The Wellspring - Part 1

                Hanzu sat quietly cleaning blood from between his knuckle plates and I wondered for the third time today why I even bothered getting out of my bunk every morning. Hanzu of course knew my every look and answered my unspoken question.

                “For the money, we do it for the money.”

                He was right of course. Had the Sibellines not somehow known we were coming then we would have strolled right off the planet with twelve million credits worth of antique gemstones in our pockets. But they had known we were coming. And they stopped us. Or at least they stopped us from taking the gemstones. Hanzu and I, mostly Hanzu, had been able to fight them off long enough to make it back to the ship. Knapper hadn’t been so lucky.

                The Renarin had been the first through the door when the Sibellines had sprung their trap. Captain Reyjvak had said something about stealth, not strength, being most important for this job, and had only sent the three of us down to the surface. I’d say it was his fault that we’d failed to retrieve the stones, not to his face of course, but he sure wasn’t going to be happy that Knapper hadn’t made it back either.

                Hanzu had said very little since we’d docked with Grathu’s Vengence, but I knew he was thinking something along the same lines. It had been nearly sixty standard days since we’d had a successful job. Not for lack of trying, but somebody out there in the big black was making things difficult for us. The Tellurade ambassador had known we were coming too, and the score on Yaris had been an outright fake. Nothing but killer robots and explosions.

                If the Captain hadn’t been more worried about a half empty plasma core and twenty-some people with completely empty bellies then he might have been thinking harder about what was wrong with their luck. I’d been thinking about it. But nothing had come together. The jobs were all secured through different brokers. They’d all been offered on the open market, so it didn’t even seem as if we were being singled out for some reason. But none of the crews on jobs we’d been beaten out of had reported any of the same problems.

Even the Sibelline job had seemed legit right until they’d made it into the vault and everything went void shaped. One of the Captain’s favorite brokers Kaltherine Hobb had posted it on a deep net site. There were a few decent bids, but with us being so desperate the Captain had low balled them all. Kaltherine had given them the details and offered a bonus if the job was finished within fifteen days. Even that wasn’t unusual. There was probably a pushy buyer out there with more money than sense who was willing to pay extra for a speedy delivery.

                None of our problems made sense.

                Now we were just sitting here in one of the smaller briefing rooms waiting for Captain Reyjvak and his first mate Tennul to come in and tear us up. Verbally I hoped, though the Captain hadn’t been controlling his temper very wells for the past few weeks. I must have still been in a state of shock because I was having trouble telling if I looked nervous. I couldn’t feel my face all that well. Hanzu never looked nervous, not even that time we’d gotten into a fist fight with a Debris Spider Crab. Of course it was difficult for Dragonians to look nervous what with all the scales. Instead, like usual, he just looked angry. This time at the dried blood spattered across his arms.

                After the shuttle had joined up with the Vengence we hadn’t even been given a chance to change out of our uniforms. One of the techies, Bultz, had told us where the Captain wanted us and got right to work repairing the damage to our ship. The Sibellines hadn’t stopped shooting even after we’d made a run for it.

                Sitting with my thoughts I guess I had been expecting the Captain to enter the room in rage, or at least to be simmering with anger. I certainly hadn’t been expecting him to look so defeated.

                Captain Anotin Reyjvak was a human male, maybe eighty or ninety years old, a man in his prime. He usually carried himself with a regal bearing, as if he always had a plan. His long leather coat snapping behind as every step was made with sharp purpose.

                Today was different. Reyjvak entered the room with his head hanging low, his arms crossed across his chest. He looked like a man who had been defeated. It wasn’t a look I’d ever seen on the Captain. Behind him entered Tennul and the engineer Kaplan, both of the crew looking as miserable as the man they had followed.

                “Well, it looks like it happened again.” The Captain sat down on the other side of the table, barely looking up at us. “They got us again and Knapper died.” With a thunderous bang that echoed through the small metal room the Reyjvak slammed a fist into the table. “One of my crew died, for what? Rocks? Why dark dammit?” The silence that followed was scarier than the Captain’s sudden outburst of rage.

                I hoped it was a rhetorical question because I didn’t have any kind of answer. I didn’t know the Captain very well, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good to make him any angrier. About 180 days ago I’d been sitting in a bar on Hume, burning through the last of my credits trying to think up my next move. The universe is a large place, but for a person with my record very few companies were willing to give me a legitimate job. I’d overheard Reyjvak and Tennul talking about a three dimensional phasic lock and the various difficulties of breaking into advanced computer systems. I’d offered an opinion of the easiest way to break into such a system, and had quickly been offered a place on the crew of Grahtu’s Vengence.

                Luckily it was Tennul who broke the silence. “Captain,” his voice was low, trying to avoid Reyjvak’s temper as much as the rest of us, “this is personal, we need to find some place to go to go to ground and figure out our next move.”

                The Captain’s hands flexed against the table and balled into fists. “I know that. What I want to know is who is doing this to us? The rest of the crew already figured out that something’s wrong. I want to have a plan before I go and tell them what happened.”

                It probably wasn’t my best idea ever but I decided to speak up. “Sir, how can you be sure that we’re being targeted? I mean, the job looked legit. The gemstones were there, and you had me double check to make sure it was Kaltherine we were dealing with.”

                Kaplan, a human from Yaris answered. “Three in a row is more than a coincidence. Just because it looks like it could have happened to anyone doesn’t mean it would have.” I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant by that.

