Chapter 13

His new hosts allowed Lee time to get some of his personal effects from the Nightcrawler. He grabbed his flight jacket and his personal datapad. While there, he also took the opportunity to make sure the Resistance goons didn’t mess around with his ship. Everything was as they left it. Even the redressed ThermARC, made to look like a battered module reinforcement, was still there.

After he’d dropped his things off in the bedroom, he paced the long window of the quarters he shared with Vin Xohn aboard the Athos. He and Xohn had their own bedrooms adjoining a common room. Although the quarters were spacious, they weren’t especially luxurious. The furnishings were functional, with little in the way of adornments.

His pacing picked up as his mood became more agitated knowing Vic’s murderer was so close. More maddening was being unable to do anything about it, so he paced about trying to work out a way to get Jackson.

Deep down, he knew he wasn’t going to get to confront him alone. The Resistance needed to protect their new informant. Besides, Tarrek undoubtedly knew what a man with a vendetta looked and sounded like. He admitted to himself that if he was in their shoes, he wouldn’t allow it either.

Still, Lee knew there had to be some way for him to see justice done. He wanted to witness Jackson suffering; to figure out whatever Jackson most cared about and rip it away from him. It was only fair.

A bright light, most likely from a distant ship, flashed in the jeweled blackness and caught his attention. It blinked in a way that reminded him of the twinkle in Vic’s eyes. It was the wink he’d give Lee after they pulled in a major haul, or made an especially large profit, or when Lee did something right.

The door of their quarters opened. Vin Xohn walked in with a nod toward Lee. “Are you okay, my friend?”

Lee nodded back but said nothing. Then he turned to stare back into the void.

“You know, Jackson is very sorry.” Xohn sat at the edge of one of the couches with his typical rigid posture. The light above him illuminated the tattoos across his bald head.

“You talked to him?”

Xohn gave a quick nod back.

“Doesn’t matter. He needs to pay.”

“He is paying.”

“How?” Lee threw his hand up with a sharp gesture. “By helping this Resistance?”

“He helped us. The people working for Duryss would have captured us if we hadn’t followed Jackson into this system.”

Lee scoffed.

“Back at the dock, he fought off those two ships. He also helped us with the ThermARC to retrieve it.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s paying for anything. Where’s the justice for the death of Vic, or Azera?” He paused to let it linger a bit more in Xohn’s mind, then added, “He needs to suffer.”

Xohn folded his hands behind him gazing out of the window. “He is doing these things to make up for his part in it. Atonement.” He looked back toward Lee. “It wasn’t just him. Twenty or thirty other pilots were part of it too, from the sound of it.”

“I don’t understand why you’re giving him a pass. How can you forgive him so easily?”

“Oh,” he sounded almost sad, “It is not easy. Not at all. But it is right.”

“Hmph,” Lee grunted back. “Now you sound like Vic.”

Xohn tilted his head with a curious look.

“He used to say things like that.” He gestured a hand toward Xohn and walked to sit at the companion couch. The seat was a little low, leaving his knees pushed at an awkward upward angle.

Staring out of the window, his hands at his knees, he continued, “He was always reminding me about doing the right thing. But you know what? He never really got around to helping me figure out how to know what that is.”

Lee paused, reflective. “He’d always tell me I ‘already knew it’ in my heart or some cryptic thing like that.”

Xohn gave a wan smile.

“It’s not fair, though. Life is a game without any rules. It happens to us no matter what we choose.”

Xohn’s face turned serious, and he spoke in a quiet voice that uncannily sounded like Vic, with a different accent. “You’re right, Lee. It is possible to do all the right things and still, bad things happen. That’s life.”

Lee looked down at the floor, and could hear Vic’s voice again. “Yeah, he’d tell me that too.” He did his best impression of Vic’s accent, “Life isn’t fair, kid. You change what you can to make some good in this universe and deal with everything else like the rest of us.”

Xohn pointed, “Yes, that is it exactly. That is how you know you’re doing the right thing. When you make the universe a better place.”

“Is that what Jackson was doing when he blew up Vic and Azera?”

Xohn sighed. “No, of course not. He made a terrible mistake. He’s young and just wants to make his mark in the galaxy. It was an honest mistake.”

“An honest mistake? It cost innocent lives. There’s nothing honest about that.”

“And now he lives with it.”

“And he needs to suffer with it.”

“He is suffering!”

