Bellageist: When Angels Sleep

A Bellageist Short Story

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This short story both precedes AND follows my unpublished novel’s prologue. A Samequel? A Preprequelsequel? A reprequel?

Whatever it’s called, this is a big one, but it should be worth it. Please enjoy. The accompanying narrative - Chapter 00 - is linked at the end of this post.

Bellageist: When Angels Sleep

Four unhealthy-looking men wallowed in deceleration cushions. Their drooling open mouths and juddering lifeless limbs gave them the appearance of corpses deorbiting in a hearse. Wiry projectors covered their eyes like horse blinders, strobing red light into their colorless irises, an optical feed of condensed information more efficient than a verbal or visual briefing. Deep surgical scars, some old, others fresh and leaking oily crimson, crisscrossed the pallid grey flesh of their bald heads. The trails of some incisions descended below their tight lock-suit collars, evidencing lifetimes riddled with many grievous injuries and cybernetic enhancements.

These men once remembered childhoods, hobbies, old squeezes, and all the other ordinary experiences of ordinary men, though all seemed distant and irrelevant to what they were now. They even had real names, though the last time each had heard his spoken the past decade could be counted on one hand. They went by callsigns, now, and minimized addressing each other by even these.

Famine. The funny one, though normally not by intent. He could be relied upon in battle but trusted for little else. He always claimed he cannot remember what he used to do before his current profession. Maybe this was true, or perhaps he was a liar. Mostly he can only remember how often he thinks he has died.

Death. Describing him as a psychotic loose cannon would have been accurate in the past. But among this group he at last found balance, at least for the loose cannon part. He had once lived the life of a gangster, but that was long ago when things like that mattered.

Hatred. While all four men might be aptly named, his callsign fit the best. Snug, like a good hat. Little humor or empathy to be found in this one. His prosthetic throat conveyed a voice halfway between a tiger’s growl and a man’s last dying gurgle. The only “before” job he remembered working was in garbage disposal. Not the euphemistic kind of garbage, but literal garbage. He recalled driving a truck, or maybe hanging on its side. He got mad when asked for clarification. Maybe he could be pushed to remember more, but questions like this made him angry, and his own answering angered him further, and soon, so would the stupid face of the person asking.

That left the fourth one: War. The kindest of them, believe it or not. He laughed the most, at least, and a warm, broad, genuine smile, with a full set of teeth, regularly surfaced from the tangle of scars he called a face. Sometimes he regretted killing a person. He would stop smiling for a while, but he eventually got over it. He claimed he used to be a teacher and thought his students might have been adolescents; he could not be certain. Maybe they had been older, or younger.

The eyepieces completed their upload and retracted. The four men blinked back to reality, the remaining fleshy components of their brains throbbing with mountains of new mission-specific information. The target arcology’s layout, its chokepoints, its elevated firing positions, the particular shape of every bush and statue in Garden 17, and the broad range of unknown threats they could conceivably face. Yet another weighty layer of combat data heaped upon the pile and further fossilization of their antiquated pasts.

“Minimize collateral damage. Were you listening?” A smiling War directed this comment at Death.

“I’m better now. Rehabilitated. Rebehavioralized, and stuff,” came Death’s response, his deep voice shaded by a ghetto accent.

“Asleep, you mean. All the fucking time,” Famine said. Death literally had a switch on his neck that could turn off his brain, and Famine made a habit of frequently expressing his jealously and disappointment at this.

“Awake only for the good parts,” Death asserted. “Can’t get into no trouble, sleeping.”

“Speak for yourself,” War said, his toothy smile now aimed at Famine.

“Dude, that wasn’t my fault,” Famine objected. “I must have been hungry. And I had a hole in my gut.”

“You always have a hole in your gut,” quipped Hatred.

Death, War, and Famine exchanged looks of shock. Laughter soon burst from all three.

