning looks and curious brows on their faces. I huff at them, drag on my cig again, blow it out.

“Cut the shit,” I say impatiently. Politics was never my forte. Give me a ship with cargo or a target, done deal. Backroom swill for cash and clout? Not so much. “You got the booze, and here we are, knocking on your door. Either we make Millerson look like an idiot, or we tell all of Satio – one point seven million potential voters – how you tried to bribe us to get onto Abe Base.”

Antal Millerson was the Sig Andro candidate for the Port Authority Commissioner’s post on Abe, and by now, everyone knows the Posse of Satio – who owns Abe – are thick as thieves (literally) with me and my Gunslingers.

I can see Josef’s face melt under my tone and inside I’m laughing my ass off. Dumb shit must not have thought about us maybe using this little meet up against him. With a chuckle, I blow out more smoke and toss a nod to the docking bay security camera blinking softly but resolutely from one corner.

The guns come out faster than I thought they would, truth be told. Josef snatched a small laser pistol from some hidden pocket, and all three of his buddies pulled theirs out with just a half-second’s delay. Johnny and I? Quicker than the dumb-shit bullies at Josef’s back, I can tell you that.

“Goddammit, Josef,” I snarl. For added effect, I call him Josef, instead of Yosef, the way his name is supposed to be pronounced. “Meet and greet,” I say. “This was supposed to be just a simple meet and greet.” Everyone’s watching me; I can feel all their beady eyeballs and gunsights on me. Fuck them. I got this. My guys got my back – Johnny and four or five hangarounds we pulled just for this task, not to mention the homefield advantage. The RevParty guys? Psht. Easy-peasy lemon pie. They’re not about this life, just scared.

I sigh heavily, letting Josef see my disappointment in this turn of events, and then step over to the crate of brandy that, moments ago, had been cracked open to verify it was what we had said it was. “No matter what happens in the minute or so,” I say calmly, with only a hint of the edge of sternness I want to express, “there is only one way for this to play out that does NOT end up with you and all your revolutionaries filling holes in the ground outside Abe Base.”

I stop long enough to re-holster my Sigmund 580’s and then dig through the packing material inside the crate to fish out an unopened liter and a half bottle of Lavian Brandy. “See, here’s what could happen. You shoot. We shoot. We all shoot. And then every Gunslinger and Posse member comes from all over the system to shit on your chest, teabag your stupid faces and castrate all your man-bits – or lady-bits, as the case may be. We are an equal opportunity spite-fest, after all. And then nobody will ever know that the Revolutionary Party of Satio ever – EVER – existed.”

I got his full attention now. At first, I thought I might have to go into juicy, greasy detail about all the things we would do to Josef and his punks, but as it turns out, the mention of castrations was sufficient. Muzzles are drooping, and I like how that makes me feel.

I fish out the bottle I’m looking for, peel off the paper seal around the stopper and pull it out, all in one or two smooth motions. “No matter who shoots first, you, me, my people, yours – none of it matters.” I take a nice thick pull of the very expensive brandy, feel the heat coat my throat and all the way down to my stomach.

“The only way this works,” and here I offer my trademark smuggler’s cocky grin, “is if you deal with us the way we tell you to.” I take another, smaller, pull and then re-seal the bottle. “So, what’s it gonna be, Jo Jo?” I set the bottle down on the edge of the crate and rest my hand over its top.

I look him dead in the eye, refuse to blink.

When you close on a deal, eyeball the other guy. Don’t blink. Don’t speak. First to speak, loses.

Get the fuck outta my head, dad!

Guns go back to holsters all around the bay, and I hear a sigh slip out of someone’s lips.

“That what I fucking thought!” I snarl, and in one step I’ve closed the last bit of distance between me and Josef. Before Josef realizes it, his jaw is at an awkward angle and he’s picking himself up off the floor, rubbing his chin. One flex of my right hand and I’m already forgetting that I just punched him. I lean over him as he struggles to collect his thoughts and himself.

“The next time you or your shit crew pull a gun on me or min, here or in space, I’ll have your balls roasting over my fireplace. You get me?”

Fear blanches his face, and then it turns beet red as his crotch goes something close to yellow. “Yeah, we get you,” he manages to stammer out somewhat coherently.

“Good,” I say as I straighten up and grab my bottle of Lavian fire-water. “Go clean yourself up. We can’t have Abe’s new Port Authority Commissioner looking like a two-year-old who hasn’t learned to control his bladder yet.”

I’m walking out, Johnny following, with the hangarounds closing in behind.

On to the next gig – I have a ship to steal.

Block Relay, Satio System 25th November, 3303

It’s been literal months since I was last in the Pegasi. Hah. No one calls it “Pegasi Sector”, just the Pegasi. When last I was here, I flew under Black Omega’s colors, and while I kept more or less to myself when not running down some task or other, or ferrying some sort of cargo from point A to point B, I was generally oblivious to the degradations and sheer brutality commonly associated with the Pegasi. But here I am, back in it, and its rank degeneracy are all around like the leather duster I now wear. Black and orange, that coat with the three-piece patch on the back, and a few tags on the front – “First Charter”, “Founder”, and “Block Relay” being the main ones – those are our colors now, we five. Eight or nine months ago I left here with a totally different idea of how the year would play out – in a million years, or a hundred thousand light years, this result was not at all anticipated. All alone in the Deep Black will do that to a man; killing a man might do that to you, too. Killing your own father? Christ, I thought I had avoided all that hard edginess of the Pegasi, thought I had escaped it when I left on the Galactic Highway Project.

But here I am, killing it. Killing my dad. Killing several thousand more, according to the news vids filtering out after us, too, what with blowing up several stories of the Wallunga Tower. I’m not just killing it – I’m fucking laying waste to it.

A green bottle of beer appears before me, and the rustle of leather and boot heels snaps my pontifications back to the here and now. Johnny sits down beside me, the source of the reappearing bottle, and I look over to him as he’s drinking the first pull or two from his own bottle.

“What’s the word, Johnny-bird?” I mutter as I nod my thanks and drink heartily from his offering.

“Couple new prospect types,” Johnny says. “One’s a half-ass pilot, the other a bit more experienced.” He leans into the table, sets his bottle down to free up his hands long enough to light a smoke. “We’ll need to talk about them, but there’s other stuff more pressing.” He pulls hard on the smoke, holds it in a few seconds, and then lets out a nice long stream of steel gray smoke. All the while, he’s eyeballing me, trying to read my soul or some shit, I think, and I just sit and stare back. Say what you’re gonna say – I don’t like being led by a damn tether. But I keep that thought to myself.

I can tell by the furrow in Johnny’s brow he’s waiting to see what I might say, and then that trench deepens as he gives up. “We have a meeting with Clayton in about an hour.”

