Big Damn Heroes - Chapter 4: In Limbo
12 May 2017Anna Reid
Previous chapterIn collaboration with Nick Calhoun. Go check out his side of the story.
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The worst part about this kind of work is the waiting, hands down. I much prefer taking out heads of state and rich toffs; it may bring down a lot more heat than jobs like this, but at least they have consistent predictable schedules I can plan around. Hunting psychopaths? Whole different game. Crazies, by their nature, are unpredictable and often use the sheer size of space to hide their presence. To track them down and kill them you need to establish patterns of activity, understand their particular neuroses and anticipate their movements.
Luckily, our little chat with Rags gave us a location our quarry would be in, which saved us months of searching and hundred of thousands of credits in expenses. Unfortunately, Rags didn’t give us a time Conrad would be here, the little shit. There were more than a few times over the past couple of days I wished I’d kept him alive a little while longer, just so I could cut on him some more for making me wait this long.
I catch myself grinding my teeth in frustration and seething anger. I can almost hear the joint creaking as I unclench the knotted muscles in my jaw.
You’re going to wear your teeth down to nubs at this rate, Anna.
I glance down at my sensor panel, and upon seeing it full of a great amount of fuck all, I stagger to my feet, the simple synth-wool blanket I’d been wrapped in sliding from my shoulders. Tortured joints pop and crack as I stretch after hours of sitting in motionless observation. A moan of equal parts pain and pleasure escapes my lips as coiled tendons relax and blood and sensation come rushing back into my limbs. I stand there for a few short moments, eyes closed, forehead pressed against the cool metal of the bulkhead, as the pain slowly recedes one heartbeat at a time and revelling in the simple bliss of the sensation.
I crack my eyes and glance around the bridge through the curtain of my hair; a soft crimson glow glints off harsh lines of steel and glass, and a deep bassy thrumm ebbs up from the underbelly of the ship. The light hum of the life support mixes with the faint buzz of industrial capacitors and the intermittent groan of shifting metal. My own heartbeat joins the impromptu symphony; the steady thump that lets you know you’re not quite dead yet.
I close my eyes again, and take a deep breath, letting the smell of steel, fuel, ozone and stale recycled air fill my nostrils. No matter how many expensive condos or penthouse suites I bought, nothing could replace this. Home isn’t some arbitrary point in the galaxy, or even where you live. Home is somewhere comfortable, somewhere familiar, somewhere memories are made. This ship, despite all of her faults, is h-
The sharp crackle of radio static cuts through the atmosphere like a railgun slug. I jump in surprise, slamming my head into a large and acutely angled piece of metal in the process.
“Anna, you still awake?”
A string of curses that would offend even my mother pour out of my mouth as I wobble over to my chair, rubbing at what would surely become a sizeable knot on the crown of my skull.
After a few deep breaths, I answer the call in an as calm and non-confrontational manner as possible. Not sure I managed it, but considering the circumstances, I think you’ll forgive me.
“Yeah. What?”
“Your shift’s over, buddy. You can clock off if you want.”
It’s not his fault, he didn’t know. It’s not his fault.
I grunt in response and cut the connection, not really interested in a conversation.
Draping the blanket over my shoulders again, I head back through the door at the rear of the bridge and into my sparse living quarters, before lowering myself onto the edge of the bed. I sit there, not really looking at anything, eyes focused on the middle distance, my mind caught in limbo between exhaustion and manic vigilance. It’s not long before unwelcome thoughts start to invade my idle mind. Not thoughts of the battlefield, like what occupy most of my lonely nights, but something entirely different and detached from the echoing screams of the past.
I squeeze my eyes shut and press the heels of my palms into my temples, willing the memories of that last goodbye from my head.
Suddenly, the cabin feels cold, empty and isolated, as if someone had just left. A chill washes over me and a shiver runs down my spine. I draw my knees to my chest and pull the blanket tight around my body as thoughts and feelings completely alien to me run circles inside my head.
Of all the one-nighters I’ve had- all the men kicked out of my bed- there was one I’d give anything to forget. I couldn’t put a name to half of them, but him-
I’d left so quickly, so clandestinely, not ready the emotions filling my head that night. It just felt so… right. But after so many years of being, well, me, I couldn’t process what I was feeling; I couldn’t understand what was happening. I wasn’t ready for it. So I ran. First time I ever ran from anything, and I run from the one thing that might have been good. Ran from the one chance I had at a shred of normalcy, ran from the strange and unknown into the arms of the familiar, back to the drugs and the partying and the violence. Things that I understand, where I know where I stand in the galaxy.