A noise at the door panel indicated a visitor outside their quarters. He and Xohn both turned to look at the doorway and stood up.

“We’ll have to pick this up later,” Lee said as he headed for the door.

He pressed a button on the panel. The door opened to reveal the deformed face of Tarrek accompanied by an older man in a decorated uniform with a familiar look. It had the look of Sirius Navy but with alterations and different adornments.

“I’m sorry for intrusion. May we come in?” Tarrek greeted them.

“Sure, why not? It’s your place,” Lee gestured them in. They entered to stand just inside the door.

“Commander Sollinger, Master Vin Xohn,” Tarrek addressed them with a formal tone. Then he turned to the rather scraggly looking uniformed man beside him. His hair was white, wrapping from his crown around a sizable bald spot at the top of his head all the way down to his bushy beard. “I’d like you to meet General Ty Warrick.”

“Warrick, the Warlock?” Lee’s eyes bulged a bit. Everyone in the Hyades knew the tale.

“Or Warlord,” Warrick interrupted, his voice had an almost bellowing growl to it, “depending on what wanker you talk to and which vackin’ story they tell.”

“Is it true that–” Lee started.

Warrick interrupted, “Yessir, about vackin’ all of it’s true. I trust you’ve been settling well?”

Xohn came toward the door, “Yes, thank you for your hospitality, General.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Thanks for the upgrade to a better cell,” Lee remarked sarcastically.

“It wasn’t my hospitality or my cell. That was the Captain’s doings. But, I can easily arrange the cells again.”

“Or, how about you let me leave?”

“I don’t give a flying ship if you leave now or later. But you understand what’s happening out here, doncha Commander? What Duryss is really doing out here? What we’re trying to accomplish?”

“I get the gist. You want to bring Duryss down, and you’re willing to torture people who don’t think your way. No thanks.”

“Look, son, we’re in a fight for the freedom of trillions of citizens living in the Hyades.”

“Wonderful General, leave me out of it. I have my own fight with a particular pilot you’re holding.”

“Yes, and as I understand it, you want a few minutes with our ‘pilot’ to sort some biowaste out.”

“Five.”

“Huh?”

“I said I want five minutes alone with him.”

“Alright, five. If,” he held up a finger. “If afterward, you sit down with the Captain and me to hear what’s at stake out here.”

“Alone?”

“Now ya know we can’t allow that. We gotta keep things calm, so no one gets out of hand.”

“Look, Warlock,” the General’s face hardened at the familiar tone, “General Warlock,” Lee corrected himself. “Look, you don’t need the guards. I’m not a fighter. You can watch us and send the guards in if things go south.”

“At least two guards will stay with Commander Dekker.”

Lee started to protest further, but the General held up a hand, “Two guards. Take it, or leave it. If you want any kind of confrontation with Dekker, you’ll have to accept it. Otherwise, you might as well get back on your ship and take off now.”

“Lee, I think you should accept it,” Xohn interjected.

Lee shot a glare at Xohn. Then the argument on his face shifted to disappointment. “Fine,” he backed down.

“Very well. Tarrek,” the General turned toward the soldier standing alert beside him. “Make the arrangements. After that’s all settled, we’ll meet in the briefing room at 2200.”

“Yes, General,” Tarrek acknowledged and headed out of the quarters.

Warrick made his way toward the door at a slow pace. “Play well with Dekker, Commander. Decent pilots are hard to find out here. It’s better for everyone if we all make this work.”

Lee kept his face neutral. “I’m not making any promises.”

He paced back and forth in the conference room, waiting for them to drag Jackson in. He wanted justice. Blood for blood—it was only fair.

The soft echo of Vic reminded him, Don’t get even, get ahead. He promptly tried to shove the thought aside. Jackson would pay for his part. What does ‘get ahead’ even mean? How do you get ahead of a murderer?

Vic left his little quips without much explanation most of the time. Lee supposed it was Vic’s way of giving him the space to work them out on his own. It annoyed him every time.

Then, as if to remind himself what he was here for, he remembered the sight of finding Vic, mangled and lifeless in the upper cockpit. The sliced open forward canopy evidence of the asteroid chunks that eviscerated him. The right side of his body more mangled than the left, flash-frozen in the vacuum of space. But, the sight he never forgot was the freeze-dried blood that streaked from his eyes like tears.

He heard clanking noises outside the room. Magboots—they were close. He drew a long breath to prepare, but it didn’t help his agitation.

