Solace System Introduction

Jake dove for cover, a hail of gunfire shattering the wall-to-wall office windows with a crash. Crawling behind a desk, he checked the ammo indicator on the clip of his autorifle. Twenty rounds left. Clutching the radio on his shoulder, he keyed the comms.

“Alicia! Alicia, there’s more of them! Are those crates on the roof or not?”

“Sir,” came the static-filled reply, “No sir. Working on it sir. I’m taking point, sir, Thirteen is doing most of the work.”

Another hail of gunfire tore into the office, the high-powered rounds sending papers fluttering into the air like a flock of birds. That’s what you got on a backwater moon like this: they still did plenty of business on hardcopy. Jake grunted, propped his gun up above his head, and let loose a blind flurry of rounds. Someone gave a choked cry which was followed shortly after by a thud, a shocked silence and what was presumably another volley of outraged gunfire.

“Tell him to hurry up then! I’m not exactly thrilled to be holding the line back here!”

Fifteen minutes ago, Jake Jones and his crewmates had been talking quite amicably with a bunch of scientists a few floors down from where they were now, inside the Blue Skies Incorporated research facility on Iol, just outside the town limits of the primary lunar colony. Nice place, if you avoid the rolling yellow fields of carnivorous dandelions; they still didn’t quite have a handle on the terraforming yet. The content of the conversation with BlueSkies wasn’t really important, rather, it was the fact that it included zero punctuation in the form of pulled triggers. That it involved a sum of cash being transferred from the corporation’s coffers to their own was an added bonus.

“So, you wire us a quarter now and the rest when we get to Redmarch?” Jake asked, smiling.

The head researcher nodded. “Yes. The faster you get this stuff moved, the better. In fact, if you get it to our Redmarch division in less than forty-eight hours, there’s an additional twenty-five percent on top.”

“What’s got you looking to get this stuff moved so fast, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Ah, well… that’s classified.”

Jake shot a glance to Alicia. She merely blinked, the rigid bioplastic of her augmented cybernetic skin implants as unreadable as a statue. With a shrug, he turned back to the scientist. “Deal.”

Suddenly, an alarm klaxon began sounding, the cool white light of the office complex shifting to a dim red as the emergency lighting came on. Over the intercom, a security breach announcement began to loop.

Jake looked up at the lighting, then at Alicia, then back at the researcher. “So… classified? That gonna change anytime soon?”

“We, well… we may have picked up your cargo from, ah, shall we say less than legitimate means. Means which may have involved it first going missing from Nevermore storage.”

Jake swore. “…Nevermore? Are you… you are. Well, I guess I can’t pass up a chance to spit in their eye. Got a security locker nearby? Alicia, get back to the loading dock on the roof with Thirteen and help him load those crates. Break the legs of anyone who tries to stop you, you hear?”

“Break their legs, sir. Understood.”

And that was how it had begun. Nevermore CorpSeCorp agents had swarmed through the building, hacking into the local control systems and commandeering not only the lifts but the security checkpoints too. It had been an uphill fight, but Jake had managed to stall them long enough that their ship might be arriving soon.

Then it was just a matter of getting the crates on it and hauling ass off the damned moon.

“Sir? Crates are all on the roof, sir. Orders?”

“Uh…” One of the CorpSeCorps agents fired off another burst. This time, a bookshelf collapsed. “…Hold tight. I’m on my way.”

Unclipping a pulse grenade from his belt, Jake pitched it over the desk and then dropped down onto the floor again, covering his ears. The grenade began to emit a steady whine that rapidly increased in pitch until the remaining CorpSeCorps agents doubled over in pain, ears bleeding. When the whine had turned into a piercing screech, the grenade detonated in a wave of solid sound. Cautiously, Jake got up and peered over the edge of the desk.

Satisfied that nobody was shooting at him anymore and that the ones who had been were now red smears on the wall, he vaulted the desk and headed towards the roof.

When he arrived, it was to the roar of starship-grade turbines, the angular bulk of the Paycheck hovering above. Alicia and the car-sized insectoid form of Thirteen were waiting below, surrounded by the crates they were being paid to transport.

“Sir, are we leaving, sir?” asked Alicia, pointing with the oversized, pneumatically powered sledgehammer she carried one handed up towards their ship.

“Yeah. Is Dan going to send us some grapple lines, or what?”

Thirteen buzzed his wings, his voice smooth but oddly forced as it came through the translator embedded in his chest. “He claims to be having technical difficulties, captain. They should be disengaging any moment no- there.”

A tangle of lines dropped down from the hatch that opened in the belly of the hauler. The three wasted no time in clipping them onto the various crates of sensitive equipment, checking and double-checking to make sure the lines were secure. Finally, satisfied that everything was ready, they signalled for their pilot to drop down the lift.

As the crates rose up into the air and the platform slid down, a fresh group of CorpSeCorp agents poured out of the doors at the other end of the roof, shouting orders at each other and taking aim. Jake let off a burst from his autogun, only to have the ignition pin start repeatedly clicking after a few rounds.

“I’m out! Cover, now!”