“Hmph,” is my only response. I drink more beer, set my bottle down, fish out a pre-wrapped tug or two of O, set fire to herb. “The hell’s he want now?” I say before releasing my own cloud of stink.

“The usual – updates on our job list,” Johnny says almost off-handedly, as if this is just an appetizer before the main course.

“What else?” I ask in a tone that’s a bit harder than I really mean.

“He wants to know if we’re going to move to Ford,” Johnny answers.

This again? I grumble somewhere beneath my breath. I take a long hit on the joint, relish the stupid earthy herbal taste and let out another cloud. “Jesus Christ.”

Clayton Hewitt is a senior shot-caller for the Posse of Satio. In the last several days, between six or seven Gunslingers – the five us and a couple wannabe’s, probably the two “prospect types” Johnny mentioned a moment ago – and whatever the grumpy Posse of Satio could throw together, we’ve taken a major stab at the local Blue State Exchange. The BSE used to control the Satio system, but no more. Their former boss – CEO someone or other, I forgot his name – is now serving as a frozen hood ornament to the Coriolis-class star port called Ford Orbital.

I stab out the last of the O into a glass ashtray and swish the beer around in my mouth before swallowing it. “What part of ‘we’re staying at Block’ does that dumb bastard not understand?” I snort.

Our first gig in the Pegasi, hot on the heels of our… forced migration… out of Sol, and the Posse is confused. Whether it’s about our intentions or understanding how this is going to work is still beyond me.

“I don’t know, boss,” Johnny answers. “I sent a hangaround to get the others down here, though, so we can all be on the same page for the meet.”

“You sent a hanground?” I snort again, but with much more humor this time. “To wake up Britta?” I laugh at the knowing look on Johnny’s face.

“Well, they left here as a hanground,” Johnny smirks.

“Yeah,” I laugh a little more. “Alright. Prospects?” I ask, changing the subject.

“Some green boy named Orolos,” Johnny says, “and another guy – Ohen or some shit.”

“What’s your take?” I ask.

“They flew against BSE,” he replies.

I scoff. Sure, the fighting was intense, but it wasn’t all out war, either. “That supposed to mean something?”

Johnny shrugs. “Ohen did a lot, several million creds worth according to the Posse’s count.”

“And the other guy?”

“Not as much,” Johnny offers, “but that’s probably cuz I put him on other stuff, though. Low-key shit back here.”

I ponder for a moment. I’ll have to see these guys for myself, but no matter my reservations, we do need numbers. Lots of them. The Posse won’t always be there as our meatshields, and there are plenty of sharks in the Pegasi. Hungry, devious, beady-eyed sharks. “Fine. Set up a meet. Tonight. Let’s see what they’re about. Bring some of the hangarounds, too. Clayton’s gonna bitch about something, I’m sure, but I got a feeling we’re gonna need more pilots, and quick.”

“You got it, boss.”

Clayton Hewitt looks like an eighty-year-old man who just discovered that new aggressive punk rock taking over the space lanes. His hair is long and tied back, except for a thick shock of brilliant green that hangs loose on one side, and he hides his old-man eyes behind a pair of space black sunglasses. Truth be told, however, he’s probably only about forty. Such can easily be the way of life in the Pegasi. Is this what my life has become?

I shove that thought aside. Clayton didn’t’ come alone – eight or ten of his guys are scattered about the concrete and metal park that passes for an open causeway, not far off the warehouse sectors of Ford Orbital. Not one of his guys is bothering to hide the fact they are all heavily-armed – and from the looks of it, armed with the same lot of battle weapons I smuggled into Ford not just three nights back. Yeah, I smuggled them in. They’re probably still illegal too, but these guys run the system now, so who cares. But all that steely boxed death on display makes me feel inadequately armed, no matter how good a shot I might be with my matching pair of Sigmund 580’s. And never mind that this is the third pair I’ve had to acquire, either.

“Galactic Gunslingers,” exclaims Clayton as we approach, his arms wide as if expecting me to do the traditional Pegasi embrace. “What a goddamn mouthful such a moniker is.”

“I’ve got other stuff that can be quite the mouthful, too, if you’re interested,” I shoot back with a hardened smirk as I lean in to hug the man. I neglect the cheek kissing; it’s just not my thing. Besides, these bastards owe us, not the other way around, for their recent successes.

“Oh, come now, Tarm,” Clayton says in a jovial tone, “that is not the way for us to solidify our relationship.” His tone is light, but those craggy lines on his face tell a totally different story.

“Cut the shit,” I step in. My arms fall loose at my sides, ready to draw and hoping this isn’t the double cross I think it is. “Why am I here?”

Luther, Sigurd and Britta step back, but Johnny stays close. I’m okay with that, but it looks like Clayton is not that fond. I shrug at him. “Johnny’s my go-to,” I say after a second. “He stays here.”

Clayton clucks his tongue, then motions his people to spread out some more. Now it’s just the three of us.

“You’re here because I tell you to be here,” Clayton answers in a tone meant to be accepted without questions. I don’t like that tone.

“You asked for the meet,” Johnny starts.

“Silence!” Clayton snaps.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, big guy,” I growl. Right hand grips at its pistol, and left is not far behind. Shit, this is not what I wanted to do today. “Let’s not get so testy, eh? Let’s talk. I’m sure your boss has a message for us, otherwise we wouldn’t be here.”

Clayton stabs a sausage thick finger at me, then at Johnny. “Why you no come to Ford with us? The deal was for you to set up here, provide muscle to help us hold it.”

I scoff, hard. In fact, I already want to spit at this guy and see how many teeth I can free from his head in a single punch. “No, no, no, that was not the deal,” I growl. “And you’re not changing it, either!”

“The deal was our support for your big push up here,” Johnny cuts in. “In return, we get Block Relay, we use Ford for the shipyard and trade.”

Clayton grumbles something under his breath, and I’m even closer to a tooth count.

“Fess up,” I order, “what’s the deal?”

I can tell by the grinding motion Clayton’s jaw is making that he’s caught in a tight spot, and this gives me a thought. For the moment, though, I stick that idea into a mental pocket for later; I want to hear his response first. It takes a moment, and maybe a millimeter or two off his molars, too, before he answers.

“We need you and the Gunslingers to shore up Ford,” he says finally. “Gold Electronics took a beating in their war with the Sigma Andro boys, and now Sigma Andro is looking to cash in on our expansion efforts.”

“You serious?” I laugh. Sigma Andromedae United is based out of the aptly named Sigma Andromedae system, a short hop from here. “Sigma Andro is shit. What do they have to do with us? Even the BSE can take them down.”

“Blue is staying low on Satio 9,” Clayton answers. “Lasswitz is their last center of power in Satio. They lose that, they’re done.” Clayton shrugs. “Sigma Andro, on the other hand, have nothing to lose and the firepower to do something. We need bodies,” he says in a tone a few shades shy of begging.