Death’s laugh rumbled and sounded a tinge metallic. Famine’s bubbled like a man sick and half drowned. War’s mirth rated as the most “human,” though his guffaws faded into wheezing. War paused mid-laugh to press his face into a chem-laced rebreather, but his eyes remained merry.

“What’s so funny?” Hatred said angrily.

Hatred’s frown rekindled the laughter. Hatred closed his eyes and scowled at the ceiling, already regretting having spoken.

War took another hit from his mask, caught his breath, then said through a cloud of vapors: “I don’t think anybody knew you had a sense of humor.”

“No way,” Death said, likewise recovering. “It’s an accident. Hatred’s still being all mad at Famine and how he ate that whole box of fresh shrimp.”

“I don’t remember doing that!” Famine said.

Hatred dropped his stare from the roof to glare at Famine, and said venomously: “Fuck you, Famine.”

Another pause. Another exchange of looks. Another bout of laughter. Hatred did not participate. Famine’s grin seemed a little tense.

The men still giggled when the thin prep lights on the door flashed from red to yellow.

Hatred undid the straps on his seat, stood, and said: “Enough. We’re coming up on the drop.”

War got up. “Yes, sir,” he said, still smiling.

“You got it, boss,” Death performed a lazy salute and undid his safety harness too.

“Sorry man,” Famine apologized, likewise unclasping and standing up. “I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

If Hatred heard the apology or noticed their mocking salutes, he ignored it - he held no official leadership role in the group. He moved to the wall and hammered a button, and the containment door slid aside on buzzing rollers.

All four hulking men made their way out and down the adjoining passageway, smelling of gun oil and creaking like old leather. Locking mechanisms, shiny and dripping with lubricant, jingled from black jumpsuits glued to their skin – lock-suits, they called them. Metal flooring panels bent under their feet, their starship’s five-G deceleration pressing them heavily into the floor, though all four men walked with a leisurely air, as if strolling casually through a park.

They entered an armory one by one, each squeezing in their shoulders to fit through a doorway sized to normal men. Here the four found their equipment stowed safely against the threat of high-G maneuvers. Inertial shunts never quite eliminated all the momentum inside a starship, and the fickle mechanisms holding these destructive forces at bay concentrated around crew compartments like the room they had just left. Their insertion had so far gone undetected, the precautions not being required this time, but none complained – such was seen as the preserve of the feckless dead.

The men first got busy donning armor segments; glossy metal plates dampened with shine-muting grease the same deep black as their lock-suits. These attachments further hardened and enlarged already large, hard men, transforming them halfway to tanks, or perhaps oversized beetles. Each man completed his armoring by donning a full helmet, again colored greasy black, though each raised visor shined a dull metallic red.

Their eyes, all of them bionics at this point, then darted to other objects in the many dozen lockers and cabins. Each man unconsciously assessed the uploaded mission profile and matched it to a personally selected arsenal. Their customized suite of gear provided a statement of character as much as function. But amidst all their quirky tools, their armaments perhaps said the most.

Death withdrew an oversized laser weapon, the width of its barrel nearly the girth of his arm. In front of an overcharged emitter and exposed directly to air, a master gunsmith had installed a core of crystal cut from the center of an exotic asteroid, an active medium that many hypothesized could only be forged by a dying star.

Famine selected a stubbier but equally weighty submachinegun. A peculiar weapon of poor ergonomics, it had a grip too squat and a trigger too far. It had no sighting mechanism or visible magazine feed and seemed to shoot nonphysical bullets of pure entropy. Men often mocked Famine’s claim that he had pried the exotic weapon from the hands of a dead alien, though suspicion strained their jeers.

War stowed high caliber auto pistols in his hip braces then shouldered a drum-fed smart launcher. Already quite the burden, he did not stop there, adding a compact force-projector and a monomolecular vibro-gladius. He did so enjoy plying his trade up close.

