“Unbelievable…” Vicki sighed, stomping out of the shuttle. “Ship sends us to an empty, abandoned freighter with barely any supplies, no crew, an engine burned out so not worth towing for the salvage money, and no weapons. Just a damn crate with a frozen dead guy in it.”
“Free food at least, 50/50 split.” Gizzy yawned, rolling the giant crate. Vicki shrugged casually as the rest gave varying degrees of disappointed and mortified looks.
“Well, according to the crew manifest they were transporting him alive to Amenthis.” Jack said. “Judging by the lack of crew or escape pods, I’d say he got loose and most of them decided to bail, and the rest of them died putting him down. The only thing I can’t figure out… If they killed him and crated him, then why weren’t there a few survivors bringing him in for the reward? According to this, he’s worth 48 million alive, 30 million dead and frozen. Given the abandoning that would be MORE per survivor to split than they started… So why freeze him and then just abandon ship as well?” he asked.
“Maybe there was some double crossing?” Vinn suggested. "I mean, if you got a lot of crew already chicken shitted out of dodge, and like 4 left, technically every other body you don’t have to split it with is worth millions. That’s a formula for a last man standing and a lot of back stabbing.”
“So where was the last man, and why were there no bodies?” jack asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Oh, creepy.” Nicole said with a smirk.
“Because they didn’t kill each other.” Gizzy said looking confident. “They got him on ice and evacuated. Whoever is in this crate made them so scared that even dead, they feared something bad enough to just abandon ship and profit. I’ve seen it before. Long ago I was on a crew worse than this, on a ship that sucked so bad you can’t fathom, and we encountered something called the Weavers, which were basically space spiders. I heard stories about finding ships with no crew and no bodies, and no escape pods, with 1 or more frozen corpses left behind. They were full of spider eggs. They took out all of them or most of them and to prevent the corpses from hatching out, they put them in cryo crates and then either ejected the crates or left the ship in case there were more they didn’t find. One dead humanoid can provide a birthing shell for about 50 baby weavers, and plenty of food for them when they hatch. They’re capable of laying more eggs in a host in about 48 hours, so most weaver infested ships just got left or set to self destruct.”
“Uh, so… why are we bringing this crate on my ship?” Vinn asked.
“Because I scanned the ship and the body. No spiders, no eggs, this dead guy is clean and free of any parasites the database knows of. They probably froze him to save their bounty and then got scared, paranoid. Said to hell with it and ejected ,hoping to come back with a new ship and crew. So maybe we beat them back to it, or maybe this guy is just so damn scary that even dead he was too dangerous to transport.”
“Oh nice.” Nicole said sarcastically. “Now I REALLY want him on my ship."
“Well, the ship lead us to their ship, the glasses lead us to the crate, and this guy has something we need... So we brought the crate. Now since the glasses can't see through solid metal and we don’t know if we need HIM or something he’s carrying, my question is, how do we want to crack this open and safely find out?” she asked. The box shuttered and a polished boot kicked the lid away. Guns drew and aimed as a tall lanky figure, dark in skin and clothing rose up from the box, eyes glowing red and shimmering black hair flowing back with the assistance of his crimson painted nails. The glimmer of golden rings up each ear, casting enough light on him to show the serpentine fangs stretching from his waking yawn. He turned and calmly smiled, adjusting the collar on his frosty coat. His cleanly edged and trimmed beard curled up with a look of expected satisfaction.
“You’re dead.” Nicole said.
“No, I am Demitri. A pleasure to finally receive a proper greeting.” He bowed.
“Safeties off. Fire if he approaches.” Jack ordered. “He could be dangerous.”
“I am dangerous, just not for the reason people assume.” He said in a deep, rumbling voice, smooth as silk and chilling to the bone, or chassis in the case of Dee and Gizzy. “Demitri Dommik Thorne, but many people call me “Persian”.
“I don’t care what your name is. You’re wanted and our reliable sopurce thinks you’re worth finding.”