“Bodies is your problem,” I smirk. “Should have thought about all that before leaping to take over Ford.”

“Besides,” Johnny throws in his own two creds on the topic, “we got ground at Block to cover. We’re not coming up to Ford. End of story.”

“But,” I cut in, raising a hand to forestall whatever Clayton’s response might be, “let us deal with Sigma Andro,” I offer. “We keep them down and outta your hair, we hold Block. Deal?” I ask. I even stick out my hand to shake on it.

Clayton chews his cud for a moment.

“Done,” he says finally. “Block is yours, as we agreed.” And then he turns directly me, even pulls his black glasses off to look me dead in the eye. “Keep Sigma Andro off our back. Screw this up, and we will take Block back.”

Keep dreaming, bub, I want to say, but I just nod and grip the shit out of his hand. “Come on,” I offer my cocky smuggler grin, “we got this.” I still want a tooth count, but I guess Clayton gets to keep his teeth.

This time.

22nd November, 3303 Earth, Sol “You might as well get us some beer,” I mutter as I am unceremoniously plopped into an overstuffed leather chair in front of my old man’s desk. I toss a look over my shoulder to the well-armed and beefy goons scattered about dad’s main office. “You can tell them to leave, too.” I show him my cuffed hands as validation. “It’s not like I can do much. You’re goons saw to that already.”

The look on dad’s face is stone cold blank. He takes a moment to consider his options, and then reaches into the desk between us, pulls out a pistol that looks oddly familiar, but I can’t tell for all the blinding brilliance of Sol spilling into the room from the tall windows. Then he looks at the not-so-random number of guard goons and makes a waving motion with one hand, dismissing them, and uses the other to push himself up on the desk. That waving hand then closes around the pistol, and I see that it is indeed, as I had suspected, one of my Sigmund 580’s. [i]Sonuvabitch got my guns [/i], I curse to myself. Dad stands up, keeping the gun more or less pointed in my general direction, and moves over to the small fridge that I know he keeps stocked, and retrieves a pair of brown bottles from within. The fridge door thunks closed in time with the heavy wood doors separating the office from everything else in the Tower, and dad pops open those two beers, sets one before me.

I take the bottle, hiding my smirk at this tiniest of victories, and watch my dad warily as he resumes his seat, his own bottle, untouched, in one hand, the pistol in the other, still pointed generally at me. He doesn’t say anything, and I’m not gonna be the first to talk; fuck that. I drink from the bottle, killing the neck and then some more before coming up for air, then nip a little more before setting it down on the marble desktop. Then, I just fix a stare at him, eye for eye, and I make sure every bit of my frustrations, and even some old pent up childhood and adolescent rage for good measure, is cast his way. Whether or not he recognizes it though, I can’t tell through that damn poker face of his.

“So,” I find myself acquiescing after all, the silence unnerving, “why am I here?”

“I don’t know Tarm,” he answers in that old man gravel voice of his. Sounds like two rocks trying the old fashioned way to make little rocks at the bottom of a wooden barrel. Unnerving, is what it is. “Why [i]are [/i] you here?”

Goddamnit. And damn him, too. “I need answers, pop. None of this shit makes sense,” I blurt out without thinking. [i]Am I seriously folding under this bastard’s stupid mind games? The hell is wrong with me? [/i]

He simply stares back at me, blinking only enough to remind the rest of the universe he’s not a robot, or perhaps, attempting to convince us of that. I don’t know anymore: he’s always kept his emotions well in check, always been a hard man to read. Imagine growing up under [i]that [/i]. Yeah, it sucks.

“Answers to what, pray tell?” he asks back in what is almost a convincing tone of innocence. I’m hating this conversation already, as if dreading it for the last several months wasn’t enough.

I take a moment to drink the rest of that beer before answering. If I have any chance of maintaining any sort of leverage on him, I have to be very, very careful in how I proceed.

What I do know, of which I am not so sure he knows as well, is that there is still one of us that has eluded capture. Somewhere out there, Sigurd is still running free, running amok, if you will. The rest of us – Johnny, Luther, Britta and myself – we all got picked up the moment our ship made it inside the 100km security perimeter of Wallunga Tower. Picked us off with surgical precision, at that. Single missile took out the control surfaces of the Cobra we were flying in, somehow magically evading the chaff and ECM Luther tried spoofing it with. Down we went, spinning and falling, until we hit the water with enough force to dent battle steel. How we survived is far, far beyond me. The others were knocked out, except for me, but I couldn’t find Sigurd in the floating bits of busted Cobra. Not until the air foils came in and swept us out. They missed him, apparently; Sigurd was awake and hiding under the water – had I known he could hold his breath that long, or maybe it was some cyber-implant, I don’t know, I would have told him to get us all one so we could just swim our way to the Tower’s base. [i]Machs nichts, [/i] now, though. With any luck, Sigurd has some trick up his sleeve to get us out; that was the plan in case something like this happened. Anyone that got away had to make sure they continued to press the plan until it was concluded or we all were dead. On a mental note, I will have to speak to Johnny about where he finds such good help; such blood-oath loyalty is going to come in handy once we get out of this. Shit, I don’t even know if that’s going to happen…..

And I have to pull my thoughts back on track. Sigurd is free, but the rest of us aren’t. And here I am, drinking a beer with the poker face champion of the universe who just so happens to also be my dear old dad.

I stand up to draw out the time I need to best formulate my answer, soak up more time by getting and opening a beer from the fridge. The whole time I can feel my dad’s laser gaze piercing the back of my head with better accuracy than a gangland execution. “Where’s mom?” I ask as I pop the top on beer number two. I kill the neck on this one too, and for perhaps half a second I give a shit about not having eaten since leaving Deciat two days ago. But then I see the tiniest expression of emotion give rise in the corner of one of my dad’s eyes, and then it’s aborted faster than the time it takes between star systems. For a second, maybe two, I might have gained the upper hand. “Where is she, dad?” I ask again, pressing my miniscule advantage.

“She’s dead,” he says with a certain measure of finality that I can’t even begin to interpret as anything other than a closed topic of discussion. Dad had a full house, and that trumps my pair. My sails deflated by the heavy tone of dad’s statement, I resolve not to give up. This motherfucker (no pun) holds all the cards and I’m sick of his excessive abuses of power that keeps his advantage and robs the rest of us of any option. I suck down some more beer, perhaps for the calming effect on my nerves after drinking on a totally empty and dry stomach, perhaps for the liquid courage to cover any gaps that teenage anger can’t provide, and step a few paces closer. The pistol in his hand shifts, becomes more specifically aimed at me than just the general pointiness from a moment ago.

