Orphans In the Black: A Space Opera Anthology Read online

  Ready to throw rocks at the other primates? The quip withered on his tongue. He knew better.

  Gia was alpha here, a point she had made in word and deed since his arrival. She claimed the other two in her team were her biological brothers. Luc didn’t point out that this was a statistical unlikelihood. Yet the three of them seemed to function as a single organism. In his secret heart, he envied them that bond. Four from his own kennel had been with him on Picund.

  Lucky number three, she’d taken to calling him, inexplicably.

  Until Luc learned why. There had been two prior soldiers assigned to her team in as many years. He got the sense that they had not lasted long. It was a story told in glimpses: a snippet of overheard gossip, an empty gear locker scrawled with old graffiti in primitive Regimental icons, a pair of discarded gloves in the wrong size with no owner to worry after them.

  “Where is it?” he asked. No salute. He doubted the lack of courtesy insulted her. “Where’s my coms?”

  “Why would you need that? Brave survivor that you are.” Gia said, smirking up at him under a spray of fraudulent freckles that rolled back her age by a few years.

  “Standard protocol for mission status and emergency extraction.”

  Behind her, the level-riser doors parted. They all boarded in uneasy silence. Luc found himself corralled to the middle, unable to keep his back to a wall.

  As the level-riser engaged, Luc allowed the duffel to slide down his shoulder and plop to the deck. He wanted his hands free, just in case. “I’ll be cut off without it.”

  “Why? Worried we won’t come and find you in Macula once you’re done playing in the sand with those freak monks?” Gia smacked him on the shoulder. “I’m doing you a favor, Eno. Macula hates Regime more than any other place on Tasemar. How long you think you can pass for one of them if you’re walking around with Regime tech?”

  “’Scripter like him? Screw it up in no time,” said Amal, the tall, wiry one on the left. “But you’re the miracle survivor of Picund. So, maybe you’ll survive this too.”

  Luc canted his head. Kept his expression bland. “I can’t tell you what that means to me, hearing that.”

  Gia made a subtle gesture with her left hand, the side that did not face the security camera trained down from the ceiling. Her two brothers pressed closer.

  “My brothers and I cannot help but wonder—what really happened on Picund? How does a backbirth conscript like you survive while an entire squad of purebred Volunteers is now worm food?” Her eyes moved up and down him, inspecting like she’d discovered something foul in their midst. “Isn’t that right, Jadoh?”

  The thick one cocked his square head. The man was the size of an automated freight mech and about half as bright. “Right. Worm food.”

  They pressed closer.

  “Word of advice, lucky number three.” Gia’s smile was ugly. “Don’t make a mess of things. We don’t like playing mop-up.”

  Jadoh’s heavy hand clamped down on Luc’s shoulder, squeezing. Chummy for the cameras.

  My strength is the soldier beside me. Perhaps that was how they meant it. The soldier beside you was the jagged beachhead meant to pulverize you should you flounder.

  “Understood, Lieutenant Gia,” Luc replied. His knuckles ached from his hands being folded into fists for too long. Finally, with a recalcitrant groan, the doors of the level-riser opened.

  Luc watched them saunter off, bound for their individual stealth pods suspended from the underbelly of the drop ship. The automated vessel would light upon Tasemar, deposit them like eggs, ready to hatch and burrow into the living skin of the world and feast on its secrets.

  Gia turned. “Good hunting, lucky number three.” It had the hiss of a curse.

  Luc arrived in the town of Macula on a Justice Day. Crowds bickered and laughed and elbowed their way through the city’s ancient cobblestone streets. Around him rose the thick shoulders of mudbrick buildings built dynasty upon dynasty. Greasy smoke from cooking fires made his eyes sting. The air reeked of sweat, exotic spices and an anxious, nearly palpable undercurrent.

  The source of the unease was apparent on street corners where Regime SSD troopers patrolled, their heavy rifles harnessed against their turnout gear and the shining black scrims of their helmets obscuring their faces.