“Reliable source, is that what you call your Captain or her glasses? It is assumed that all who belong in Amenthis are evil and malicious creatures that want destruction and death, but it is a place to store what none can control. Evil, hardly. But I AM dangerous, I assure you. I am a curse.”
“Yeah, we’re all cursed souls here, welcome to the Medusa," Vicki chuckled.
“You don’t understand. I am not a man with a curse, I am the curse itself, and you have aquired me, so yes, you ARE all cursed, and I highly advise you to shoot me in the head with something robust, place the body back in the freezer and point me into the darkest, most starless point of space, and launch me where nobody can find me.”
“Well, 48 million credits suggest we bring you back to Amenthis.” Jack said coldly. “I tend to agree with all of them.”
“You would send a man meaning no harm, no ill will to suffer on that hellish world, after you yourself have been there in innocents? Jack, that is not like you. You are a monster hunter, not a monster.”
“How the fuck do you know anything about me?” Jack questioned, tightening his grip on the rifle and flipping it to full auto.
“I know many things, and people say too much around the dead. The name Jack, the name Gizzy, the ship named Medusa. You must really quiet your tongue around frozen corpses, some of them could be listening and connecting the dots. No, I’m not psychic, that’s what YOU were thinking.” He said looking to Nicole.
“Well, that didn’t exactly help your case.”
“I know most of you more than you like to think. I’m a very old, very wanted man with very deep connections in many places. You think you have the only glasses that help you see things?” he said while taking from his shirt pocket a pair of glasses with small green lenses similar to the ones Gizzy and Nicole used to find the relics. “Your ship and crew has caused a lot of chaos. A lot of death and a lot of destruction has transpired in the name of the greater good. I admire that. You did well covering your tracks and changing your ships records, hacking systems and bribing people to erase your trail, but not a flawless job, one that could be followed if desired. And oh do I desire it.”
“We found YOU.” Nicole pointed out.
“No, you found fate, pardon me… bait. Those words mean such similar things here.” He laughed. “You hunt artifacts and I have acquired some myself. All I had to do was place myself in your path and make myself the closest source of attraction, and your Reliable Source lead you right to me. I let myself be caught, by the most hilariously pathetic band of bounty hunters, far in over the head in these black waters. You wanted me here as much as I wanted to be here.”
“Why?” asked Gizzy. “Why would you WANT to be on this ship… to kill us, steal other artifacts, ransom?”
“You are the ship of chaos guided by fate, a band of cursed souls with no home and no purpose but to find the greater of two evils and eliminate it. I’m just like you. This is the only place I have purpose. So, shoot me in the head and end my suffering, freeze me before I rise again, and launch me into the abyss so that I may rest forever and do no more harm, or let me assist you, empower your purpose and crew, fuel your mission and do what you came to do… collect the artifacts that evil would misuse. I… AM one of these artifacts. Or is your reliable source simply… incorrect this time?”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Or we could shoot you, freeze you, and turn you in for the money.” Jack sighed.
“That was not an option. You know Amenthis from the surface layers but below the cities and the corrupted prison streets are only darker secrets and deeper levels of hell where they store the things like me. They store some of them because they are too evil to be free, and they store some because they are too powerful to control outside of a box. Gizzy would be in one of those cells if they had their way. You are quite the little weapon yourself.”
“Thanks, but flirting won’t get you far here.” She smiled.
“Oh will it not? I have yet to try. A son of a legendary killer, a living weapon playing chess with the fate of the universe, a tempered and bottled intelligence capable of controlling ships and defense systems, and a vampire with a trail of bodies and destruction in her wake. And… two other people.” He said while scoffing at Vinn and Nicole.
“Aside from a pair of misfits, you are all no different than I am, criminals, monsters, weapons, something to be controlled and wielded for power, and if you did turn me in they would have you all bottled up like me and only grow stronger. I don’t want that any more than I want my own freedom stolen, so we will not be returning to Amenthis. I will not allow it. Not ever. Not without a war fleet capable and hellbound to reduce it to ash and crumble the kingdom.” Demitri smiled. “Or we could simply be friends, partners in similar goals, allies. What reason do you have to consider me the enemy?”