Hatred carried the simplest weapon, though still a custom job; a normal sniper’s gauss rifle, long and magazine-fed, sighted to him and molded for his specific hands. Such got the job done well enough for anyone, though this gun particularly shined in Hatred’s possession, especially on the occasion where his broader simmering contempt for all the world chose a single luckless target for a moment’s focus. With the addition of a retractable bayonet, Hatred’s weapon doubled as a spear.

“Don’t bother with holding your fire,” Hatred said, shouldering his weapon. “Whatever the briefing might say, the whole galaxy’s gone to shit. Pegasus is fucked. Any civilians who get in our way are just dying a few minutes earlier.”

The others did not react verbally to Hatred’s statement, though all three of them added explosives of various design to their harnesses. Death grabbed three for the others’ every two.

“Don’t hit the girl, of course,” War amended Hatred’s earlier statement.

Hatred struck his arming cabinet closed with a fist. “That should’ve been fucking obvious. Thanks.”

They all finished arming themselves at the same time and filed out the same way they came in, in the same order. Progress went even slower, this time, the men squeezing themselves even tighter to fit their armor and protruding weapons through the door.

War tapped a gauntleted hand to his ear to link himself to the starship’s intercom: “Not joining us, Murder?”

“Nah.” A scrape and a yawn accompanied the voice on the com, and all four of them easily pictured Murder reclining in his bridge seat. “I don’t get up for milk runs.”

“Gonna miss you, baby,” Death smacked his lips in something like a kiss.

“You’ll soon die of an ass clot,” Famine opined.

“Meh,” Murder said, nonchalant. “Hauteur will fly down in a lander to pick you up after.”

“Dread and Lynch doing that side gig. And Hauteur and Murder playing flyboy. Is half strength just our thing now?” War complained.

“Yeah, did they even suit up? What do we pay them for?” Death demanded.

“You’ve not paid for a single damn thing in your life,” Hatred sneered.

“Have, too…” Death muttered.

“You’re the one who objected the most to Navy brats flying our new starship, War,” Hauteur unhelpfully added his voice to the discussion via intercom.

Famine changed the subject: “The fancy ship is nice, but when are we next getting actual pay for this bullshit?”

None had an answer to this, and all six of them pondered it in silent consternation.

Hatred’s group of four did not follow the prep lights to the launch bay where their lone lander waited (Dread and Lynch had necessarily left with their second lander weeks ago). Instead, the group detoured along a path that descended to the bottom of the starship’s hull. The men ducked their way into a tiny maintenance room packed full of welding and firefighting equipment. The floor of this room matched the slope of the vessel’s exterior, with walls barely wide enough to fit them all.

“Alright, lets get this over with,” Hatred announced. He slammed his visor down over his face.

The others followed suit, securing their heads behind dull red faceplates. War closed the door behind them so the room could double as an airlock. Famine mag-locked his gun to his chest and held the exterior hatch’s switch in two hands, ready to yank its steel lever open.

They felt the G’s lighten as their vessel neared the end of its deceleration. Once the gravity leveled out to standard, the others nodded to Famine.

He hauled the lever down. The densely armored maintenance hatch pounded open with a pop of overpressure, exposing the glittering city-like vista of Arcology 700’s upper terraces a hundred meters below.

One by one they leapt down the hatch, the height of this fall no hinderance to men of their sort.

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Pegasus Ring. Formerly a solar-system-spanning habitat populated by a quadrillion people. Recently the war had passed through, and disaster followed. That it had been an accident did not matter – Pegasus was half gone, now, and still going. City-sized pieces of the ring broke off by the hundreds each day, every separation an Armageddon in miniature that marked the end of another million lives. Twin trails of wreckage peeled away from each disintegrating end of Pegasus Ring – or Pegasus Crescent now, as someone tasteless might call it. Two streams of debris described slow, descending orbits pathing into the sun, and the other two spun away onto icier, more eccentric orbits.

The black-clad men’s silent void ship approached the center of Pegasus’ remains. It hovered over one of the Arcologies dotting Pegasus’ earth-like, sun-facing band, a location almost equidistant from the pair of approaching apocalypses: Garden Seventeen, Arcology 700, Segment 7.