  Anti-Regime sentiment remained at a fever pitch here. The civil war of three years ago was well over, but not forgotten. It was measured in the vacant storefronts and boarded-up husks of homes that ringed the hillside. Rebellion was in the people’s nature here and would happen again.

  By decree of the provisional government installed by the Council of First, Justice Days were considered holidays. It was common protocol on any of the dozen other worlds Luc had witnessed during his previous deployments with the Regime. Macula, holy city or not, was considered no different. The businesses and workshops built into the steep hillside were closed. Even the Temple of the Miseries perched on the hilltop was not permitted to hold services until that day’s events were over. Nothing was to distract from the public executions held in the city square.

  The square was more of a rough rectangle formed by the oldest of the public houses on one end and storefronts on another. At its center, a scaffold of glinting metal girders had been constructed, obscenely new in comparison to the buildings. The bodies of two men and two women hung over the platform. Fabric sacks covered their heads, making them look more like discarded dolls than people.

  The hangings were over, and the crowds at the center started to thin. Two engineers, guarded by a bored-looking trio of regular infantry, adjusted the placards at the foot of the stage under the swaying bodies. Each deceased prisoner’s crime was written in Tasmarin, then Commonspeak, and finally Regimental standard.

  Theft. Murder. Treason. Human.

  “Cowards! Muckers!” It was a coarse yell in heavily accented Commonspeak. A string of curses in Tasmarin followed. Luc spotted the lone protester, a swarthy man dressed in the aged yellow overalls of a dockworker.

  The crowd parted around the man. Yelling insults at a Regime soldier was not considered a crime, but it was an excellent way of attracting the wrong sort of attention. Soon Luc was the only person near the dockworker. The man took his proximity as an invitation and staggered over.

  “Regime cowards! Real heroes, aren’t they? Hanging a man that stole food to feed his family… a woman for defending her sons.” He threw a floundering wave in the direction of the scaffold.

  This close, Luc could smell the dense vapor of scorch-rum around him like an aura. His bloodshot eyes glared at the Regime personnel as they gathered up the red and black standards of the Council of First.

  “Those muckers take our young ones,” the man slurred. “Took m’sister’s boy. Not even ten rain seasons old.”

  “Your nephew was conscripted?” Luc asked.

  “Conscript?” he hawked a glob of yellow-brown onto the dust. “Slaves, I call ’em. Those rich bastards off in Origin can make pretty speeches ’bout duty and sacrifice all they want. Don’t get my sister back her boy, does it?”

  The boy will know purpose and the honor of service. He will never wake up shivering and hungry. Something that Notker and people like him would probably never consider.

  Luc decided that the question was rhetorical. “The Regime will bring prosperity to Macula…to Tasemar. They’ll defend its Citizens from Humans and Sceeloid.”

  “Humans? What’d a Human ever do t’me? Or a Sceeloid for that matter?” He leaned close in his reeking cloud of sweat and simmering anger. “Where’d you say you were from… friend?”

  “I didn’t.” Luc extended his hand, palm to the side, imitating the greetings he’d seen in the briefing vids. “Tarsk Cleo.”

  “Uh-huh.” The man looked him up and down, ignoring his hand. He froze when he saw the water nymph tattoo on his forearm. “Water Guild. You’re a long way from Gales.”

  Water Guild?

  “No. Just a water broker. I’m looking fo
r work.” Luc jerked his chin in the direction of newly erected sign outside the temporary Regime headquarters that advertised employment for skilled workers and other trades. All lines of work were needed to construct the new government complex.

  “Want some advice?” The man leaned forward, readjusting his stance with a bobble. His tone dipped low, and he clamped a rough hand on Luc’s shoulder. “Haro don’t like complications. ’Specially not from the Water Guild. Maybe I forget to tell him I saw one of you here. For a price.”

  Luc pulled the drunk’s hand away, twisting the thumb. The man gave a bark of pain, surprise widening his red-shot eyes. Luc stepped into the hold. “You’re not getting any money from me. But I will give you a chance to walk away now… friend.”

  Just as quickly, Luc released him, moving clear in case he got the bright idea to retaliate. The drunk backed away, eyes narrowed, cradling his offended wrist, and disappeared into the crowd.

