Future Tense
15 Aug 2021Dixon-Phyre
Mikael lay very still, staring straight up at the ship status board above the bed. The pain down the centre of his head receded, as did the roaring in his ears. The dream slowly faded…That wasn’t a dream. That was a memory.
Dreams always seem rational whilst they are happening, then when consciousness returns, the mind can review the dream and pick out all the irrationalities.
But there were none with what had just gone through his brain.
But how can it be a memory if it hasn’t happened yet?
...and returned.
He knelt on the roof of the habitation building, eyes peering through the gloom, watching for movements in the glow of the lightposts. One guard already lay unmoving, fallen prey to a shot from the silenced sniper rifle. Another appeared suddenly from the shadows, unaware of the fate that awaited her. Marion Briers, said the HUD in Mikael’s helm. He sighted carefully, leading ever so slightly because of the relatively slow shot velocity of the Manticore Executioner – and Briers collapsed, slumping against a concrete wall. It did not take long before a member of the station’s staff came across the body, hurriedly drawing their pistol and swinging round, looking for the source of danger.
“Stop trying to act like a fucking hero,” Mikael muttered, “I’m not one, and you certainly aren’t.”
A plasma bolt sailed through the night and two bodies now lay at the wall’s base.
The last of the guards was just visible next to the warehouse. The Dominator’s jetpack boosted him from the hab roof to a storage shed, then to the top of the depot. Creeping across the deck, he tried to see the guard, and realised they were under a canopy that projected from the side of the building. Mikael turned, dropped to the ground, raised the rifle and that was that. Scanning the body gave him the security clearance he needed to get into the buildings.
All that remained was to go unit to unit, gunning down anyone that he found with a machine carbine. No-one even had a chance to set the alarms off. Valuable data was downloaded from a computer, and finally he made his way to the power station. Deactivated the fusion reactor and stole the regulator from its housing. As he made he way back to the ship, he saw the settlement’s lone sentry skimmer, still cruising back and forth, oblivious to the death and darkness around.
The Mamba lifted and accelerated into the night…
Mikael slowly sat up and shuddered. He got out of bed carefully, so not as to disturb Annabel.
They had been sleeping together for months now; it has started when they were landed near to Guardian ruins. She had entered his room in the middle of the night and gently shaken him awake.
“Mikael,” she had said, “I don’t like this place. It gives me the creeps.”
“We’ll be gone in the morning,” he said sleepily, “I promise.”
“I..I just don’t want to be alone tonight…”
And with that, without being invited, she had lifted the duvet and slipped into bed next to him, snuggling up and falling asleep. And so it began; crewing In Nomine Mortis by day, lovers by night. He had been startled by her appetite for sex, even as he had enjoyed it, but foreboding still enveloped him every time she came to share his bed.
In the washroom, he splashed cold water on his face and stared at his reflection in the mirror. He had never understood what women saw in him. Face, okay, roughly handsome, he supposed, but that big, flat nose, the deep scar across his cheek and, of course, the all-white eyes. He glanced back to the bedroom and swallowed, went back to looking in the mirror.
Don’t, he said to himself, don’t think about -
Too late. His chest tightened and a lump formed in his throat as a face swam up in his memory, pale and pretty, angular skinprints and dark blonde hair.
A tear slid down his face.
Oh, Ophelia. I miss you!
A few days later, the Type-10 eased through the mailslot at Levy Hub, LHS 2310. This had become his new base of operations – a system, not too far from Federation space but most definitely not Federation controlled.
He glanced up out of the cockpit as the unloading of a hundred and forty tonnes of beer took place, idly noticing a small ship passing overhead on its way to a berth. Looked like a Diamondback variant.
He jumped as the comms unit went off. Blinking, he took the call and stared at the face on the screen. Middle-aged man, round face, grey hair, worried look on his face.
“Commander Dixon?” Standard Federal accent.
“That’s me,” Mikael, replied cautiously.
The man on the screen bowed his head briefly. “My name is Cornelius Monfort. I’m a detective by trade. I really need your help.”
Mikael’s skin began to crawl. “With what?”
“I understand that you are acquainted with Ophelia Myshkin? Also known as Kodeyne?”
His hands gripped the armrests of the seat and he went very pale.
“Yes,” he said, voice strained, “I am.”
“Good. I don’t think we have much time...”