Jake and Alicia both dove for cover behind whatever was available. Thirteen scurried behind the only thing large enough to cover his bulk, which was an industrial air conditioner.

“Alicia! You got anything?”

“Sir, a hammer, sir. Should I walk up and politely ask that they let me use it, sir?”

Swearing, the captain risked a glance out and was rewarded by a hail of bullets chewing up the concrete around him. Not good.

“Thirteen! Thirteen, we could use a little help!”

“You don’t mean…? Captain, please don’t ask me to-”

“No time for that! Do you particularly want your insides to be introduced to a few extra pounds of high-velocity metal? Me neither! Do something!”

With a wave of one of his four arms, a holographic tactical map appeared around the coril. Marking targets with trained precision, he switched on his field manipulators; the air surrounding the Nevermore agents warped and twisted for a moment before erupting into flames and burning destruction. The gunfire stopped, and the sudden silence was broken only by the gentle “thud” of the lift hitting the roof.

Alicia and Jake clambered onto the lift and hit the button, pulling them back up while Thirteen lifted off on his own power with a buzz of wings and clumsily flew through the open hatch.

By the time the captain reached the cargo bay, Thirteen was already securing the crates. It was hard to tell, but Jake recognized enough of coril body-language to know he was upset.

Hanging the autorifle up in a weapons locker, he stood off to the side of the wasp-like alien and stuffed his hands in his pockets. Thirteen continued lugging the crates from where they’d been reeled in to the cargo locks.

“Hey? Thirteen, look, I know you don’t particularly like it when things get shooty. Hell, I don’t like it when things get shooty. But when it comes down to it, you’re the one who came out here.”

The coril didn’t bother to turn and face the captain. “I did not plan to become a mercenary. My implants are scientific tools, not weapons. I am still… still getting used to the necessity of violence outside of the arcology.”

“That’s all well and good. But I need to know if the next time it becomes a necessity, are you going to freeze up again?”

Setting down the last of the crates and clamping it in place, Thirteen finally turned and bowed. “No, captain. If you will excuse me?”

With that, the coril scurried off towards the crew quarters, squeezing his bulk with practiced ease through the smaller corridors. Jake ran a hand through his hair, letting out a breath. He didn’t like to admit it, but he had a definite appreciation of how calm the big guy was. Glancing around, he saw that Alicia was leaning against the staircase that led up to the catwalks above the cargo bay, staring.

“What are you looking at?”

“Sir, nothing, sir. Your concern for Thirteen is touching, sir. If I still had a heart, I’m sure it’d be a-fluttering, sir.”

“Ah, shut up.”

About half an hour later Jake had finished checking over his gear, checking over the cargo, asked Alicia if she could take an inventory of their remaining ordinance (she’d promised she would right after she finished setting an interface plug in her spine that had been knocked loose during their trip to the roof), and finally headed up to the bridge to talk to Dan. The grizzled older man was slamming his fist against the instrument panel when Jake stepped through the hatch.

With a cough, Jake pointed towards the controls. “Are you trying to fix it, or sell it for scrap?”

“Sorry captain, I’ve just been having trouble with the damned autopilot for weeks now and I’m running out of patience for the damned machine! If it would work like I told it to I could have been down there with you.”

“Itching for a chance to shoot someone? Sure you didn’t get enough of that in the army?”

“Hah!” Dan chuckled, bending over to yank open an access panel and starting to play with the tangle of wires inside. “I’m a military man at heart, you know that... You can take a man out of the 89th, but you can’t take the 89th out of a man!”

Jake grinned before dropping into the unoccupied control chair. “Well, either way, great job on the timing back there. Might have had to ditch the cargo if you hadn’t showed up when you did.”

“You’re welcome. Now, what’s this I heard Alicia grumbling about? Nevermore has some personal interest in all this?”

“Yeah. Blue Skies stole the goods from them. They want to get it to their facility on Redmarch within forty-eight hours.” Almost defensively, Jake added, “We get a bonus.”

“And you’re still interested in the job? Sure you’re not just looking to spite Nevermore for the sake of spiting them?”

Jake eyed Dan, then rolled up his sleeve and held his arm up. A barcode tattoo ran down it, punctuated at one end by the raven logo of the Nevermore Corporation. Dan rolled his eyes and leaned back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest. “Get on with it.”

“I worked in Nevermore’s factories for eight years. I got out on blind luck. I’ll admit, I have a bit of a grudge. But you get your paycheck from me, and if you’ve got a problem with that, you can leave.”

Dan grunted, expression one of pained boredom. “You done?”

Jake rolled his sleeve back down without comment. “Are we going to make it to Redmarch in time?”

“Sure,” Dan grinned. “We’ve just got to do it on four-fifths power, with one of our engines running on a bypassed cooling circuit. While Nevermore sends whatever ships they’ve got in range to intercept us, I’ll reckon. And with a cargo that our employers would love to deny having commissioned us to transport in the first place.”

“We’ve had worse.”

“Right. This’ll be a piece of cake.”

The Paycheck set a course for Redmarch.