  Luc retreated to a quiet corner of the square, careful to keep his back against a wall, and accessed the transponder’s database. After a few minutes, he gave up, frustrated. The information on the Water Guild was sparse and mostly conjecture—organized crime and other offenses. Their mark was indeed a water nymph, but it was associated with legitimate water brokers as well.

  Certainly, it would make him a target, a poor choice for a Seeker’s cover story. This was more than faulty intel; this was Notker’s doing.

  Fine, old man. This lowly conscript can survive your challenge.

  In the days that followed, Luc drifted into the seedier, outer ring of the city that existed in the shadows of the temple mount. No one asked too many questions or looked too closely. The less he said, the more was assumed. Through it all, he was careful to keep the water nymph covered.

  He rented a small room above a chemist’s shop. Its one window faced the Temple of the Miseries. The view was a premium charge, announced the landlady from the doorway, reeking of graceweed and still panting from the climb upstairs. A con for more money, of course. Everyone in this corner of Macula seemed to function that way.

  After inspecting the locks and scanning for any monitoring equipment, he pried up one of the loose floorboards and stashed the med kit into the dusty space below.

  Luc became a regular at a nearby tavern, a silent shadow in the corner booth. He learned to feign sympathy at their drunken outcries against the Regime’s rule or the construction of their government complex. He deftly dodged the offers of the dirty-faced women or waiflike boys that swayed up in drugged ambivalence. Always, he watched for signs of Humans or the sympathizers that aided them. He listened for clues that would lead to the ring of conspirators and their smuggling of non-reg species.

  There was a finesse to this that had not been covered in any of his training—how to gain confidence from strangers when you were one yourself. This was navigating without a chart when one false move could set you on course with the hungry event horizon of a collapsed star.

  But there was one name that always surfaced, like the refrain from one of the temple crier’s prayers: Haro.

  Luc made it his business to know this man’s life, collecting intelligence from the public documents in the transponder’s database. Haro had six prior arrests under the former government, for smuggling and petty violence. Yet, somehow, he’d been elevated to leader of the dockworkers’ union, a roughly organized group that found ways to extract staggering fees from ships that used Macula’s laughable excuse for a spaceport.

  Trafficking Human fugitives required access to vessels. If anyone possessed the connections to do this, it had to be Haro and his ilk.

  It was no accident that Luc had chosen this tavern, this table.

  From his quiet corner, he watched Haro and his men. Their group always came to the tavern when their shift completed. Here they would spend a few hours before they disbanded to return to their louse-filled tenements on the fringe of the landing field. Their schedule did not deviate except on those nights when an ancient frigate landed, a retired monstrosity from before the Sceeloid armistice.

  On those nights, the men in this group did not go home after the tavern. They seemed to disappear entirely. It was the type of patterned behavior he expected from smugglers. The true question was, did their illegal cargo tend to non-reg species like Humans?

  Tonight was as good a night as any to act. He’d follow them after they disappeared.

  Haro entered the tavern in a flash of dingy safety-yellow as the room started to fill with patrons. In his wake were three similarly dressed men. All of them seemed to have been dispatched from the same mold—wide as they were tall, sleeves rolled up over thick muscular forearms tanned by the Tasemarin suns. Luc shifted, watching.

  Too late, he realized he’d made eye-contact with Haro. Luc cursed under his breath, calculating his chances of getting to the door.

  “Share your table, friend?” Haro called over to him. Already he’d cleared a path through the press of bodies. “Make room for some tired men, yes?”

  “Table’s all yours. I’m just leaving.” He jerked his chin, a gesture he’d seen them use to imply politeness. He pushed up from the bench.

  “Nonsense! There’s room for us all, brother,” Haro answered, settling in beside him. Metal glinted along his incisors, a decorative element that managed to look dangerous. “How I no see you before?”

  “Just lucky, I reckon.” Luc grinned, while under the table he made sure his sleeve still covered the water nymph.

  “Name’s Rus Haro.” He gave a rumbling chuckle and tapped his chest. “Fates’ blessings.”