As Hatred’s party deployed to the surface, Murder reclined further into the pilot’s chair.

“Well, guess I’ll be off, then” Hauteur said, watching the ring’s pieces glitter in the dark.

“Yep,” Murder said with half a sigh.

Hauteur unstrapped from the navigator’s seat and made his way down to the launch bay, unhurried and whistling a tune.

Gunfire and battle chatter crackled on the caster, evidencing a firefight breaking out. Hauteur hardly noticed, still whistling, until someone on the line reminded him to keep the channel clear.

“Shit, sorry,” he apologized. He muted his mic then resumed his merry tune. He climbed up the rear ramp of the lander, made his way through its little cargo area, then squeezed into its humble one-man cockpit.

He searched around, looking for his pilot’s helmet. Not finding it, he opened a direct line to the bridge: “Murder, where the fuck did you put it?”

Murder snorted the way a man does when abruptly yanked from the edge of sleep. “Put what now?”

“My helmet? You still been borrowing mine?”

“You don’t need a helmet. We’ll be in atmo the whole time.”

“The fuck we will. I’m not relying on you for that. Where is it?”

“Check the rack near the launch bay door, dude. That’s where they’re supposed to go.”

Hauteur harrumphed then squeezed his way back out of the small cockpit. He trundled down the ramp and mimed Murder’s voice in a quiet, mocking tone: “That’s where they’re supposed to go!” He quoted it quietly enough not to activate the mic.

Piloting helmets belong in the obvious place, at the place where they’re used, he thought. Murder had remembered correctly, at least; Hauteur’s helmet hung from a maglock board bolted to a wall near the entrance. It’s my helmet, and I’ll keep it where I want! Hauteur thought, grabbing the helmet and plopping it down unceremoniously over his head. Making a note to reopen this argument at a later date, he wandered back up to the lander. He trundled up the ramp again, pushing and twisting the helmet firmly, not quite getting it to latch. Finally, after some rejiggering, its seals worked their way into contact with his lock-suit, its collar inflating and sealing him in his own personal environment.

“Why do you even care,” Murder said with a yawn. “Your implants rate you for thirty hours of void exposure. It’s why you got sat up on the bridge with me.”

“You know as well as I do what the void does to my fair complexion,” Hauteur said. He plopped back in the lander’s seat with another harrumph. “And I hate the way vacuum collapses my lungs. Takes a million bloody coughs to get them open again.”

“True. I do like the silence it brings out of you, though.”

“Shut up.”

Murder surrendered to the request. Or perhaps he had drifted back to sleep.

Hauteur flipped a dozen switches and the lander hummed to quiet life. The hum disappeared soon as Hauteur flipped the last switch, to which someone helpfully attached a note labeled “QUIET.” This toggled the lander’s experimental quantum displacement field, a smaller version of the “area silencer” employed by the lander’s mothership.

“Damn creepy ass fucking thing,” Hauteur muttered, his gloved hands taking up the lander’s flight stick and throttle. He disliked the sensation of not being able to hear his own heartbeat.

The lander made its eerie, quiet way past the lip of the launch bay. The men below engaged in talk which made it clear they had killed everything and secured the target. Hauteur had just barely begun his descent at this point and felt happy he did not need to lay out the route of a holding pattern.

“I’m descending for a landing,” Hauteur said, searching for a suitable spot. When no one responded he suddenly remembered he had muted himself. He fixed this, then tried again: “Coming in.”

One of the men below – Hatred – helpfully activated his transponder.

“Thanks,” Hauteur said. He muted his mic again and resumed whistling, caring not how the helmet’s faceplate fogged and threw air in back in his face.

He guided the nimble lander straight to Hatred’s group of four – plus one, now, as planned – and parked it less than ten meters away in a little clearing amongst hedgerows.