“I just don’t trust anyone and every time we find an artifact it tends to be rather evil.” Gizzy shrugged.
“Like the cube that gave the robot life, or the sword you carry, or the glasses you use to find more of them? Evil…how insulting. Objects of power will always ATTRACT and be surrounded by evil, but that hardly makes them evil as well. How short sighted and simplistic of a thing to place like a title on everything with great potential. Cast me aside then, break the glasses, melt down the sword, burn the book, and toss the robot into a fiery star. Dispose of all the evil things you cling to, for power… or use them for their purpose. To create life, to find answers, to change the wrongs and to fight evil when it does oppose you. Use me as they would on Amenthis. Because they would use me for greed and corruption and your crew has so much more…diverse ideas.” He grinned.
“And if course if you cannot grant me the gift of my purpose, nor allow me the release of eternal peace and insist on wasting such a glorious prize as me, then I will have no choice but to defend myself as any of you would. I would most likely be able to take the ship by force without killing anyone but I cannot guarantee that. Choose wisely… as you have done MOST of the time thus far.”
“Back in the box, asshole.” Jack snipped.
“No thank you, I am well rested and quite hungry. With two vampires on the ship, please tell me you have something rare and bloody.”
...
Demitri rolled his eyes in bliss as he chewed a barely seared piece of steak from Gizzy’s fridge, definitely not human meat or anything.
“The preparation is divine even if the décor is lackluster.” He sighed, "Bless the chef with my greatest thanks.” He said winking at Dee.
“Just gonna let him eat your steak and walk around freely?” Jack asked Gizzy.
“Well, you already dumped a full clip of 500 blackout rounds into him and he didn’t seem to give a shit, so I concluded that this isn’t the move where we win, it’s the one where we step back and study our opponent.” She muttered.
“Opponents, darling… really?” he smiled, leaning back and looking at her over the green glasses. “You really must speak quieter around opponents with superb hearing.”
“Fuck.” She muttered, even lower volume.
“I do thank you for the meal and for seasoning it properly with salt and truffle rather than poison. It would be a shame to ruin a good piece of meat on a pointless assassination attempt. I assure you, better attempts have been done and laughed at."
“Kinda wish the old man was still around.” Gizzy whispered.
“You mean you wish his guns were still around.” He said looking back and raising his eyebrows with a smirk. She raised hers silently, taking the hint.
“Well yes, actually, I do mean that. What a great time for him to fuck off into the sunset.” She said while pretending to still be mad.
...
Gizzy loomed over Jack as he lifted his bedroom pillow and revealed a highly modified 579 Scythe pistol, with a larger silencer and a MUCH larger hole in the end of it.
“He made you a 54 caliber barrel. Doesn’t help without the bullets.”
“He left me one of them too.” Jack said.
“Just one bullet? He made you a custom suppressor and barrel for a modified gun he tailored for the 54 caliber soul bullets and he left you one damn bullet for the gun?”
“It’s a piece of his soul, you don’t expect him to gave me a full clip. He said before he left that he failed as a father and failed as a grandfather, so one bullet was the least he owed me. He also told me not to tell you to show you the gun.”
“Yeah, that checks out. Carry that thing at all times.”
“I don’t like this Demitri guy either, but I can’t just shoot him with the ONE bullet I have purely because he’s a wanted man and suspicious as hell. We’re all wanted and suspicious as hell. Doesn’t mean we trust him, doesn’t mean we let him do whatever he wants, but we need to know we’re not wasting it on someone who’s less of a threat than the next thing we run into that needed one of these to the head.”
“We really need more bullets.” Gizzy huffed.
“Well… the cloned ones clearly don’t work because he’s still alive. Why do you think I emptied the magazine instead of taking a shot to the head? I had to get to the last one in the magazine.” He sighed.