“That’s what I’ve heard,” I venture. “But I’ve also heard it wasn’t natural causes, as the official reports indicate,” I continue. My tone grows hard. I’ve seen those reports, both the official and unofficial. Both, under scrutiny stand up to the best of reviews, but the unofficial one had imagery the other did not. I take another step or two closer, and now there’s only a few paces remaining between us.

“What of it?” my dad asks, careful to include the slightest bit of curiosity, as if he hadn’t heard those same things that indicated something other than the hand of God taking my mother up to heaven. He’s good, I’ll give him that.

“Oh you know what of it,” I growl, and take a moment to kill the bottle before stepping even closer again. I know that pistol has a clear line straight to my belly, and I don’t give a shit. The alcohol has done now exactly what I needed it to do. Its fucking go-time, bitches, and I’m done having this bastard holding ever advantage, all the cards, all the loopholes, all the carrots – tired of him keeping all that shit over my head. “You ordered her death just to get me to come home!” I shout, much louder than I had anticipated. Louder than I meant. The look on his face breaks, this time for more than just a second. His jaw hangs open, wide enough to shove the bottle into his mouth if I wanted to, hangs that way for four seconds – I counted.

“How…” he starts, but now I’m in arm’s reach. The pistol is aimed directly at my dick, but I’m past that point now.

“Fuck you! You killed my mother! You tried to kill me!” I scream. I’m screaming so loud people on the other side of the damn Hudson could hear me if their windows were open. “But here’s what I don’t get, you damn stupid son of a bitch…” I growl, catching my breath. “Why? Why did you do all that? What was your endgame, Father?” The venom hanging on the word “father” was more than enough to kill a planet of people, I know; the taste in my mouth after saying that is enough to choke me, myself.

“You were supposed to come home you stupid, obstinate ingrate!” He shouts back at me. He’s pissed; instantly his face turns red, and I can’t deny that I’m surprised. Again, though, I don’t care. His simple little statement was all the validation I needed from this universe to the next that he’s guilty as dirty, simple sin. I’m trembling with rage, I’m past the point of concern, and I think I might be a bit inebriated – enough to overlook all the rest.

It’s surprising what you can still manage to do when your hands are bound, more so when they’re bound in front of you. It’s also surprising how effective of a blunt object an empty beer bottle can be. A shame that it shattered into a thousand slivers of golden brown glass after only one swing, but that one swing was more than enough to catch dad off guard and leave him dazed enough to drop both his beer and the pistol he had kept on me from the moment I sat down in front of him. He fell back in his chair, and with the brutal shove of one booted foot, I thrust him backwards until he’s lying flat on his back on the floor. In the time it takes him to regain his seconds, I’m already all over him with the pistol – and yes, it [i]was [/i] my Sigmund 580 – pressed against his forehead.

“You stupid fucking asshole. What were you trying to do? What was your goal, dad?” I yell at him from my new position of power. He makes a muttering sound, but it’s not enough for me to understand it. I draw back and jab the muzzle of the 580 into his forehead; he doesn’t like it, I can tell, but I also just [i]don’t[/i] give a shit. “Try again!” “You were supposed to come home,” he says again. “You were supposed to take over the family business!” I’m stunned. Completely, utterly, devastatingly stunned. He did all this just to bring me home and take over the company? What in the actual [i] FUCK [/i] was he thinking?? I’m weak, and lean back against his desk, trying to steady myself, to steel myself. He struggles to get back up, a wiggle here and a wiggle there. I fire the pistol, a single round, the explosive sound it makes loud and ringing in my ears. There’s a hole in the floor, three centimeters to one side of his head. He freezes.

He makes mewling noises, his lips move, but I’m not hearing any of it, not having any of it. I’m sickened and pissed all at once. I just don’t get it. None of this makes sense. Nothing adds up. “You wanted me home? Then why try to kill me crossing the Core??” I’m shouting again. An errant thought in the back of my head is wondering why no one’s bursting into the office between my shouting and the gunshot, but I leave that thought to its wandering as I have more pressing business in front of me.

“You became expendable,” he grunts back at me. [i]Expendable [/i]?? The fuck does that even mean? “You hadn’t replied to anything I sent you, figured you were gone for good,” he goes on. “New ideas had to be explored. Your baby brother will inherit the company now, not you. So far as I am concerned, you’re dead to me.” There’s that famous stoicism, surging back into his voice. His eyes have gone hard, too, and their leveled dead at me, as if daring me.

No, I realize; he’s [i]mocking [/i] me.

In a rage, I scream, the grip of my firing hand tightens, loosens, tightens again, so many times that by the time the final round is spent, my knuckles are bone white. A stark contrast, I consider after a moment, to the ruby red spilling onto the floor from beneath exit wounds.

“Inherit this,” I scream as my final words, leaning in close to get a clear picture of the moment his soul slips the mortal coil. Steely blue, near grey eyes fade ever so slightly.

There’s a crash behind me, and in reflex I’m dropping to a knee, aiming an empty gun towards the sound. Something’s blurry my vision, I can’t see straight and I can’t tell if it’s the two swiftly consumed beers or some other liquid causing it, but the shapes seem familiar, as do their voices.

“Tarm!” Johnny yells as he crosses the office to take me by the arm. “Jesus man, you alright?” He asks. I can see him leaning to see behind me, and a weird look crosses his face, like the shadow of a bird over the ground from overhead. He offers me a simple, single nod, then starts leading me out.

“Sigurd got in, eh?” I ask quietly.

“Yup,” Johnny answers, guiding me out the office and through hallways, leading me generally up towards the rooftop.

“Good.” A weariness is encumbering me, something doesn’t feel right, and I don’t know what it is. I press on anyway, each step becoming a struggle. I find myself so thankful for Johnny’s timely intervention.
We’re on the rooftop, a modified shuttle, the kind for orbital flight only, is waiting for us, side doors open and Luther and Britta leaning out, assault rifles at the ready, sporadic shots traded back and forth with some guard post a hundred meters away. Johnny’s ducked over, squat-running across the tarmac of the roof to get into the shuttle, and I’m right behind him, as if this were some action vid and we were the heroes. Only we’re not. Definitely not the heroes. I had just killed my dad in cold blooded rage – how could I be the hero?? I jump aboard and just as quickly the shuttle jerks upward, noses up further and I’m thrown back against the rear of the open bay as Sigurd surges skyward. Looking back I see the Tower receding, and then nothing. A giant fireball erupts somewhere a few floors down from dad’s office and consumes everything above it. I look over at Johnny, who’s hanging onto some rail over his head with one hand, his other hand folding up some device and shoving it into his pocket.

“We’re clean, Tarm. Just gotta break orbit and mate back up with Luther’s [i]’conda[/i] and we’re outta here,” Johnny’s yelling to me over the sound of the straining engines. I don’t know what to say, what else to do, so I just nod to him.