What are you thinking? He’s an Imp with a silver spoon up his ass. You’re just a nobody merc.
Memories of entangled limbs and tender caresses flood my mind. I swallow and turn over to my other side, the blanket wrapping itself around my body.
And here you are, mistaking an after-job tumble for something else. What are you, fifteen?
I blink the sudden blurriness from my eyes and reach for the bedside table with a shaky hand. From one of the drawers, I pull out a slender orange bottle and tap a couple of the white tablets contained within into my mouth before swallowing them with a dry gulp.
If I can just forget for one more night, I’ll be fine. All I need to do is numb this away for one more night.
I lay back on my bunk, the blanket still wrapped around me like a shroud. It’s not long before the pills start to kick in and jolts of pleasure start to travel up and down my body like waves of warm clouds. I close my eyes and let the sensation take me off to a better place.
As I drift away, I swear I can feel someone curled up beside me, their chest expanding and contracting with each slow breath. I want it to be real- but even amid the chemically-induced euphoria, I just can’t shake the truth:
Fucked up over a man. What have I become?
Alarms. Why is it always alarms?
The bass claxon of my hostile contact alert growls through my ship. Before I can even register the situation in any coherent manner, I’m awake and running towards the cockpit, more from reflex than anything else. Blinking the chemically induced slumber from my eyes, and running on autopilot, I start flipping switches and smashing buttons, getting my ship online and ready for combat, the alarm still blaring away. Somewhere in the background, my mind registers Calhoun’s voice shouting for help. I file it away as more background noise, and focus on getting into the fight.
The high pitched whine of the engines spooling up brings clarity rushing back into my previously befuddled brain. From what little I can glean from the sound of Calhoun’s yelling, he’s engaged Conrad without me, and needs help.
Goddamnit, Anna! Of all the terrible times to feel sorry for yourself, you just had to do it in the middle of a mission.
Mentally kicking myself for my carelessness, I shut off the alarm with a barked order and slam the throttle forward, beelining for the system’s asteroid belt and my partner’s wing beacon.
Not wanting to wait for a safe disengage, I hit the belt at speed and drop out with a concussive jolt and a nauseating series of cartwheels.
As I’m fighting my inertia and attempting to regain control of the ship, Calhoun’s voice comes over the commlink with a blast of static.
“What took you so fucking long?” He exclaims through what sound like gritted teeth.
Not really wanting to tell him the actual answer for a number of reasons, I respond with the first quip that jumps into my mind; “I was doing my hair!”
What? I said it was the first thing that came to mind, not that it was particularly witty.
“Well I hate to rush you, darlin’, but I could really use some help!” Calhoun doesn’t seem to appreciate the quip, either, judging by the tone of his voice.
Not wanting to waste anymore time, I gun the engines, streaking towards the dogfight as fast as my modified drives will carry me.
Lasers and cannon shells cut through the black of space like slashes in a dark curtain, blinding for the briefest of moments before being smothered by the icy infinity all around us. The dogfight is quick, savage and violent, in sharp contrast to the silent and serene asteroids drifting peacefully on their wide orbit. Calhoun’s Fer-De-Lance is light and fast, dancing around Conrad’s cumbersome Python with the grace and precision of a hummingbird. That’s not to say Calhoun was dominating the engagement, though; Conrad’s heavy turrets were pouring out fire at a truly alarming rate. He’d need help fast if we were to pull this off.
I wait until I’m within sensor range to unlock my hardpoints switch and deploy the two enormous chainguns on either side of the cockpit. I can’t quite see them emerging from their housings, but I can feel the stick jerk with the inertia of the guns slamming into place.
Once I’m within seven clicks, I pitch up and climb above the asteroid field. After reaching my desired altitude, I roll to port and steer into a dive perpendicular to the belt. With all power to engines and my afterburners wide open, I scream towards the dogfight at blistering speed.
