Chapter 4
Raven
The wind whistled through the air and ruffled the feathers on Raven’s wings. She barely felt the biting chill sitting atop Mount Elbert. Raven had chosen the highest peak in the region to bury her father. The grave site overlooked the Twin Lakes, and the view was spectacular. If there was an afterlife, then he could marvel at nature’s glory.
Raven had now stood vigil over the unmarked grave for a couple of weeks. Long enough that her mind had numbed the pain. The ragged tears on her fingers and nails, a result of digging through the frozen earth by hand, had healed naturally, though her hands and clothing remained filthy. Despite the peak’s remote location, there were few beasts to contend with up here, a few flying monsters had felt the keenness of her blade, but little had interrupted the woman during her prolonged bout of grief.
Raven wiped the last tear from her cheek and left it smudged with dirt. The time for mourning was over and she had duties to perform. Criminals proliferated like flies on shit and too much justice went unserved.
She bent her legs and launched herself into the air, wings spreading wide and carrying her back to civilisation, back to Boulder.
***
“You are still here,” Raven muttered with surprise shortly after returning to the hotel where her father had been living. She had intended to retrieve a few mementoes, things to remember him by. He may have failed as a father, and let her down in every way possible, but she still loved him, loved the memory of who she thought he was.
The hotel and most of the town appeared to have been abandoned.
While flying in this direction, she spotted several freshly burned-out townships further away. This could have been the work or spawned creatures, but she rather doubted it. The far more likely explanation was that the Liberation Army forces had already started to range outside of Texas or the depredation of off-world mercs like Glastos’ company.
The devastation hadn’t reached Denver yet, but it was only a matter of time, and the thought saddened her deeply.
Guilt pinged in her heart. She was supposed to have returned and ensured that proper defences were constructed around Boulder, Instead, she’d wallowed in grief. It was no wonder the people had lost faith and fled. Even the soldiers who had been loyal to her father.
Or so it had seemed.
However, at least one person had remained behind. “I thought you would have gone crawling back to my mother at the first opportunity.”
“I never had the chance to thank you for saving my life,” the officious lawyer, Higgins responded. “Thank you, I know it was…very difficult for you.”
Raven waved off the gratitude. “It was nothing. Anybody would have saved a dying man if they could.”
“Not the healing part,” Higgins said pointedly. “Had your father been given the opportunity, he would surely have finished the job. Richard did not like loose ends and was not big on forgiveness, ironic considering how often he required it from others…” The man tailed off, realising that perhaps now was not the time to be bringing up criticisms of his former employer.
Raven couldn’t answer, a lump had formed in her throat, and she nodded almost imperceptibly.
“With that out of the way, I am glad you have returned. I was beginning to grow nervous that you wouldn’t come back and there is some official business I should attend to before I ‘go crawling back’ to Regina and Parker.”
Raven’s cheeks burned with a touch of shame. The insulting language she’d thrown at Higgins had been unfair; a product of her pain. But that was no excuse. “What business?” she asked, more to move the conversation on from something that made her uncomfortable then any real desire to know.
“Your father’s estate, of course. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that you are his sole beneficiary. He was quite…insistent on ensuring that Regina would receive nothing. The forgiveness issue again.”
“Wait, what? That can’t be the case, I’m the one who killed him.”
“His last will and testament did not cover such an eventuality and if I can be frank…he had it coming. The old-world laws might have prevented such a thing, but the Framework doesn’t care about any of that. Everything goes to you.”
Raven checked her internal character sheet; she had looted her father at some point before burying him, so she already had all the coin from his account which had been a substantial amount. More than one hundred million. “I’ve already got what he left. You shouldn’t have waited.”
“Ah, that is not all of it.” Higgins retrieved a crystal from his inventory and offered it to Raven.
“Richard was worried about people with thieving abilities. He siphoned a significant proportion of the wealth he acquired from the auction and encoded it in this crystal. As his heir, it can only be accessed by you.”
Raven stared at the small crystal in Higgins' hand. “Those can be cracked.”
“Not easily.”
“So, you tried?” she retorted with suspicion.
“No, but I did perform my due diligence on Richard’s behalf. We could have turned the gold into physical currency and hidden it, but that would mean anybody who found the coins could take them. He wanted something more secure, something that would keep it in the family. Besides, I did receive a small cut of the proceeds from the auction for my efforts…foolish as it may have been…Not as much as Glastos, but more than enough for my needs.”
The mention of the mercenary reminded Raven that she still had him locked up in an abandoned observatory in the mountains. He’d been up there without much food or water for several weeks now.
Would he still be alive?
Probably.
The Framework would have kept him hale and hearty. It wouldn’t have been pleasant, though. She would have to see to that quickly. Raven was not a sadist who left people suffering unduly even if they were sinners.
She took the crystal from Higgins’ hand, and it pulsed brightly in recognition. Curiosity got the better of her and she accessed the crystals menu to see what was contained within. 962 million in gold coins. When added to what she had already taken from her father he had been sitting on over a billion in gold.