                “We have powerful enemies Mr. Merrek,” Captain Reyjvak sucked air between clenched teeth, “or rather, I have powerful enemies. It would not be beyond their abilities to make revenge appear to be happenstance.” I had to admit to myself that I knew very little of the history of the Captain, his crew, or the ship. I had joined up at one of the many low points in my brief career as a pirate, and hadn’t bothered doing any research until after I was several systems away from home. As far as I had been able to tell Reyjvak and the Vengence had been committing minor acts of piracy and freelancing for about a decade, typically successful jobs that had earned a dependable reputation. There hadn’t been any particular red flags that had made me question my decision to sign on board, and none of their marks seemed to be the kind of people who could pull of the high stakes manipulation that we were currently talking about.

                I started to ask another question, “who – ” when the Captain raised a single hand to silence me.

                “Mr. Merrek you are here because I don’t want you talking to the crew until we have decided on a course of action, not because I want to tell you a bed time story.” He might as well have slapped me across the face. I know that at only twenty six years of age I was the youngest person currently on the ship, but that didn’t mean I was a child, and I certainly had never done anything to earn that kind of treatment.

                It was Hanzu who stood up for me. “Captain, Sir, I do not mean any disrespect but I am of a similar mind as Calvin. We’ve never pulled one over on someone who could do this. It’s part of why we have not been shot out of the void in the past ten years.” The Dragonian had been with the Vengence for that long? I’d never really taken any time to get to know the man. His constant fierceness had led me to believe any small talk would be truly small indeed.

                The Captain looked divided for a moment, as if he wanted to snap at Hanzu as well, but was considering his history with the armor plated warrior. Finally he sighed and unballed his fists, laying his palms flat on the table, and looked up to stare me right in the eyes. It was a mournful gaze I could not hold for more than a couple of seconds. I felt my face go hot as I quickly looked away.

                Reyjvak’s voice was cold when he finally spoke. “I think we’re dealing with an old enemy, from before your time Hanzu. Back when I was Danton.” Now I’m no history buff, especially if it doesn’t have to do with machines, but even I knew the name Derreck Danton, rebel king and ace pilot. If you had told me an hour ago that Captain Antonin Reyjvak was the legendary outlaw pilot I’d have probably scoffed and asked for the recipe of the drink you’d been having. But now, seeing the sadness and anger playing across the face of the man sitting opposite me I was utterly convinced. As a child I’d heard my father angrily describe one amazing battle after another for years, until his death in the skies of Delta. And now I was sitting in the same room as an apparently still living legend.

                It was a few moments before I realized my mouth was hanging open. I shut it and looked around the room. I was the only one who had reacted which meant the other three were already in on the Captain’s secret.

Kaplan was eyeing me with a serious look of suspicion. “Sir, should Mr. Merrek being hearing this?”

“He’s got to hear it, he’s probably not a spy and if he is our enemies already know everything I’m about to say, so it won’t hurt anything else.” I met his gaze again. Some of his usual fire had returned to his eyes, the look of a man with a mission. “And it’s probably going to get him killed if he doesn’t know enough.” Reyjvak, or Danton, my mind was having trouble deciding what to call him, looked away from me this time and for a second I thought I saw something like shame. For all of the confidence I had placed in the Captain over the past half of a year, he suddenly seemed too small, too timid, to be the man that I imagined Derreck Danton to be.

The Captain continued, looking at Hanzu now, “If I’m right then one of the families of Junction has finally found me. I don’t know how. The Void knows I’ve stayed out of their space and off their radar, but it wouldn’t take too much effort to confirm a suspicion if they got one. There are a couple of families with the connections and credits to give us this kind of run around. They’re wearing us out, wearing me down.” He paused and took a breath as he interlocked his fingers. “They want me to go to ground because they believe I will lead them straight to my wellspring.” This time Hanzu, Kaplan, and I all reacted. Kaplan went so far as to mutter a curse under her breath, but it was Tennul who spoke up first again.

“The wellspring Sir, there is no way they think we’d be so short sighted as to run back to it at the first signs of trouble.” I almost laughed. It was the second jaw dropping revelation of the day, and of several orders of magnitude greater than finding out my pirate captain was a long dead rebel leader. Wellsprings were the common name for founts of magical energy. I’ll say it again, magic energy. Everyone and their crazy grandmother knew there was no such thing as magic. Of course you hear stories of lightning storms in space and terrible necromancers, but those were the plots of silly movies. But the seriousness of Tennul’s face made me doubt everything I held to be true. It was my turn to speak up again.

“What, a wellspring? Captain, you can’t be serious. Even if you are Danton, there’s no such thing.” I felt stupid even as the words left my mouth, but the rational side of my brain insisted that I finish my thought. And of every possible response I thought I might get from the Captain I had certainly not been expecting a smile.

“Mr. Merrek, I will stomach your incredulity, but not your insubordinate tone.”

                “Captain, we’re going to need you and Mr. Tennul on the bridge stat, and Kaplan might want to return to engineering.” Bastata, our navigator sounded more than a little worried, his voice strained to appear calm. “Immediately Sir.”

                “What is it Bast?” Reyjvak was already on his feet. “It sounds like you’re calling us to battle stations.”

                “That’s exactly what I’m doing Sir. Two Arrant Cruisers, and a Class 3 Carrier have just decelerated less than 200 aeroms from us. They’ve already scanned us Sir, and appear to have target locks. Ms. Conneri seems to think they’re just waiting for us to give them an excuse to open fire.”

                The Captain turned and looked gravely at Tennul. “Sound the alert Mr. Bastata, we’re going to have to figh-” His order was cut off by an explosion that sent a violent shudder through the entire ship.