The two dueling ships grow larger in my canopy glass with every passing second. Once I can make out individual details on the two ships, I squeeze the trigger. Immediately a deep, bassy thrum thunders from my emulators and two nearly solid streams of bright red cannon shells spray from the hardpoints. The continuous recoil force of the guns is so strong that it starts to work against my drives, significantly and noticeably cutting into my speed. The python’s shields flare up so intensely under the wall of flying metal they are almost solid blue.
As I zoom past the dogfight, I lay off the trigger and the roar of the engines seems like a loving whisper in comparison.
“What the fuck was that?” Calhoun’s voice sounds equal parts stunned and impressed.
I let out a bark of laughter as I pull the Golden Tide into a long loop. “Those are the sisters; they’re twins. You like ‘em?”
His reply is drowned out by a second burst from the Twins as I maneuver in behind the python. His engines fill my canopy with near blinding yellow light, made only brighter by the azure flares of cannon shells impacting shields.
Just as my heat gauge climbs into the red, a dull orange glow on the peripherals of my cockpit joins the blue in front of me. My heat diffusion system was buckling under the weight of my overclocked reactor and not-strictly-legal weapons. If I kept firing, the guns would overheat and start cooking off ammo in the belt, not to mention me and a host of very delicate electronic equipment.
I disengage from the run, rolling to starboard and pulling up to let Calhoun take my place on the python’s tail. As I settle into a narrow orbit around the dogfight, I flick a heavy steel switch haphazardly mounted to the center console. After a few seconds of relative silence, two massive pumps in the bowels of the ship grind to life and start circulating station grade reactor coolant throughout the ship. Moments later, my radiators lock wide open with a metallic clunk and I start dumping heat.
With the Tide as cool as an exo-planet and only getting colder, I break from my holding pattern and dive back into the cloud of lasers and frag spreads.
It doesn’t take long for the python’s shields to buckle under the weight of our combined firepower, and we fall upon him like carrion birds on a fresh kill. Knowing his imminent fate, Conrade steers away from the belt and opens his throttle.
“He’s running,” Calhoun says over the comm.
“No he’s not,” I growl through a wicked smile.
This is the best part; right at the end, when you both know what’s going to happen next. The rest is just a formality.
With two short bursts, I shred his engines. With only his maneuvering thrusters left, he founders like a wounded shark, thrashing in every direction in a futile attempt to escape.
My blood is up now, and I bear down on the wounded ship and rake his hull with cannon fire. Puffs of dust and debris vent from multiple hull breaches as internal compartments decompress. My face is bathed in the ruddy, sanguine glow of the console, eyes wide and mouth stretched in a wild grin.
My next burst passes over his powerplant. The ship stops thrashing as jets of blue plasma burn through the impact points. The external lights flicker and die as the reactor melts down and vents its fusible material into space.
“Ease up, Reid!”
My finger seizes up over the trigger. It would be so easy to just squeeze and blast Conrad into space. I could just end it here and collect my reward. No fuss, no rich daddy’s girl to ferry home. No partner.
“Don’t kill him yet. We still have to get the girl out first.”
Shit, he’s right. Daddy wouldn’t be happy if I vented his little girl into space along with Conrad. If he’s not happy, he doesn’t pay. If he doesn’t pay, I go hungry.
Not really your smartest moment there, Anna.
I release the trigger and disengage.
“What’s taking you so long?”
“Keep your shirt on,” I growl through the radio. “I’m getting some shit ready.”
I’d donned my heavy armored EVA suit; I always wear it when I expect trouble in a vacuum. With a regular flight suit, all it takes is one puncture and your blood is boiling out of your eyes. I tend not to take chances when that is a possibility.
Ceramic and carbon nanotube panels protect my vitals and non-flexible areas, while a titanium alloy weave keeps my joints and vulnerable arteries safe. Along with the suite of computers, cooling systems and advanced targeting software, the whole setup cost more than I care to remember. That being said, it can stop everything short of a tank shell, so I figure it was money well spent.
Satisfied that I’d put the suit on correctly, I attach my sub machinegun to the magnetic hardpoint on my chest and don the helmet.
The seals hiss as the interior is pressurized, and the brief darkness inside the helmet is flooded out as the internal screens, external cameras and HUD flicker to life. A diagnostic routine scrolls past my eyes as the cooling system hums to life a moment later, the radiator panels on my back sliding open to start dumping heat. The weight of the suit disappears from my shoulders as the joint servos engage.