“Well done,” Hauteur said, reaching to pat himself on the back, knowing no one else would remember to thank him.

He flicked the ramp deployment switch, kicked back, rested his hands behind his head, and threw a foot over his knee.

A feminine voice, scratchy and barely distinct, bled via proximity through someone’s caster:

“No! I’m not ready! There are people here I need to say goodbye to!”

“No time. Whole place is gonna flip.” Famine’s voice came through much clearer.

“No! That will take days still!”

“No, he right,” Death said. “What’s left of Pegasus gonna capsize all imminent. The convex end gonna roll and face the sun.”

“Yep,” Famine confirmed. “Gravity will go sideways. Everyone will fly out the windows and paint the countryside. Then the buildings will fall on top of them.”

“That be what happened when Orion Ring went down, anyway.” Death added. “Some whirly shenanigans first, then zero-gee. Probably already started.”

“Sorry, missy,” War said. “It’s time to go.”

Hauteur rolled his eyes when War spoke up. “Boyscout,” he scoffed.

A security droid emerged from a skybridge connecting to the garden, shoving open a glass door. It jogged up to Hauteur’s lander.

“Citizens!” it accosted. “This is not a legal parking area!”

“Get bent,” Death told it. Hauteur felt the transport sway on its landing gears as Death stepped up the ramp.

The security droid continued to admonish the party, threatening citations. Hauteur looked around and smirked. Apparently, the stupid clanker had not been programmed to comment on their heavy armaments or the piles of dead bodies.

Hauteur twisted to look over his shoulder. War and Hatred stepped on next. They hauled the target between them – what was her name? Hauteur was no good with names, he just thought of her as “The Hottie.” Hauteur’s dick might have been shot off a long time ago, but he could still appreciate a good looker when he saw one, even through all the welts on her face. He really ought to build up the courage to ask the cyberneticists contractor if they could reconstruct it – he had a few ideas about enhancements he would like to try out.

The girl squinted, the transport interior bright with stark fluorescent light. War and Hatred lowered her into a seat. She did not resist, but they pinned her against the seat, their usual habit, stringing safety belts over her chest as if securing a baby for a ride.

Hauteur shook his head. He would never treat a lady like that, de-penised or not. He wondered if any of the other guys still had theirs.

The girl hung her head, and Hauteur noticed the dry blood webbing her arms and shirt. More blood drizzled and pattered from her chin and nose.

“Should we try to patch her up?” War asked.

“Nah,” Hatred answered. “She’ll be fine. She always walks this shit off.”

Famine stepped onboard. Heavy like the others, his tread rocked the interior. With all four of them aboard, the lander sagged heavily on its hydraulics.

Hauteur watched Famine turn and hammer a fist into the deployment button. Famine saluted the shrinking view to the outside while Hauteur sat back up and moved the lander back into the air.

“See you in hell, Pegasus Ring,” Famine said.

The Hottie whined some kind of sad animal sound.

The boarding ramp closed with a hiss and the thud of locking mechanisms. The transport lurched, then dipped hard into an acceleration. Arcology 700 started to tip, the tall megastructure’s terraces sliding over each other like so many slippery pancakes. With the lander now safely in the air, Hauteur gave Pegasus his own silent salute.

Hauteur had seen plenty of bad shit in his career. Very little bothered him. He was not some goodie-two-shoes like War, but he was cheerful enough and liked to whistle a tune, especially when flying. He did no whistling now, and would not do so again for some time, since he would be thinking about what happened next quite a lot.

He heard a strange wailing. At first he thought something might be wrong with the lander’s gravity drive, or maybe The Hottie had started whimpering. But it was a sound unlike anything else, and he soon realized what it was.

Despite the quantum displacement field, the distance, and the lander’s environmentally sealed armor, Hauteur heard the haunting aerial echo of a billion terrified screams.