“Where we going from there?” I hear Britta ask.

“I know a few people in Satio,” Luther offers. “Safe haven until shit cools,” he says.

Johnny turns to me, quizzing look in his eyes. I shrug. “Fuck it. Sounds good to me.”

13th November, 3303 Deciat 6a – Farseer, Inc.

What a week. Drinking, smoking, eating – have I mentioned how the food here is delicious after eating the same half dozen or so meals for MONTHS? And holy Christ, actual running water! Why in the hell did I ever have the idea of traversing the damn galaxy when I could have just stayed right where I was and enjoyed these finer things in life?

I digress. We’re about to leave. The first couple days I spent back “home” were spent discussing things. Don’t ask what kind of things – you know what Johnny and I and the others talked about. Validation of what I had suspected ever since Hermes first threw that tidbit my way. I try not to think about it – my dad, murdering (or ordering the murder of) my mother – but I can’t help it. When I do, the rage boils, and to use that term, honestly, doesn’t do what I truly feel any damn bit of justice, whatsoever. According to Hermes, whose information seems to be just about as good as anything else, I suppose, it was all a calculated plan to get me back home so that dear old dad could start the final phase of “grooming me” for the “chair”. But that doesn’t make any sense – dad’s never had any real love for me. Never expressed, so far as I can remember, anything about me one day taking over WallCorp, and frankly, I’m not sure I ever really wanted it. Sure, the Galactic Pathways project was my idea, my undertaking that I had hoped would help the company expand into Colonia and perhaps even beyond. Course, dad shot that shit down – no feedback to the idea, let alone any sort of support once I was under way tends to do that to a man’s confidence.

But it still doesn’t make any sense. How does killing my mother get me to come home when I’m literally halfway across the galaxy? I mean, aside from having me come home for the funeral, I suppose, but that’s just plain impractical considering how far out I was at the time. It would have been about a month to get back home, and that’s before taking into account any one of a billion things that could have gone wrong. Make it worse – I have to wonder what his true agenda is. First, he kills my mother, supposedly to bring me back home. But then send multiple ships out to catch me and kill me as I cross the Core? Months apart, perhaps, though maybe more like weeks – who knows with this weeks’ worth of illicit substances raiding my brain. Either way, whatever dad’s thinking, his brain-pan is seriously stewed.

We have a plan, though. At least, a half-ass plan, which, of course, is better than zero-plan. I’ve done zero-plan ops before – they usually don’t turn out well. Not without a metric shit-ton of luck and a few well-placed shots. But the plan is simple – kind of a get in, shoot shit up, and get out, plan. I don’t expect it to work, frankly, and I just might end up a greasy red smear along the way – hell all of us might, really – but it’s a plan.

Luther’s got the hook up on the goods. Weapons, intelligence, security access that even I didn’t have. Sigurd will fly us in, drop us on the roof and then bounce out before he gets shot down. That’s assuming, of course, we even get to within spitting distance of WallCorp Tower. Assuming we even get that far, Johnny, Britta, Sigurd and I punch a hole into the wall and shoot anything with a heartbeat until we get to my dad’s office. Sure, they’ll see us coming miles away, but once we get boots on... whatever that shit on the rooftop is, they can only speculate. Knowing dear ol’ dad, though, he’ll have a hidey hole and a hundred power armored shit-stains with high velocity flechette guns between us.

But that’s where Luther’s exemplary talents – and contacts – come into play. Supersonic bullets with some stupid dense-as-diamonds-in-a-black-hole tip, and they punch through capital ship armor like its ass wipe. Whatever dad puts up between me and the answers I need to make sense of all this, we’re gonna chew it up.

We’re leaving soon, I know that much. One last night in …whatever this place is. Deciat Bar? Farseer, Inc. drinks and eats? Space-Dairy Queen? You’d think that with as much cash as I’ve dropped here and all the things I’ve consumed here, I’d remember the name of this place. Nope, just so many steps, turn, step some more, turn again, wave at a door-man and then party like its 3299. Whatever, one more night in this place, try to take it easy on the amount of drinks I imbibe since we’re up kinda early and heading out tomorrow. Wayfarer isn’t my primary ride when shit’s about to get weird so I’ll have to get back into Night Razor. Now that ship….man, that’s a nice ship. Pull damn near 450m/s on a burst, spin on a dime piece and still put four multi’s in your face, too.

The drinks flow, the O burns steady, the night fades. We’re up far too late for a morning jaunt through witchspace but, well what can you do once the time goes by. It’s not like you can just get that shit back. I stumble through the hallways of Farseer, Inc., somehow manage to find my dinky little rent-a-hovel. As the door slips open my toe nudges a box. Blurry eyed I look down to see what this new obstacle to getting into my bed and crashing for the night might be. Small box, a handful of centimeters on any given side. Cardboard? Really? Oh – reinforced cardboard. No markings on the box, just a simple lid holding whatever’s inside in a simple box. Confused, slightly curious I pop the top off.

Inside is a silver ring with a dark face, something some high schooler would wear in recognition of whatever year they get to be confronted by the full fury of adulthood. Triple triangle and diamond logo. Very familiar. I pull the ring out, and there’s only one person that could have owned this ring; I never got one, never had one given to me. It has to be my fathers. But why in the blue bloody friggin’ hell would he send me his ring?? I turn the stupid thing over in my fingers a few times, pondering to the limited extent that I can ponder anything, given my present state of delinquent inebriation. I toss the box aside, care even less about it than I would the skid mark I leave on the landing pad. But then the flutter of something small and white catches my eye, and I see a piece of paper fall from the still open box and flop onto the deck. Weary and wary I stoop over to see what this new thing of attention grabbing apparatuses might be.

Tarm, Welcome home, son. I look forward to seeing you again. H.

Goddamnit! God damn him. God damn him and all those stupid….

Lividity doesn’t begin to describe how I feel. The ring gets shoved into a pocket, the doors to my rental shoved open (as much as hydraulically controlled doors might be shoved, anyway) and I stalk out the door.

This could change quite a bit about our plans.

5th November, 3303 Deciat 6A – Farseer, Inc.

The facilities at Farseer, Inc., were almost lavishly luxurious compared to the cramped confines of Wayfarer’s bunk, so much so that I’m willing to overlook the fact that I’m still breathing canned air. Its different canned air, and so far as I’m concerned, it could be the freshest, purest air straight from Earth at this point. But at the same time, I can only lay in bed for so long. I’m home and I’ve much to do – too much on my mind – to sit idle.

