I quickly made my way through the ship to the engineering bay. The corridors of the ship were now full of people working on restocking the food and water supplies and doing routine maintenance on the ship. As I got closer to the engineering bay, less and less people were in the corridors, bringing back the feeling of an empty ghost ship, and I soon knew why. A man’s scream echoed through the halls, and it rose and fell the longer it went on.
What the hell is going on? I picked up my pace and opened the airlock door to the engineering bay and saw a small pile of corpses and a man screaming in a suit of armor as his body bent and twisted in ways that were not physically possible. Next to the screaming man stood Sparky, tapping away at a command tablet, completely calm and bobbing her head to some song on her headset that had little cybernetic cat ears.
I watched the scene unfold for a minute before walking over and tapping her shoulder, making her jump with surprise. “Holy fuck!” she exclaimed and took off her headphones as she turned to me, “How long have you been standing there?!”
“Long enough,” I said, smiling, then gestured to the screaming man in the suit of armor, “Would you mind not murdering our crew? We do actually need them.” Sparky rolled her eyes as she pressed a button on her tablet, and the armor around the man opened up and dropped his body. His skin was torn, and he bled from cuts where his body bent in ways it wasn’t supposed to bend. I’d ask if he was going to be okay, but I really don’t care. “How’s the armor project coming?” I asked, ignoring the man at my feet.
Sparky sighed, “Not as well as I would like. The armor responds to my mental commands and moves like a second body for me like it’s supposed to, but it overextends when the armor plating is put on. I’m pretty sure it’s a programming problem, but I can’t find the error.”
I nodded along, listening to her vent about her program before stopping her and asking, “Okay! Well that’s all really fascinating and such, but I did have a reason to come here. There was a problem with Jin’s clone tank. He nearly died … again. We need you to check it and see what the problem is and fix it.”
Sparky stopped talking and rolled her eyes, “Fine. I’ll give it a look when I can.”
I felt a hand weakly wrap around my ankle and said, “Great!” as I kicked the man on the floor, freeing my ankle, “How are your other projects coming?”
Sparky sighed at that question, “You want the short version or the long version?”
“Short version.”
“Well, the short and long of it is programming errors. I can make the hardware, but the programs that make them all work are making life a living hell,” Sparky complained.
I nodded, and a thought occurred to me, “You know. I might have someone who can help with that.”
Sparky looked at me quizzically, “Who could possibly be a better programmer than me?”
I smiled, “Someone who doesn’t exist,” I answered mysteriously, wiggling my fingers at her weirdly.
Sparky rolled her eyes and walked past me, “Whatever. I’ll go check out the tank problem.”
“Oh!” I stopped her quickly, “And after that, tell Dr. Whisper, Haru, and Jin to meet Adjani, Oni, and I in the mess hall. You need to attend too, of course.”
Sparky just waved me off, “Yeah, yeah.”
I watched her leave for a minute and felt another hand wrap around my ankle along with the weak words, “Please, help me.” I ignored the plea and pulled my pistol from my pocket. Without looking, I pointed the gun at where the man’s head should be and pulled the trigger. His hand went limp, and I freed my leg from his grip.
While I had a few minutes, I went over to the nearest terminal and activated it, connecting to the system net and accessing news feeds. After filtering all the worthless political drivel from the many hundreds of news outlets, I finally found the ones on Asakalabam and narrowed it down to the ones centered around the same area of the orphanage fire. Then, I watched until the orphanage instance finally came on.
The holographic A.I. woman looked directly into the camera and spoke in a monotone, unfeeling voice, “The fire at orphanage number 704 that claimed the lives of forty-three people, seven adults and thirty-six children, has some new information attached to it recently released by the local police in the area.”