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Kee felt her shock fading – one started to recognize the effects of shock the more times one went through it, she found. She knew the follow up stages, they went a lot like grief did, and she had gone through plenty of grief in her short life, too. Each time felt worse, though, and she supposed that was to be expected, she just hoped she would not go numb before she reached the age of twenty.

Denial, the first stage, she knew. Meaningless protests spewed from her mouth anyway, a torrent of refusal from an overcrowded soul. Camille can’t be dead, are you really sure Kuzo wasn’t sleeping, this can’t be happening.

Camille got blown to bloody rags before we got here, girl.

That boy of yours was done in, no one’s fault.

We had our orders, sorry missy.

Bargaining. It came sooner than it had the last time. Did she fear running out of time, or did her nerves fray and burn? Someone else might be alive! We have to go back! They can’t all be stuck, check for others who escaped!

No. There’s no one left to save.

No, we’re not going to check.

Sorry missy, they’re out of time. Anyone left isn’t getting out.

The black-clad soldiers’ words alternated, comfort one moment, blunt statements of fact the next, both as equally meaningless as her desperate refusal and blurring together.

Depression hit as hard as it always did. By this time, their little ship landed on the bigger one. They hauled her to her feet and marched her through its metal halls.

I’m only seventeen.

The one in the pilot’s seat coughed and gagged loudly when she said that.

They were the first real friends I’d ever had.

Told you this free-range bullshit was a bad idea, the one seated next to her had sighed.

I can’t do this anymore.

Stay strong. People believe in you, the one across from her encouraged.

She could not keep track of her grief even when it happened, much less remember it later. The crushing sadness came and went in the weird transfusion of time unique to a brain rattled hard by shock and loss. The past bled into the present, and the present vibrated loud enough to be heard in the past.

This will just keep happening, won’t it?

No, eventually something’s got to give, the nice one said.

The thought made her angry.

It’s so unfair!

Their leader ignored her.

Let me go! She demanded. You killed my boyfriend!

Can’t let you go. And no I didn’t, but I would have, the monster said.

Fuck you, don’t touch me! She threatened the polite one.

Sorry, missy, got to get you in a couch so we can get underway, he insisted.

They set her down in a plushy couch, started strapping her in. She tried to slap their hands away, but she might as well have tried to punch a windmill. Her anger drained, sloughing off her face through her tears. She might have cried for fifteen seconds, or maybe she cried for fifteen minutes.

The one they called Death plopped into his couch and strapped himself in. “Fucking sorry, sad-assed cluster of shit this all been.” After declaring this, he reached under the neck guard of his helmet and seemed to flip a switch. His head flopped back as if he had suddenly died.

“Asshole,” the one they called Famine muttered in Death’s direction. He sunk into his couch as well.

Hatred, the one Kee had always assumed to be their leader, bent over and picked up Death’s dropped weapon and lassoed it by the strap over the dead-Death’s neck.

“Fucking secure your shit!” Hatred said as if Death could hear. Hatred rotated the gun on its strap, twisting it tight like a noose around Death’s neck, but Death seemed not to notice.

Hatred made a sound like stone grinding. He went to his own seat, harnessed himself to his chair, and tucked his long gun under his knees.

“You feeling any better?” the nice one, War, asked, as his couch engulfed his bulk.

Kee sniffled.

“She’s acting less deranged, at least,” Famine opined.

War ignored him. “You don’t have to stop on our account. You get it out all you want. Let it out of your system.”

Kee sniffled, fighting to quench new tears. She turned her head, mad at the big man, did not want him to see how his care moved her.

Acceptance.

“Thank you for saving me,” she managed to say, hating how the strain in her voice made it obvious she had started crying again.

“Of course, Missy,” War said. “Whenever you’re in trouble, we’ll always come for you.”

“They’d never send anyone else,” Famine said with a hint of pride.

Hatred glowered in silence.

Death’s head lolled aimlessly as the ship began to move, his body bouncing in the gravity chair like a corpse.

Exhausted to the bone, Kee slipped into a sleep to match the dead.