The bar isn’t much to look at it, but it does offer a view of the canyon upon the crest of which the base rests, so it’s got that going for it, if nothing else. Checking in with the doorman, I realize that I was expected. Instantly the little hairs on the back of my neck spike; I haven’t been very secretive about coming here, but I still am not expecting anyone to be out here. And after that incident near the Core, it’s probably fair to say that I am neck deep in some paranoia right about now. Not so much to prevent me from getting a drink, mind you, but definitely enough to be sure I’m up on all my toes at the present. I tip the doorman a few hundred credits – I’ve got plenty in the bank already from the exploration data I’ve already sold to Farseer, and the ship’s computer says I still got plenty left yet to sell, so a few hundred in a tip isn’t shit to me right now – and he points me to a medium sized round table near the back wall. I see a few huddled figures sitting around it, but no one I recognize. Not from the doorway, that is.

I try to be casual on my approach to the table, trying to be the usual confident, nigh cocky bastard that I am, but truth is, I’m a more than just a touch apprehensive. I brush the edge of my coat to one side and rest the palm of my gun hand on the grip of the Sigmund 580 on my right thigh, mentally kicking myself for not strapping both on. As I draw closer I see one figure nod to another, and then a tall, lanky looking man stands up to his full height of just over 2 meters and come out from between the table and the back wall. His arms raise and I can’t help but notice immediately that they’re empty, open, even. What the hell?

“Tarm goddamn Wallunga!” the man exclaims with what must be the widest and stupidest looking grin I might have ever seen. “Christ it’s been too long, eh?” he says as he crosses the last few meters and wraps his skinny arms around me. The voice is what seals the deal – I remember now that its Johnny Hermes, my supposed inside contact that had, until only very, very recently gone completely dark on me.

Three blind mice lost their way, and were never seen again.

I return his embrace, but not nearly as jovially as he offers his. He finally let’s go of me and motions for me to sit at the table with them. I take the seat that was empty – one that intentionally was set with its back to the wall so I could see everything in the bar. Before I can fully sit down there’s a beer in my hand and a smoke lit and passed to me. It wasn’t tobacco, either, I notice by the time I inhale the first pull. What is this shit? Why are they sucking up to me so much, and who the hell are they??

I sit there and sip my beer and puff the O while I wait for someone to start spilling it – and finally Johnny opens up with a round of introductions. “This here is Luther Reid,” he begins by pointing at one man of medium build and thick but short dark hair. He has beady eyes that seem to never stop moving, always looking for some boogey man to pop out of the shadows. “He’s the one that managed to get the names and whereabouts of those blind mice of ours, not to mention a few other things that we needed to take care of the…. Rodent infestation.”

Luther sticks out a hand with short stubby fingers for a shake, and I just offer a set of knuckles to bump. Johnny moves on to the other man at the table. “And this is Sigurd McCaulley. Don’t mind that funky necklace of his – he worships that Digimanus.” Johnny makes some sort of dismissive gesture with the same hand he just used to point to the man. “Some sort of techno-digital god, or some horseshit like that, anyway.”

I offer the same knuckle-bump to the religious man. Personally, I don’t have time for any of that nonsense, and it never seems to work, anyway, but I won’t begrudge someone for being more religious than me – as long as they keep that shit to themselves.

“And lastly is the Shield Maiden,” Johnny says, pointing to the waifish looking little lady seated next to him. “Britta Zielinski. Don’t let her size fool you,” he smirks, “as she’s easily four times as mean as her looks and twice that in accuracy with just about any gun you can put in her hands.”

Judging by her size, she’ll have to be able to handle that gun, I bet. I shift my smirk to a smile and nod to her. Despite her rather petite size she’s not bad looking. She smiles back, and suddenly I can’t tell if it’s because of the O, the long time alone, or her simply being an attractive woman, but I suddenly feel very un-gentleman like. I take a long pull on the beer to try to hide any betrayal my facial expression may offer, and then turn to Johnny.

“So, what is this, then?” I ask him. He smiles in return and waits, probably for fucking dramatic effect, I’m sure – he was well known for all that kind of thing when we were in the service together.

“We want in,” he says plainly.

“In what?” I counter.

Johnny face shifts a bit, scantly and briefly, but I see it. “Those rats – that was us, you know. We did that for a very good reason.”

What is this, hero worship or something? I nod, not knowing what else to do or say at this point. “Okay,” I start after another drink and another solid puff of the O. I then pass it on to Luther before continuing. “So what is it you think I’m about to do that you want in on?”

Johnny snorts. I can tell he’s starting to get agitated, but I really don’t know what he’s expecting of me, here. He takes a deep breath before giving up the ghost on his answer. “I think you and I should talk a bit more extensively, in private, when you’re ready. But, here’s the short version – I know, and we all know,” he says, waving his arms to indicate his three friends with him, “that you’re about to do something ….drastic. I also know you know it was your father that did some pretty horrible shit, and you’re gonna rectify some of that. Truth is, you’re not the only target of some of his horribility, either, and we want in on whatever you’re about to do. We can give you whatever support you need, and when you’re done, we wanna come with you.”

Jesus fucking Christ. Is this guy seriously offering to throw in with me on taking down Wallunga Tower? I don’t know what say to that. Never in a million years would I have expected anyone to understand anything I’ve been feeling for the last several months, let alone actually side with me on it. But I’m wary; however good this sounds, and for whatever its worth, I’m not about to get burned. No. I have to be careful. I have to be smart.

I lean back in my chair and kill the first beer. Before I can set the empty down, just like some damn magic or something, another one appears next to it. Greedily my fingers wrap around it. I kill the neck on that bottle quickly, then set the bottle back down and relax into my chair. The O comes back my way and I don’t waste time with it, dragging deep before knocking the ash off and passing it along again. “Alright,” I finally say. “Sounds good to me. Only,” I lean forward and look Johnny dead in his stupid brown eyes - I too can play dramatics, and this is not my first rodeo either, “what's the cost to me for all this …stuff you can do?”

Johnny smirked, locking his gaze with mine and not backing down a damn bit. He moves suddenly and before I realize it, my hand is undoing the safety clasp on the holster to draw my pistol out. It’s only then that I realize he was only reaching into his jacket – stupid brown leather duster that reached all the way to his ankles – to pull something out and toss it onto the table. I look at it as I relax that fight or flight reflex: it’s a patch, the kind that would take up the whole of someone’s back if sewn onto their jacket. Two rockers – Galactic Gunslingers on the top piece and Pegasi Sector on the bottom. Some old school gunslinger type figure in the middle. Some other shit I don’t recognize.

“What is this?”

“We need a fifth member to make this real,” Johnny said. “You join us, we help you. We all watch the towers come crumbling down.”

I’m a little confused, to be honest. But whatever. And I can’t tell you if it's the O again, leading me down this path and decision, or if it’s just because I know I’m gonna need help to do the things I wanna do.