I do a couple of systems checks and mobility tests before throwing my gear bag over my shoulder and cycling the airlock. As I wait for the room to depressurize, I stare at my reflection in the window.
The angled slits of the armored cameray array “eyes” glow a dull wine red in the gloom of the airlock, lending everything a bloody tint. The light bleeds onto the Blackstar logo I’d painted on the side of the faceplate, making it look even more sinister than it already was.
The airlock slides open, releasing the last of the air into the vacuum and pulling me out of my moment. I step out into space, my mag boots sending a jolt up my legs each time they make contact with the python’s hull. Somewhere below me, Calhoun is stepping out of his ship, too, and clunking his way along the skin of Conrad’s ship.
We’d landed our ships on either side of the python and used our own maneuvering thrusters to stabilize its spin. Of course, we’d also oriented our ships back to front, so that if Conrad somehow got his engines working, we could use our drives to cancel his thrust out. Blackstar had learned that trick during our time under contract to Black Omega. They used it when they wanted to board a ship with as few casualties as possible. You can probably guess why they’d want to do that.
Anyway, we’d co-opted the tactic and had been using it to great effect ever since. I was just surprised Calhoun knew it, too.
“I’m in limbo, heading for the cargo hatch,” I say into the radio, voice muffled and canned inside of my suit.
“Took you long enough. Meet you there.”
Mouthing his words, I screw up my face and rock my head back and forth in a mocking gesture. “Fucking prick,” I say, making sure not to key up the mic.
It’s silent inside of my suit except for the tinny, ragged sound of my breath, the whir of ventilation fans and the pounding of my own heart. The vast nothing around me chokes all other noises before they can reach my ears. Even my mag boots make no sound as they clunk along the surface of the hull. It used to freak me out, being out here, with nothing more than a couple thin layers of rubber, fabric and metal separating you from… Nothing.
Amazing what nothing can do to a person.
We take atmo for granted, planetside. We assume it will always be there to keep our moisture and organs inside of us. Until, well… It isn’t. All it takes is 14 seconds of nothing, and then it’s lights out.
And here I am, strolling casually in the big black, as if I hadn’t a care in the world. I guess if you spend enough time out here, you start to realize that your gear is either going to work, or it isn’t. Not much you can do about it either way, so there’s not much use in worrying.
My ruminations on the fragility of human life brought me all the way to the cargo hatch, where Calhoun was waiting. He gives my suit an incredulous once over, but doesn’t say anything. Hopefully he was rethinking his choice to only wear an armored vest over his normal flight suit. The thought gave me a great amount of pleasure. That is, until I realized that if he died, I’d have to haul Little Miss Trust-fund back to her daddy.
“You’re going in behind me,” I say to him.
He gives the suit another up-and-down. “That seems wise,” he replies in a thoughtful tone.
With nothing more than a grunt in reply, I unsling my gear bag and start rummaging around in it, careful not to let anything float away. I’m interrupted by a piercing blue light from where Calhoun is standing. I glance up, my hand wrapped around something about the size of a brick.
He’s standing in front of the cargo hatch, cutting into the metal with a handheld plasma torch.
“Mate, what are you doing?”
He stops cutting and turns to me, the sharp flame of the torch burning bright in the darkness all around it. “I’m getting us in, what do you think I’m doing?”
“Taking forever, that’s what,” I say. “Here, tape this to the hull.”
I toss him the object I’d been holding. It floats across the gap between us and straight into his waiting hand.
“What’s this?” he asks, inspecting the object.
“Breaching charge,” I reply. “Plastique taped to an IV bag. The water propagates the blast wave, so it works in vacuum.” I pull out several more and let them float in place while I close up my bag.
“Oh. Where’d you learn that?” From what little I can see under his faceplate, he looks impressed.
“Eh… somewhere along the way. You pick up some useful shit in my line of work.” I send the rest of the charges to him, and make my way over.
In a matter of minutes, we have them set up in an area just large enough for me in my suit to fit through. Satisfied, we back off a few meters to admire our work.
“You wanna do the honors?” I ask, holding up the detonator for him to see.
He shrugs, but nods. “Sure, why not?”
I nod back and float it over to him. He catches it and flips the top cover off, his thumb hovering over the ignition button.
“You ready?” He asks, glancing over at me.
I nod again. “Do it.”
With no more discussion, Calhoun drops his thumb onto the button.