Did that rapacious Corsair have as much? She doubted it.
A smile crept across her face at that thought. “Thank you, Higgins. What will you do now?”
“My final duty towards your father is done. I will return home.”
“The roads are dangerous,” she warned.
“I won’t have to go far. Denver has an Adventurer’s Guild. They’ve recently installed a transportation pad that is connected to the one in Detroit. I will buy passage home from there. A few of your father’s soldiers have stayed behind with me, we will be safe enough.”
“Good. I’ll let you head off.”
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Higgins nodded and with a deep sigh he left Richard Reynold’s rooms and prepared for the next stage in his life.
Raven remained behind for another hour, browsing through the items her father had left behind, choosing a few keepsakes and leaving the rest. Glastos could wait one more hour.
***
“May the Framework damn you, woman! You can’t just leave people imprisoned to starve to death.”
Raven brushed aside the angry shouting of the sandy-haired mercenary who paced in frustration in the makeshift cell she had constructed from the materials that could be found in the observatory. A large brass casing for an enormous telescope had been the primary material used for the walls. It was extraordinarily heavy and sturdy. Glastos’ knuckles were reddened where he had been bashing away at the cell without much luck.
Ignoring his ongoing threats, Raven moved a small table over to the bars of the cell and then placed a bottle of water and a bowl of fruit where the ungrateful wretch could reach them through the bars.
Glastos ceased his complaints long enough to grab the bottle and glug the contents down in several loud gulps.
“You were never in any real danger, and you know it,” Raven commented and sat down on a stool, watching the young man take huge bites from a green apple.
“What if you didn’t come back,” he grumbled with a mouth half-full.
That was true, but Raven was in no mood to admit that she had erred. Not to this miscreant. “I did come back, though. To be greeted by a wretch with the manners of a swine.”
“Go more than a week without water and then come back and tell me that.”
Raven stood so quickly from her stool that it was sent flying back and clattered into some old metal cabinets. “I neither ate nor drank for two weeks while I stood vigil over my father’s grave. You have consumed more in the last two minutes than I have in a fortnight!”
Glastos shrank back into his cell from the forcefulness of Raven’s anger.
They stood there in silence for the better part of a full minute.
“Well, that was a bit stupid of you. Especially as you had the fruit and water in your inventory all along. At least, I have the excuse of being locked in a cell. What’s yours?”
The pithy comment was meant to lighten the mood, but Raven didn’t care for the comedy.
“Grief,” she snapped. “Loss. My father is gone, and you are to blame.”
Glastos licked his lips in nervousness. His captor had always seemed a bit fragile in the mental health department. He wracked his brains as to why Raven would consider him responsible for Reed’s death. She hadn’t said anything about how he died. His initial assumption that Reed’s bad decisions had finally caught up with him by virtue of a run-in with the Lamers seemed unlikely with his new information. Then it all clicked into place.
“He lied to you, didn’t he? Tried to claim he didn’t know about what the Liberation Army would do.”
“Yes.”
A simple one-word answer that told Glastos all he needed to know about the circumstances of Reed’s fate. He didn’t push any further.
“They must be stopped,” Raven said suddenly, unbidden. “But there is only so much I can do. I am but one person fighting against a storm of villainy. My father left me everything, but what good is wealth? I need soldiers, experienced ones, to stem this tide of evil.”
“Your father left your everything?” Glastos asked her tentatively.
Raven’s angry eyes zeroed in on him. “He did, what of it, wretch? I can smell the avarice rolling off you from here.”
A kernel of a plan formed in Glastos’ mind. One that might just get him out of here. It would likely mean putting himself in danger by helping the unstable Justicar, but that would be better than continued confinement. Raven came back this time, how long before something out there finished her off and he was left to rot?
“Something else changed while you were away that you probably don’t know about yet. I’ve got an idea, you won’t like it, but that doesn’t make it bad. The Dominarius contract was dissolved. They’ve cancelled the commission to take down Carter.”
“What do I care of that” Raven snapped before he could finish.
“It means there are a lot of pissed of mercenaries out there.”
“Scum, you mean.”
“Yes, scum, but scum in desperate need of employment. A way to break even on this disastrous expedition. Scum who will work for anyone with the coin to pay and for whom there is no love lost with the Liberation Army…if you get my drift.”
Raven summoned a small black crystal into her hand. Glastos had a pretty good idea of what it was and what it contained.
“I’m listening,” she said.
“Okay, step one, you need to let me out of this cell. You will need me to make first contact with the other companies and, well, you can be a bit abrupt. Negotiations will proceed more smoothly if the one doing the talking isn’t insulting the merc captains with every second breath.”
Raven thought it over for several minutes, mostly to make Glastos sweat. She didn’t want the unreliable man to think she trusted him. Eventually, she strode across the gap, retrieved the key to the cell door and freed the merc.
Glastos stretched his arms in the air when he was released from the cramped confines. “Excellent. Right, step two. We need to head back to that hotel and retrieve the communications equipment that was salvaged from my ship. There are messages I need to send, and things will go better if they are recognisably encoded.”