---

War woke from his nap. He had not realized he had dozed off.

One-Fox-Limber-Echo-Brave-Noble-Brave-Intra…

He heard a strange mumbling. He checked his chronometer: a perfect three-hour nap. He sat up, the couch’s gelatinous fabric nauseatingly cozy even through the 100 kilograms of armor he wore.

He looked over at the couch across from him. The girl still slept.

He rolled his neck, then stretched. His skin chafed against armor joints and implants; a crocodile hide rubbed raw. He smiled and thought about how Famine had described it the other day: “My whole body has turned into elbow skin.”

March-Kin-Intra-Yard-X-ray-Orchid-Five…

He had started taking an oil bath the day before a deployment like the others. Murder had generously uploaded programs to the repair droids so they could get all their nooks and crannies lathered in wax. War had thought they would all do it at the same time in the same room, but the others laughed and shook their heads. When the industrial-grade robot scrubbed and sprayed him down, he had giggled like a little girl and appreciated the privacy.

War still felt raw, but he noticed a significant improvement with the oil and wax. When the cocktail of combat drugs wore off he normally felt like a man splitting at the seams. Today he only felt a bit chafed.

He glanced over at the sleeping Hatred and chuckled to himself, picturing the man giggling as a droid ran its hose and spinning waxer down the dour man’s bare buttocks.

“The fuck you looking at,” Hatred mumbled.

War looked away, surprised the reclined man was awake behind his mask. War’s smile dissipated along with the charming image. There was no way Hatred was ticklish.

Eight-Limber-Quad-Tower-Pack-Intra-Rain-Job…

Fully awake now, the muttering in War’s ear started to take its toll. “Murder, is that you?”

“One-Kin-Echo-Zero-Nin-er-Fo-wer-Able-”

War pressed his jaw hard into his helmet mic and shouted: “Murder, shut up!”

His shout, loud on the caster as well as external audio, woke Famine and the girl.

“March-Whisper-Three… Oh… damn… sorry,” Murder’s perfect and perfunctory muttering of alphanumeric figures transformed into the groggy tone of someone just waking up. “It’s the damned neural interface. Uh… you can all unharness, now. We’re in the clear.”

“What’s he talking about?” the girl asked.

“Oh,” War said. He gave the girl a smile, before remembering he was still suited up. “Murder’s hooked by neural plug into our ship. Plugs himself in whenever we’re underway. It allows half his brain go to sleep while the other half stares at sensors and diagnostics. The ship’s also got a big computer with an advanced AI, so I think a bit too much data bleeds into Murder’s ‘sleeping’ half. Anyway, we never get surprised, even with a crew as small as ours.”

“That seems… unhealthy,” the girl said.

“Yeah, probably,” Famine said. He started to unbuckle himself from his couch. “But have you seen War’s face?”

War laughed, likewise unharnessing. “He’s got a point.”

“How the fuck did you hear Murder on the caster?” Hatred directed his question at the girl.

War turned his gaze on her, too. He had not even thought of that.

“I have… abilities… I guess.”

“Told you. The girl’s special,” Famine said.

“We know that already, you dumb fuck,” Hatred said. He reached for his own straps. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t keep pulling the girl’s ass out of the fire.”

War nodded. “We’ve rescued the lady seven times now.”

“Seven?” the girl said. “I only remember meeting you all four times?”

War and Famine chuckled.

“Oh, so if you didn’t see it, it didn’t happen?” Hatred scoffed.

“Easy, man,” War said, warding Hatred’s heat away from the girl with a deflecting palm. “She’s just a teensy thing.”

“I have a name, you know,” she said.

“Kee,” Hatred acknowledged, making an impressive effort to soften his tone in War’s opinion. “What, exactly, are you?”

Kee shrank at the question. “I don’t really know…”

“We know you’re way tougher than an unaugmented person ought to be,” Famine offered, nodding at the dried blood and welts still covering Kee’s face.