The screen then switched to a news conference that had happened a few days ago, according to the time stamp in the corner of the video. A rather fat police captain stood at a podium with an unkempt walrus-like mustache, “A week ago, tragedy struck,” the captain began, “An orphanage was burned down and everyone inside was murdered.” The crowd at the conference began to murmur as flashes went off from camera operators and reporters. The captain raised a hand for silence before continuing, “Yes, murdered. We have been searching diligently for the culprit and have narrowed it down to this young man here,” he tapped a button on the podium, and an enlarged image of Baun came up behind him for everyone to see. “This is Orphan 587885. Officers noticed he was registered as present at the orphanage but found no sign of his body. So they concluded he was either not present during the time of the attack or he caused the attack. After tracking him down, the young man attacked the two officers who confronted him and critically injured one of them, all the while insisting that his name was not Orphan 587885 but rather Baun. Orphan 587885 ‘Baun’ is still at large, and we urge the community to give any information regarding his whereabouts. Thank you.”
Then the screen went back to the A.I. woman who continued speaking, “Orphan 587885 ‘Baun’ age ten is five feet tall, eighty pounds, with shoulder-length white hair, and red irises. The child is to be considered armed and dangerous. Approach with caution and capture alive. Five thousand credits will be issued to the one who captures him.”
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
I shut off the news feed as a broad smile curled my lips maliciously, “Well done, Baun. You just might be worth my time.” I shut off the terminal and left the engineering bay to gather Adjani and Oni before having our first team strategy meeting in the mess hall.
***
I dragged the drunk Adjani and Oni into the mess hall from their rooms. They were sleeping off whatever they had drank and were still a little tipsy, and I had to wrap my arms around their waists to hold them up as we walked. Once we reached the mess hall, I let them go, and they fell to the floor slowly. I looked around and saw Sparky, Dr. Whisper, and a tablet on a video call with Haru and Jin on the screen, all sitting at a nearby table. I waved happily, “Haru! Jin! Sparky! Dr. Whisper.”
Sparky rolled her eyes and said, “Let’s just get this meeting over with so I can get back to work.”
“Agreed,” Dr. Whisper said with a nod, “Also, why do I have to be here? I’ve got patients to attend.”
I looked down at the two I dragged in, who were slowly crawling to the table, and said, “Because staff meetings are a great way to make people suffer. And we have a couple of holes to fill in our elite team of killers.” I picked Adjani and Oni up by the arms and dragged them over to the table before sitting down myself.
“What holes do we have to fill?” Sparky asked, leaning on the table and tapping her fingers rhythmically.
“Well, for starters, we need someone to direct our fleet since I killed the monster that last led it. Haru, do you have any suggestions as to who could fill that role?” I asked, turning to the tablet Haru. She blinked a few times and started talking. No sound came out, and it looked like she was asking a question. I blinked as well and asked, “Hello? Haru? Can you hear us?”
Haru began tapping on the screen, clearly trying to find something, then nodded and pointed at us, mouthing something slowly. Jin began tapping on his screen to do something. Sparky leaned forward and looked at the tablet, then pressed a few buttons on the screen. “Hello. Can you hear me now?” Haru asked.
“Of course, I can hear you, but can they hear you?” Jin answered.
“I wasn’t asking you, Jin! Violet, can you hear me?”
“Yes, I can hear you now,” I answered.
“Violet? Can you hear me? I can’t hear you.”
“Damn it! Move!” Sparky yelled, grabbing the tablet and pulling it in front of her.
As she worked, I shook my head slowly at her, “I can’t believe you forgot to unmute and turn on the microphone.”
“It wasn’t me! I didn’t set up the call,” Sparky protested and then froze as we all turned to look at Dr. Whisper, who was turning bright red and slowly shrinking into herself.
“Dr. Whisper!” I said in mock astonishment.
“Tech isn’t my thing, okay! If you need a person put back together, I can help. But if you need anything else, I’m useless,” she said, defending herself.
“Next time, just have me do this,” Sparky said, rolling her eyes again before adding, “Okay, got it. Can you hear us now?”
“Yes. We can. Finally,” Haru said as Sparky put the tablet back to where we could all see them. “Now, what did you ask us?” Haru asked.
“We need someone that can direct our fleet now that we have one. Do you have any suggestions?” I asked again.
Haru thought for a moment, then said, “What about Commander Draftnik of the Eclipse fleet.”
“No,” Adjani said with a soft burp, “He’s dead. The new guy in charge. He hates me. Want’s me dead.”
“Okay, what about Captain Filip of the Draeger fleet?”