***
Captain Brock Deathstare
A light rapping came from the cabin door. Brock looked up from his desk and surveyed the scene in his office. The damage he’d inflicted on the furnishings during his fit of pique was substantial. Did he want one of the crew to see how flustered he’d become?
Damn the Dominarius Consortium, he thought to himself with a low growl. He hoped their balls shrivelled to the size of peas, very small ones. The compensation they sent with the contract cancellation was derisory, it didn’t even cover a tenth of the outlay he’d already spent on this expedition.
The canid beastkin scratched at one floppy ear and made a decision. “Who is it?” He barked, infusing the tone with as much gruff discontent as possible. That should put off any timid crew members without him having to bother his arse.
“Lyra,” an annoyed female voice called out.
“Come,” Brock called out with a sigh. He’d feared it might be her. No amount of angry barking would put her off. Lyra knew him too well, knew his weaknesses.
The halfling woman opened the door and sauntered in, careful to close it behind her. She gave his office a once over and then glared at him sternly.
Brock leaned back in his chair. “I don’t suppose there is any chance you’ve come to give my ears a scratch?”
“Is that your clever idea of a euphemism for fucking?” She snorted.
Brock winced; Lyra was blunt as ever.
She followed it up with another biting question. “Do you think you’ve earned a good, hard…scratching? What with the mess you’ve made of the place.”
“Give over, Lyra. It’s been a rough couple of days.”
The halfling woman hopped up onto Brock’s desk and kicked it clear of the broken knick-knacks that had been in the way. This way the short woman towered over him by a foot.
“Explain to me, fearsome Captain Deathstare, how it’s been any rougher for you than the rest of the crew. Every man and woman out there was banking on this payday. We’re all suffering, Brock, but you’re the only one who gets to act like a petulant child over the matter.”
“It’s not the same,” he defended himself. “I was already deep in the hole before this debacle. Running on fumes. This was the very last chance and those cocksuckers fucked me. Stitched me up, good and proper. Even if we get out of this backwater shithole, I’m going to lose the ship. Probably end up debt-collared and sold by the very pricks who screwed me over in the first place.”
Brock’s fist slammed into the desk as the rage over the situation threatened to boil over again. Lyra’s hands reached out and took hold of his ears before he erupted. She rubbed them soothingly and crooned softly to calm him back down. Despite her mockery, she knew full well he had earned the moniker of deathstare.
“Save that fury for the enemy,” she advised. “Now straighten yourself up and come with me. Things may not be as dire as they seem. A message has come through the private channels.”
“I’ve seen it already. Darik’s plan is pure folly. The contract was to identify and eliminate the badge holder. Not seize control of the whole faction, there aren’t enough of us.”
“Not from that greedy idiot, Darik,” Lyra said with a roll of her eyes. “Somebody else is hiring and it seems like they’ve got deep pockets.”
Brock's big eyes opened wide in sudden hope. “How much?”
“Not enough to turn this voyage into the retirement plan we’d all hoped for, but enough to plug that hole you’re so worried about. Keep the Nasty Bitch afloat for a few more missions, at least.”
“Who’s the client?”
“A local, some lass called Raven Reynolds.”
“And she can pay?”
“Her rep encoded Framework confirmation of the funds.”
Brock jumped up from his seat and almost knocked the small woman off the table, but he caught her by the hips and pulled her in for a big sloppy kiss. “We’re back in the game, Lyra.”
“Are you not even going to ask what the job is?” she asked with a quirked eyebrow and wiped some of the excess saliva from her chin.
“Does it matter?”
“I suppose not, but so you don’t come across as a complete fool during the negotiation, she wants us to raid the Libbers. Help keep them penned in the territory they have already seized and prevent further expansion. Spa re the local populace, that kind of thing.”
That gave Brock pause. The Liberation Army were dangerous and numerous. He’d seen how many of their warships had already come through the gate when the Nasty Bitch exited the gate later the next day. Unlike the merc companies, the Lib Army had been I no hurry to depart the area. It had been a nervy first ten minutes on Earth, but the Libbers had respected the tradition and held off attacking.
“Sounds more like a revenge mission to me if she is a local. I suppose it doesn’t matter what her motivation is, only that she can pay what is promised. Are we the only company she’s looking to hire? They’ll crush us if we go in solo.”
“No, they are looking to bring a score or more of reliable crews onboard for this. Basically, anyone that didn’t sign up for Darik’s foolishness.”
Other companies meant other captains. That would be problematic, but nothing that couldn’t be worked through if the money was right. And it did solve the numbers problem. It didn’t hurt that most of the other captains Brock refused to work with were all-in for Darik’s scheme in the north. “We can work with that. Let’s see what they have to say.”
Lyra sniffed loudly. “Bathe and change first.”
“They can’t smell me over the communicator.”
“I can and if you want your itchy ears scratched in celebration afterwards, you will bathe and change beforehand.”
Bath first it would be.