I take a few minutes – an eternity or an instant, I can’t tell with the beer and O and no food in the belly – to think it over, and then I close my fingers around the patch. “Fuck it. I’m in. I wanna see shit burn.”

30th October, 3303 Sol System

“He’s getting closer,” Hermes muttered to himself as he thumbed off the viewer that had, until just now, displayed a few quick lines of text.  “Dammit; we may have to accelerate things…”

Any other thoughts Johnny Hermes might have voiced out loud were cut off with the warning tone of the ship’s computer, indicating proximity to Burnell Station.  The bang of dropping from supercruise snapped any wandering, errant thoughts back into line, and Hermes angled his Cobra Mk III for a better approach.  Settling his ship onto the assigned landing pad, Hermes took a steadying breath and prepared himself for what he had come out here to do.

Half an hour later, he was deep inside the small outpost station, winding his way through the labyrinthine corridors until at last he came upon a dead end, marked with a sealed door.  Two figures, still wearing their Remlock suits – sans helmets, he noticed – stood in front of that door.  With a dry smirk Hermes also noticed both were resting a hand over pistols that were strapped to their upper thighs.

“So, is this what we’re doing now?” Britta, the shorter of the two with all the mass of an underfed waif, asked.

“We’ve been talking, Johnny,” the other figure, a man who was probably taller than two meters and almost as thin as the woman, muttered.  “We do this, and there’s no going back.”

Johnny smirked again and offered a shrug to go with it.  “Come on,” he said, “what’s the matter?”

“No contract, that would be my first thought,” the man said.  “At least then we’d be covered legally.  In case of blowback, that is.”

“Blowback?” Johnny said incredulously.

“Yeah,” Britta answered.  “Sigurd has a point,” she added quickly.  “You know we can do this, but without a contract…”

Hermes scowled.  “Fuck a contract!” he snapped.  Then he caught himself, took a short but slow breath.  “Look, you’re right,” he said.  “You both are.  But this… let’s call this a personal thing, okay?”

He looked at his two friends, waiting.

“Fine,” Britta shrugged with barely much thought.  It took Sigurd a moment longer to agree.  

“We’re with you, the gods help us,” he said, using his non-firing hand to make a dismissive warding gesture.   “We’re with you, you know that.  We just don’t know the whole story, you know?”

“That’s fine,” Hermes said as he stepped closer to the door.  Britta and Sigurd slipped apart, allowing him access.  “You don’t need to know it all just yet.”  He stopped mid-step, his hand already wrapping around the doorknob.  “Just know that these three clowns,” and he jerked his head towards the door as he spoke, “they almost killed a dear friend of mine.”  He scoffed.  “Of course, none of them knew what kind of pilot Tarm was, so they weren’t properly prepared.  Imagine their shock when they figure out why we are here, hmm?”

With a faint but cold chuckle, Hermes pushed the door open, and his two compatriots followed in right behind them.  Inside the room there was but a faint, sputtering light, dangling on a power line in one corner.  In the center of the room, three men sat tied, bound and gagged to three simply folding chairs.  All had their heads slumped forward nearly to their chests.  “They’re still out, eh?” Hermes smirked to the single man standing with his back to one corner, an assault rifle held in such a way that he could instantly fire on all three bound men should the need arise.

Luther smirked and nodded to Hermes as he came in.  “Yeah,” he answered in his soft voice. “Not a peep, neither.”

“Good.”  Hermes smiled.  “I’m sorry, guys, for taking so long to get here,” he said after a moment to the three of them.  “But I am here now,” he muttered coldly now, even as he reached for the pistol strapped to his side.  In a smooth motion he brought it up, pulled the slide back to make sure a bullet rested in the chamber, and then smashed it forward into one man’s masked head.

The cry of pain and shock was loud in an enclosed place, but Hermes didn’t care.  He did the same to the other two, whose responses weren’t much different than the first.  With a quick nod of his head, Hermes sent Britta to stand behind the men, and then she ripped the cloth hoods from their heads.  Each struggled for a moment to force their eyes to adjust to the brighter light of the room, looking back and forth as far as their bindings would allow to make sense of whatever was going on.

“Good morning, assholes,” Hermes said with a devilish grin.  Muffled grunts and groans of anger were his only response; none of the three men could speak, after all.  “I’ll skip the small talk,” Hermes said with a disdainful chuckle.  “I am going to kill each of you, but first I want an answer, okay?  Do you understand?”

The three men were apparently confused, or so their distorted facial expressions would seem to indicate.  Quickly growing impatient, Hermes snapped out a quick thrust kick to the man in the center and connected solidly just beneath the man’s neck and jaw, knocking him over, chair and all.  “Pick him up,” he growled.  Sigurd and Luther scooped the man up, righting the chair.

“I said, do you understand?” Hermes asked again.   Over more muffled grunts and groans, the men nodded.  “Excellent.  I don’t wanna hear you pleading for your lives, or any of that sort of nonsense,” he added.  “The simple truth is that each of you will die, here, today, now.  You see, a friend of mine reached out to me, with some very damning evidence that I have recently confirmed to be true.  So, I will ask you my question, you will answer that question, and then I will shoot you in the face.  I promise oyu, it will be quick.  Messy, perhaps, but quick.”  Hermes crouched then in front of the man in the center, and lifted his pistol up to eye level so that all three of them could clearly see it.

“Sigmund 580.  My friends favorite sidearm.  Not my personal choice, though.  But still, a reasonably decent weapon, I suppose.  Sufficient, clearly, for this task, yes?”  He smirked again.  “But I digress.  We all have other things to do today, so let’s get down to it, shall we?”  He stood up, and stepped to one side, leveling the pistol to the man on the right, pressing the muzzle to the man’s forehead.

“Who ordered you to attack my friend, Tarm Wallunga, while he was crossing the Core?”

Hermes mouthed the words Three, Two, One as he waited, as the others made more mewling sounds and generally indicating anything other than the answer that he wanted to hear.  “A shame, I suppose.”  He pulled the trigger smoothly, and the bullet burst through the man on the right’s face and skull, spraying blood and brain matter across the wall behind him.  With barely a nudge, he tipped the chair over onto its back, leaving the dead man there, and turned to the man on the left.

“So, you see I mean what I say,” he said, turning his face to the one in the middle.  “I will kill this man next if I don’t get the answer I want.  But don’t think that because your two friends will be dead that you won’t have to answer me.  I may have other things to do today, but I think I can make an exception and free up enough time to make your last few hours in this ‘verse much more painful.”

He paused a bit, cold grey eyes watching with great intent for every facial twitch to determine the man in the middle’s ability to resist.  After a moment, he spoke again.  “Tell me: who ordered the assault on my friend in the Core?”