“So cloned Soul Bullets don’t do shit, and we just have one real one. Fantastic. I’ll carry the fancy dagger and you can carry the gun, but if he’s got those glasses, he will know we’re both carrying something spicy. Do we have any real advantages here? He read the damn book on us, he knows our moves, he can spot our weapons, and apparently he can eat silver bullets like he can eat steaks, and I put a shitload of garlic on that thing so there goes the traditional vampire tropes."
“Then we have no tactical edge here.” Jack said. "So let’s hope he doesn’t make the first move and let's hope I’m a faster draw than he is at diving out of the way.”
...
Demitri strolled down the hall and ran into Vicki, almost literally, during the security shift change.
“Pardon my clumsiness.” He nodded.
“Hey, knock off the charm, and cut the shit. How did you know about Delmar?”
“Delmar… Who exactly is that?” Demitri asked.
“A vampire with a trail of bodies and destruction in her wake? I’ve had maybe 4 kills since leaving Delmar, so you aren’t referring to the ones on this mission, you’re referring to the ones on Delmar. How did you know?” she asked.
“Oh, my poor thing, you must be more forgetful than an old cat. The entire prison cube of over 150 souls, the mysteriously destroyed ships, the people on that poor rainy planet. You have more death under your nails than most vampires do ten times your age. One must eat to live, but my dear, your appetite spiked quite impressively under the influence of the darkness. Do you not remember? Do you know nothing of your actions after it stole your beautiful face and body?” he asked looking sad and pity-filled. “Perhaps it’s best.” He smiled softly.
“You need to explain that statement a lot better.” She growled, her eyes glowing. He leaned forward, into her challenge and his own eyes glowed back.
“No, no I do not. You’ve felt enough pain. Let some demons remain dead, I regret that this one brought it up.” He whispered. She grabbed his collar, yanking him back as he tried to walk away.
“What… are you?” she asked.
“Wrong question, dear. What are WE, is what you mean. And you don’t need to understand that just yet either.” He said before adjusting his shirt and strutting away.
...
Vinn sat in the hallway, nodding forward and jolting awake again as Vicki’s footsteps approached hastily.
“Shift isn’t over.” He yawned.
“It is now. I’m hungry.” She snarled, raking her nails across his chest playfully.
“Well, if you insist.” He said, following her into the elevator as the doors closed behind him.
...
Jack stood in his room with a drink in hand as the door opened and footsteps entered, the room darkening as it closed. He watched the reflection of red eyes behind him and felt hands on his back, rubbing his shoulders. He turned and seemed puzzled as he noticed the eyes in the dark abut 6 inches lower than he expected them to be.
“Dee?” he asked.
“Not tonight… I’m whoever you want me to be.” Dee whispered. Jack lightly grabbed her wrists and stopped her advance, looking confused and somewhat frozen in place.
“I’m married, Dee. I know you’re lonely and you trust me, but…” he started.
“We shouldn’t or you don’t want to?” she asked him, looking sad and fragile.
“We can’t. We just can’t. I know you’re new to social living but you surely know this is wrong, don’t you?” he asked.
“I guess I do now. I thought… you would understand.” She said slowly as if trying to process something she was clueless and surprised by.
“Dee, I love you like a friend, the same as Nicole or Gizzy, but I have a wife and that means something sacred to humans. I won’t say anything to anyone, I’m not upset, I’m just… I wasn’t expecting this and it’s too complicated to explain. We just can’t. I’m sorry if there was some kind of misunderstanding, but you have to go. Vicki could come back any second and get the wrong idea. We have enough drama on this ship as it is without any more.” He explained. She stared coldly, hypnotically into his eyes, backing up and turning around. She looked back at him and paused.
“When you’re ready, you’ll find me again.” She said, making her leave as Jack stood dumbfounded and just relieved she left. He locked the door and poured himself another bourbon, neat, and a double. He rubbed his head both asking himself what the hell just happened and part of him asking why he almost didn’t stop her.