The door to the room slid open. Jackson stood with two others behind him. He stepped inside the threshold of the room with his head downcast. The two guards pushed past him and took up posts in the corners of the room. They let Lee have his five minutes in the ring with Jackson, but only under guard. Jackson, turned traitor to Duryss, was now an asset to the Resistance. The fact that anyone was willing to protect scum like him disgusted Lee in the pit of his gut.

The doors closed behind them. Lee could make out crisscrossing cuts on Jackson’s face. He felt robbed of taking part in that justice too.

Jackson turned to walk to the other end of the room to put the long conference table between them. He stopped and turned to face Lee, his head still held downward. Jackson stood there quietly, as he’d done on the Para Bellum.

Lee’s anger seethed.

Since he made it his mission to hunt Vic’s murderer down, he waited and worked for this moment. It took all his personal savings to refit the Nightcrawler into a working ship again. It took even more to upgrade it for a confrontation he’d hoped to have in the black, ship-to-ship. Standing here, staring in the face someone who was there, who was part of the attack, was something he didn’t think he could have hoped for.

Jackson stammered, “Lee, I’m– Well, I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to–”

“Don’t,” Lee said in quiet anger. “You don’t get to be sorry.”

“I mean, I am, though. I know–”

“You don’t! You don’t know!” It burst out of him. Jackson’s stuttering enraged Lee all the more. ”You don’t know the lives you took—the lives you ruined.”

“None of us knew…” Jackson’s voice trailed off in thought.

“Knew you were murdering innocent people?”

“It was a contract! It was a job!”

“Vack! You really are all sorts of stupid, aren’t you?”

Jackson stayed silent.

“Contracts have warnings and disclaimers. The Pilot’s Federation requires it. You know, the part that says ‘these actions might be considered illegal in some jurisdictions.’ That part? You take contracts without reading them?”

“Come off it, Lee, no one ever reads the whole thing. We’re pilots, not lawyers.”

Lee put his arms out and leaned on the conference table in front of him. He kept his eyes on the tabletop, “And I suppose you zoned out during the mission briefing too?” He raised his head to look at Jackson.

“No!”

“Then you knew what you were getting into.”

“Well, we knew we were getting special ordinance, but they said we wouldn’t use it unless we needed to.”

“Let me get this straight, you loaded unknown ordinance onto your ship?”

“We all did,” he shrugged.

“You what?” Lee reeled backward and half-laughed in disbelief.

“We were told they were some special kind of rock-busting missiles, that’s all. Literally, it was required by the contract.”

“You didn’t even question it,” Lee glared.

“For the record, the contract was signed,” Jackson shrugged. “Breaking a contract risks your reputation. Honestly, you know that.”

“Yeah, we can’t have that now, can we,” Lee muttered.

“Well, if I’m perfectly honest, not one from Sietae! Not from Duryss.”

Lee scoffed. The room was silent. The guards stayed motionless in their stationary readiness stances. Jackson stood behind the table.

“You have blood on your hands that can’t be washed clean by hiding behind Duryss!” He spat.

“Okay. But, I mean, what can I do about that now?” Jackson’s eyes narrowed.

All Lee could think about was the trails of missiles, and his anger grew. Remembering the explosions, his rage burned. His mind saw the rocky debris cutting everything; the Nightcrawler canopy split in half. But, it was the thought of the crimson tears that ran from Vic’s dead eyes that pushed him over the edge. His fury overtook him. He gripped one of the chairs in front of him, standing there frozen. Before he could think it, before anyone in the room could react, in a single fluid motion, he pulled the chair out from the table and launched it at Jackson.

With a late reaction, the guards both sprang to intercept the flying metal-framed missile. Jackson instinctively moved to dodge. In the commotion, Lee leaped over the table and lunged at Jackson.

The chair finished its journey completely missing the intended target. Instead of hitting Jackson, it seemed to float upward to hit the wall above, close to the ceiling. The Coriolis-effect gravity affected its trajectory relative to the room’s motion. The nearly straight-line course of the chair stayed above head height owing to the spin of the habitat rings.

His lunge went differently. He didn’t have near enough force and landed on the guards as they tried to intercept his projectile chair. He tried to fight through them, desperate to reach Jackson. He grunted with effort but made no progress. He cried out, using every bit of his strength to cut through the guards.