  “And to you.” Luc did not offer his hand in greeting, or his name. The dockworker from the square might have been too drunk to remember him, but having your wrist nearly broken tended to make an impression on people.

  Haro beckoned over his companions and Luc slid to the end of the bench to make room for the newcomers before they could box him in. He was careful to angle his body toward the tavern entrance and keep the wall at his back. His view of the exits was still good.

  “I’m dry. Let’s have a drink with our new friend here.” Haro held his tumbler aloft.

  A harried server appeared with a fresh jug of Yannish brew. Luc detested the stuff, but he did not hesitate to join in. The Regime-issued augments to his metabolism meant he processed such intoxicants differently. He could feign its influence well enough. Judging from their half-lidded eyes and sloppy grins, the others at the table would not notice.

  One of them made a grab for the matron as she skirted away, growling a violent threat. This provoked a wave of laughter.

  Luc grinned for different reasons. He imagined the smugness leaving Notker’s face at learning of his unwanted conscript’s success. Suck it, old man.

  Luc tasted blood. Something warm ran into his eyes, stinging as he lifted his chin. He blinked furiously at the bright light from above. A shifting forest of bodies stood around him. He was sitting, with his arms fixed to the chair by tight webbing. Something unyielding was looped around his neck and waist, keeping him snug against the chair back.

  Dosed. Something in the drink. The food.

  It was a disconnected thought, like that of a casual observer standing somewhere outside his skull. Time had somehow stuttered. Events had played out in the black spaces between scenes. He’d been present for none of it.

  “He’s wakin’ up,” announced one of the shadows beyond the ring of light.

  Luc lifted his head, aware that his body hurt in a variety of stunning ways. Ribs. Jaw. Wrists. Things felt swollen, misshapen.

  The tooth. The thought bubbled up, bright and firm against the sludge of his brain. His tongue went to the pre-incisor and found an empty socket.

  “You sure that’s him?”

  “’Course I’m sure. Nearly twisted my arm clean off.”

  “Why did the Water Guild send you here?”

  He knew that voice. Haro of the gleaming silver teeth and chummy laugh.

  Luc’s b
rain cartwheeled to keep pace. The mass of bodies standing over him solidified to six men. All of them seemed as immovable as mountains.

  “I’m just a water broker.” Luc lifted a shoulder to swipe at his chin. The shoulder moved in a funny way. Pain zinged into his spine.

  “You take me for a skew.” Haro squeezed Luc’s arm, twisting it. The water nymph’s ink seemed nearly iridescent under the light. “That’s the Water Guild’s bitch mark. They give you that shiny gun of yours too? You tell me why they break the truce. You already have three other regions on Tasemar. Macula belongs to us. The port belongs to us.”

  Luc’s jaw throbbed as he formed the words. “You’re making a mistake—”

  “Only mistake I see is you.” Haro punctuated this with a fist that drove the air from Luc’s lungs. “Putting your snout in our territory. Maybe we cut if off. Send it back to your Water Guild masters. But I keep your fancy tooth, no? Mine now.” He grinned in a flash of silver. “Part of my collection.”

  The soldier part of Luc calculated his counter-offensive and found his options severely lacking. He was outmatched, physically damaged. Considering this was a location that they felt comfortable enough to use for interrogations, escape was unlikely.

  The only positive was the fact that they’d not discovered his true identity as a Seeker and part of the Regime that they abhorred. If that were the case, he’d already be dead. Instead, he’d been mistaken for a spy sent by a competing gang. These men were not harboring Human fugitives; they were simply petty smugglers.

  “You kill me and then what?” Luc said in Commonspeak, trying to thicken his accent. “What do you think the Water Masters will do when one of theirs turns up dead in your territory? They’ll retaliate.”

  It was a gamble. But if they realized that they had to move him…it might work.

  Haro gripped Luc’s chin, squeezing with his massive, square-knuckled hand. “Don’ worry, water broker. We no kill you here. Don’t want your body stinkin’ up the place. We send you where you want to be.” The silver smile slipped, turned more dangerous. For some reason, Luc thought of Gia.