“No,” Oni said with the same soft burp, “He wants to collect the bounty on my head. His fleet small. Can’t command fleet as big as this anyways.”
Haru blinked and sighed, “Okay, how about Captain Fulger of—”
“I owe him money that I don’t have,” Jin interrupted before Haru could finish.
“Okay!” Haru exclaimed, clapping her hands together loudly, “That leaves Queen Emma ‘Monarch’ Li of the Monarch Swarm or Commander Sparrow of the Treasure Hunter fleet.”
Nobody said anything about the last two choices, so I considered them, “The two fleets hate each other. And Monarch hates me because I destroyed a few of their ships that were in my way. But the Monarch does accept peace offerings from time to time. I suggest we recruit Monarch. Any objections?”
“Why not Sparrow?” Dr. Whisper asked.
“Because his ships are a lot of scrap metal with shitty shields and engines. But they can be sold for scrap, which can then buy a few more ships for Monarch. So, I plan on using them as a piece offering,” I answered.
Dr. Whisper nodded as Sparky said, “Dibs on dismantling them.”
“You got it!” I said as I snapped my fingers at her with finger guns. “Now, we also need a good hacker and code breaker. I suggest we recruit Ghost.”
“Who?” Everyone asked at the same time.
I blinked, “Ghost. Jasmin ‘Ghost’ Parker. She’s a legendary hacker. How do you not know about her?”
“Umm. I’ve never heard of her,” Sparky said, “What are some of the things she’s done?”
I thought for a moment, “Well, she hacked the federation super bank once and stole billions of credits.”
“Wasn’t that done by the hacker group, Specter?” Haru asked.
“No, but she made it look like them.”
“No, it was definitely Specter that did that hack. I’ve researched them, and it was definitely them who hacked the bank,” Sparky argued.
I shook my head, “No, no. It was Ghost. She did that job and hacked the international database of citizens and deleted herself along with several criminals, such as myself, to throw them off her trail and bring more heat to the other criminals she deleted. I had to kill so many people to get my official kill count back up to what it was before she deleted me.”
“I heard of that hack. Didn’t the other hacker group, Vultures, do it?”
“Yeah, it was,” Sparky confirmed.
I growled in frustration, “NO! It’s her MO! She makes a small false trail that leads to her competitors, so she gets more jobs. She’s got so many eyes everywhere she’s probably watching us right now. Watch! Hey! Ghost! Join the video call and tell them!” I yelled, looking around the room and at the cameras around the mess hall.
Nothing happened. Sparky leaned over to Dr. Whisper and whispered a question, “Is she off her meds or something?”
“I wouldn’t know. I never prescribed her anything,” Dr. Whisper whispered back.
“I’m not crazy!” I said, “I know she exists. Call us, you bitch!”
“Oh, I remember now,” Jin said, and I snapped my attention to the screen. “Her master used to say she had an imaginary friend named Ghost, who was supposedly a hacker. He let her believe that because it seemed to improve her hacking and programming skills.”
“She’s real!” I exclaimed and said, “Damn it, Ghost! Call us already, you introverted BITCH!”
“Well,” Haru said, sounding a little creeped out, “We now know our next steps. We capture the Treasure Hunter Fleet and recruit Monarch. Let’s leave Violet to her imaginary friend. Meeting adjourned.”
“I’m not crazy!” I yelled as everyone began to stand.
Adjani stood quickly, saying, “I’m going to hurl in the bathroom.”
“Not if I beat you to it,” Oni said, standing and running to the door with Adjani on her heels.
“My mother had me tested!” I yelled after them.
“When you’re done throwing up, come to med bay so I can help you with the nausea!” Dr. Whisper yelled after them from the door.
“That’s why I killed her!” I yelled again, “And my father!” Sparky flipped me the bird as she walked away. I sighed and rested my head on my hands. I looked at the tablet to see Jin and Haru had signed off, leaving an empty video meeting place. I waited for a minute, just staring at the screen before sighing again and starting to stand when the tablet began making a slight jingling sound. I instinctively pressed a button that appeared on the screen and said, “Hello.”
“I’m not a bitch,” a small feminine voice said coming from the tablet. I began to curse out the Ghost in every language I knew.