“Murderer!” He spat with hatred in his breath and spittle flying from his mouth. “You worthless excuse for a pilot… for a human being!” His cursing turned to crying, “He was a simple rock-dog! He never hurt anyone!”

The guards pulled him back across the table even as he fought. They threw him back to his feet and returned to Jackson, making hand signals as they went.

“I’ll… I’ll make it up to you, somehow, Lee… Okay? I will!” Jackson shouted back as the guards grabbed his arms and took him from the room.

Lee slumped back against the wall before sliding down to the floor into his anguish. For the first time since he’d lost Vic, he grieved for his old friend.

A few hours later, Lee found himself in another room with a conference table. At least this room had a view. There was a window with the gem strewn Milky Way that hung like a painting. At the other end was a holo display. Xohn and Lee sat waiting for others to make their way in. The chairs were more comfortable—softer, more padding. Not worth throwing at someone if you happened to be so inclined, Lee noted.

Tarrek was there and stood behind a seat, his hands holding the back of it. The door opened to a woman in the same altered Sirius Navy uniform for the Resistance. General Warrick followed her in with a couple of guards and Jackson Dekker. Lee shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

Warrick began to speak as he approached a chair, “Commander Sollinger, did you work out your chyt?”

The others took positions behind chairs at the table. Jackson made sure to place himself as far away from Lee as possible.

Lee said between gritted teeth, “Almost.”

“What’s this I hear about a flying chair?”

“Well, you know, General, some people just need a high five… to the face; with a chair.” He gave a glance at Jackson, who tilted his head as if in agreement.

“Ahh,” Warrick cocked his head. “Well, how about we give you a new battlefield for all that angst of yours.”

“Doubtful, General. You gave me five minutes. I’ll give you the same before I launch myself away from all this.”

Warrick nodded, “Fair. But before we begin, I’d like you to meet Captain Kya Becke. She commands the Athos.”

“Oh, so you’re not actually in charge around here!” Lee commented mockingly.

Warrick gave a wry grin through his bushy silver beard. “I’m General of the HIP 20935 Resistance cell. We are one of many cells operating across systems in the Hyades. I handle our strategic campaigns, she handles the tactical affairs commanding the Athos and the local fleet.”

“Thanks for the quarters, Captain. And, not blowing us up when we arrived,” Lee gave her a playful wink.

“Of course, Commander. Our mission is to save people,” she said with a firm, authoritative voice.

Lee felt his eyes roll, “Yeah, alright.” He made a quick gesture with his hand, “Let’s just get this over with.”

“Please try to keep an open mind, Commander. We only want you to see the truth of what’s really going on out here,” Captain Becke responded.

“He doesn’t follow politics,” Tarrek offered.

Lee frowned. “Politics is for biowaste nuggets.”

“Right, well, let’s get down to it,” the General replied. “Approximately four or five years ago, Alden Duryss shows up out of nowhere, appointed by Li Yong-Rui as CEO of the Sietae Federal Corp., making him governor of the Hyades region for Sirius Gov.”

Lee gave a quick nod in acknowledgment.

“Since his arrival, he shoved his anti-xeno politics against any opposition. Worked too. It gave him political traction.”

“Anti-Thargoid, you mean? I thought we all hated or at least feared the Thargoids?”

Captain Becke chimed in, “Those of us that have encountered them know to be wary and give them a wide berth.”

The General continued, “His anti-xeno politics turned into a campaign. He lead a massive effort to add new defensive capabilities to stations and installations throughout the Hyades.”

Lee looked dubious. “Right, so defending our populations against alien attack seems like a good thing. Am I missing something?”

“We’re getting to that, Commander,” Tarrek jumped in, looking slightly annoyed. Although, perhaps it was his normal face since half of it was stuck in a drooping scowl.

“Hey, guys. Clock’s ticking—where are the crimes against humanity?”

“You want vackin’ crimes, Commander?” General Warrick adjusted his shoulders. “Crimes in office are what a vacktard does. Duryss is smarter than that—he hides his actions behind good intentions. He built his campaign for new defenses and vowed to bring in the best and brightest to design the new defensive systems. It brought a flood of migrants to the region, particularly Imperials.”

“Well, that’s who I’d call, General, they have the cutting edge research and moral ambiguity,” Lee remarked with casual indifference.

“Indeed, and answer the call they did, son. There are more Imperials in this region than ever before. Almost two-to-one today compared to any others out here.”