The man in the middle caved, bobbing his head back and forth.  Hermes turned to the man on the left with a smile on his face.  “You see?  Eventually all men can be persuaded.”  With the muzzle of his weapon pressed to the man on the left’s forehead, he fired his weapon once more, and with barely a second thought, turned his full attention to the only man of the three still breathing.  He shrugged a bit as he reached out to remove the gag from his mouth.  

“Speak the answer,” he ordered flatly.  “Go quick, or go in a tremendous amount of pain.”

“You know the answer,” the man in the middle grunted hoarsely.  “Must I really say his name?”

“Britta, do you still have that wonderful knife of yours?” Hermes turned his head to ask of the short woman.  

“Sure do,” was the only answer.  By now she had moved from behind the man in the middle, knowing full well what might be coming next.  There was already enough blood on the walls behind where the three men had sat; she didn’t envision getting herself any dirtier.  Instaead, she reached to a sheath carried on her lower back and extracted a knife two dozen centimeters long from guard to blade tip, flipped it over and offered it to Hermes, grip first.

“Now, shall we have fun?” Hermes asked, leaning the tip of the blade in real close to the last man’s eye.

“Fine!” he shouted in fear and defeat.  “It was Hermat! Hermat Seiler!  He set us up with the information we needed and the advance we needed in order to get out there!”

“Hermat, eh?”  Hermes scoffed.  “Old bastard is still using middle men in a poor attempt to keep his hands clean, I see.”  He shrugged faintly, then pressed the muzzle of his weapon to the bridge of the man’s nose.  “Nothing personal, you see,” he whispered.  “Just business.”

The final shot was just as efficient as the previous two.

_Tarm, Three blind mice lost their way, and were never seen again. A litter of cats that never ate better Are still happy to greet you The farmhouse is quiet this time of year

H._

9th October, 3303

I’m back.

Kind of, anyway. It’s been a damn long time since I updated anything here. Trying to survive on a desolate rock in literally the middle of nowhere tends to complicate matters. Makes one go dark for a while. And baby – I’m dark as shit.

I’ve had time now to put things together – literally, even. Pieced a few things together over the last few months that are starting to make more and more sense. Not to mention putting _Wayfarer _back together.

Yeah. They got me. Got me real good.

They caught me about four or five jumps out on the far side of the Core. I hadn’t even really hidden the fact that I would be passing through Sag A* on my way back home from Beagle Point. So, it’s no real surprise now that put just a wee bit of thought into it. At first, it was just one ship that barely pinged my sensors when I scanned the whole system on first arrival. Almost didn’t notice, truth be told, sitting there some two thousand light-seconds from the local star. I was just getting ready to turn towards that lone ship when it blinked out, and without a wake scan kit, I had no way to figure out where he – or she – was headed. So, I just continued on my way.

Two jumps later, three of them were waiting for me. My only saving grace was that they were spread out around the local sun; simple geometry prevented them from converging on me right away. Not knowing exactly where I would be coming from when I arrived – if I even hit that system, I suppose – they were scattered. Only one was close enough to see me when I popped in, and he was close enough for me to see him right away.

Wayfarer ain’t a combat ship – couple multi-cannons and just enough shields to cushion a hard landing on a moderately high-gravity world, really – so when the frameshift interdictor entangled me, I only had one option: submit. Common smuggler trick, that one, though. Submit and you can regain control of your ship much faster than losing to the quantum tug-o’-war. Part two of that submit trick? Boost, boost and go! Turn nose to nose and go as fast as you can while the FSD cycles out of safe mode.

My guns might have chipped his paint, at best, as I screamed by him – flipping the obligatory and age-old bird, of course. Thought I was clear – FSD was already spooling back up. It almost worked, but for that damn missile…

One of the other two must have cleared the local sun’s radius far enough to join the party and take the long shot. Incredible accuracy or just plain blind luck, that missile hit. Hard. I limped as witchspace engulfed me, and then spat me back out at the next star, warnings and sirens blaring at me the whole while. I didn’t even bother scanning that system, just keyed up the next jump. It took three more jumps before the FSD shit the bed, but I had options for a hidey hole, at least. Half a dozen gas giants and all their attendant moons; somehow, I managed to put Wayfarer down without snapping her spine. How I did it, I don’t know, but it sure wasn’t pretty, whatever it was.

What followed was weeks and weeks of roaming around in the SRV to gather enough materials to fabricate enough parts with the synthesizer’s 3D printer, then fold those parts into a larger collection, just to strap that collection in with another collection and, essentially, rebuild the FSD housing and control runs. Painstaking work doesn’t even begin to accurately describe the process, and all the while breathing the same shit-stink recycled air and drinking piss stale recycled water. All the while keeping my little peashooter pistol within reach and one eyeball on the horizon.

All the while slowly losing my shit.

Who attacked me? Why? To what end would someone fly all the fucking way out here just to off me? So many questions and only a few answers that, really, were little more than half-ass guesses.

Boredom makes you do stupid shit. One night near the end I had taken on the habit of watching the scratchy video of what the gun cameras had caught when I got jumped. At first, I was just enticed by the steady bead of sparks my bullets stitched across that ship’s hull. After a while of watching the same fifteen or twenty second clip over and over, it became just another way to pass the time while the synthesizer spat out another part. But then I saw it, clear as shit day, and all I could wonder was why I hadn’t seen it before? How did I miss it??

It was the triple triangle and diamond logo of none other than the Wallunga Corporation, black and gold, stitched onto the pilot’s chest, illuminated only because of how close to the sun we were.

Days ticked by and my head was spinning. Just what in the hell was dear old’ dad’s endgame? I started to look at what facts I did know, or at least the ones where I felt reasonably sure I could believe to be true.

1.) Minimal response to my reports en-route to, and after departing, Colonia.

2.) Mom dies, supposed because of “natural causes”, which is bullshit. Natural causes just mean the doctors can’t point out the specific real reason, and so they use that catchall term instead to give the survivors peace of mind.

3.) Hermes contacts me out of the blue with some cryptic notes suggesting mom’s death wasn’t what the reports were saying it was.

4.) Unable to get a hold of anyone other than sporadic bursts with Hermes, and after a day or two, even that is lost. My name is a bad taste in their mouth suddenly.

5.) People jump me, presumably employed by WallCorp. Could be a false flag thing, though, but I don’t know. And they fucked up. First by attack me, secondly because they failed. And they were just sloppy. Reason enough for them to die, if you ask me.

I got more questions than I do answers, and that is never good. So now I got a new flight plan and I don’t care who figures it out. First, I’m flying straight into Deciat, get the payout from all my galactic wanderings.

Then I’m going home: Sol, Earth. Wallunga Tower. And I’m gonna put a boot in dad’s face and get some goddamn answers.

Then I’m burning that fucking tower down.