Warrick poured himself a glass of water from a carafe on the table and continued. “It started with R&D contracts handed to Imperial companies. He was desperate for breakthroughs—desperate enough to go after technology illegally. You gotta admire the man’s testicular fortitude. He outright killed to get his hands on Master Xohn’s tech.”

Lee shot a glance across the table at Jackson, who acknowledged it with a nod. Although he wouldn’t admit it out loud, hearing how Duryss’s political maneuverings lead to Vic’s death made him reconsider Jackson’s guilt. Jackson’s pathetically dumb stare helped too.

Lee and Warrick both knew five minutes had come and gone. He poured himself some water, then gestured to General Warrick, “Okay, I’m listening.”

Warrick cleared his throat, but the growling voice was still there. “Eighteen months ago, the game changed, and it turned to massive investment in producing all the new station-mounted AX defensive turrets. Economies in the region boomed. Duryss took the credit, but all the while, the timetables, the pressure to deliver, forced mandatory overtime across the manufacturing industry. Workers that took time off, or that got sick were replaced by…”

“More Imperials,” Tarrek spat.

“More Imperials,” Warrick repeated, finishing his thought. “We even have evidence of Imperials receiving government subsidies to relocate. Hell, they get larger unemployment payments than any other citizen in the region. And then they started replacing the workforce. We heard story after story of people losing their jobs. All the while, businesses were more profitable than ever, and Duryss… He rakes in all the taxes and who knows what under the table money. He’s at fancy dinner parties wining and dining for the next contract. And the average citizen and families suffer.”

Captain Becke jumped in, “You see Commander, there is a real humanitarian crisis happening. A subtle immigrant takeover funded by the government. Regular folks that want to work but can’t because of Duryss’s policies. Families and lives are being destroyed.”

“What about the worker’s unions? Aren’t they supposed to be fighting for their workforce?” Lee asked.

She answered, “Duryss wouldn’t negotiate. Anyone standing against him he painted as a xeno-lover. Or, he made them out to the press as caring more about money than about saving lives.”

Warrick’s growl somehow became even lower, “He built a perfect political shield to keep his agenda moving forward.”

Becke continued. “When negotiations weren’t possible, the people turned to protests. That’s when it turned ugly. Demonstrations, protests, then riots. Then the blowback—he used private militia to put down any demonstrations.”

“What?” Lee scoffed in disbelief. “None of this has been on GalNet.”

“Exactly,” Warrick groused. “And that’s the game. And he owns it. He owns the industry. He owns the media. He owns the people.”

Lee thought about it a moment before shaking his head. “Look, I don’t like any of it. He’s obviously a bastard. But what do you want somebody like me for? I mean, really. Why go to these lengths to convince me?”

“Lee, look, can I call you Lee?” Warrick quickly asked.

Lee shrugged and nodded.

“Lee, you have skill, and you have a good ship, and you have an advantage that no one else has. The Resistance needs you, and needs that advantage.”

It took him a moment to realize what the General was inferring. Lee looked over at Xohn. “Aw, man, you told them about the thing?”

Xohn leaned forward, “Duryss must be fought. The goons trailing me for the last three years of my life were sent by him. Azera is dead because of him. All of it must stop. He must be stopped.”

“Lee,” Xohn looked him straight in the eyes. “Everyone on Foden Dock was arrested by Duryss private military. The media painted the entire attack as a terrorist take over of the outpost that Duryss liberated. We have to fight back.”

“We need you to fight back,” Warrick added.

The realization hit him that Zee and Dex were jailed for no other reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A feeling that had been tucked away in the back of his mind rose to the forefront. It was guilt—the guilt of leaving Dex and Zee behind. It gnawed at him. He tried to rationalize it away—tried to remind himself that he wasn’t responsible for them, but the guilt still remained. As much as he protested that none of this involved him, he couldn’t avoid it.

He hated getting entangled with others, but he hated the injustice more. That was the score he set out to settle for Vic after all. Maybe if he played his cards right he could use the Resistance. If he could convince them to fix up and finish the upgrades to his ship…

That could work out nicely, he thought to himself, if they believe I’m really on their side. It just took the right amount of “selling it” to get them to believe he bought into their movement.

“Vack!” Lee shouted and smacked the table hard enough, Jackson and Xohn both jumped. Then he downed his glass of water and looked across the table at the General, Captain Becke, and Tarrek. With a tone of relented defeat, he slumped back in his chair, “Alright, fine. I’m in.”