“And apparently, you can ‘hear’ encrypted cast traffic without a headset,” War added.

“Give us something, Kee,” Hatred said.

War found his curiosity piqued and saw Famine’s had as well.

Kee looked uncertain. “I don’t even know you… what your real names are, or what you look like.”

War shrugged and reached for his helmet collar. “You said she should see my face.”

“Don’t do it!” Famine teased.

War hefted the chunk of armor from his head, the helmet heavy with its sensors, computers, and electronic countermeasures. He mag-locked it to his hip, rested a casual hand on it, then looked at Kee, scars, grey flesh, and more, all exposed. He gave her his best smile.

“Oh my…” she said. “Uh, nice teeth!”

Famine laughed. Hatred said nothing.

“None of us are much to look at,” War lamented, still smiling.

“Oh, you’re plenty to look at,” Famine said.

“Shut your mouth,” War said, grinning.

“No, you really do have a nice smile,” Kee said with more confidence this time. “And you smell nice.”

“His stink is hiding under wax and oil,” Famine said. “He normally smells like shit.”

“Anyone would after carrying a tank’s worth of armor for a few hours,” War said in a friendly tone, striving to conceal how Famine was getting under his skin. “You next.”

“Who me?” Famine said nervously. “Oh no, I don’t show my face to anyone. Except you guys. Besides, she didn’t ask.”

“Actually, I’d like to know who all of you are.”

Famine did an impressive job of looking sheepish behind a mask and under his armor. Then he shrugged and removed his helmet.

Kee paled ever so slightly.

“I’m not any uglier than War!” Famine said defensively.

“What? I didn’t say anything!” Kee said hurriedly.

“It’s that damn smile of his! Don’t let it blind you - look at the scars! The bloodshot eyeballs!”

War could not help it. His smile broadened.

“Fuck!” Famine said, swinging his helmet impotently at the air.

War said jokingly to Hatred: “You joining in?”

“Hatred won’t show his face,” Famine asserted. “He hates and distrusts everything and everyone. It’s his brand.”

“Not everyone,” War said. “While he’s a little coarse in tone, I’ve never heard him directly say a single mean thing about our girl here.”

“Shit, you’re right.” Famine regarded the silent Hatred for a moment. “You getting soft or something, man?”

Hatred stared at Kee from behind his mask. Then he sighed. He used both hands to unseal his collar, then shoved his helmet off his ugly head.

“My name is Hoyt Hendrix,” Hatred said. He was equally ugly as the others, though the veins on his bald pate had a uniquely violet tinge instead of red. And the color of the heavy bags under Hatred’s face would remind one of a bruise.

Hatred gestured to War: “Warner Love.” Then to Famine: “Faust Poole.”

Hatred stood up from his couch and walked over to Death. He flipped the switch on Death’s neck, and the man bolted awake.

“What? Huh?” Death’s deep voice was at total odds with his surprise.

“Show the girl your face and tell her your name,” Hatred said.

Death looked around, saw the naked, slack-jawed amazement on War and Famine’s faces. Then he looked at Kee. “Girl, you be something,”

Death removed his helmet. The architecture of his face matched those of a man with dark skin, though his flesh was the same pallid grey as his comrades.

“Duane Arias,” Hatred said, indicating Death. Then he gestured in the general direction of the bridge: “The babbler up front is named Min Dang – Murder, you’ve never met him – and the pilot that flew the lander is Hadrien Toucher-”

“It’s Touchard! Say it right!” interrupted a voice on the caster.

“Whatever. His callsign is Hauteur.”

“Touchard!”

“Fuck your dead Frankish language,” Hatred said in the bridge’s general direction. He turned back to Kee: “Do you want to hike upstairs and meet them?"

“No, I’m sure a better time will come,” Kee said politely.

“Aw,” Hauteur said.

“Now you know everyone.” Hatred said. He fixed a hard look on Kee, his thick hairless brow creasing like colliding storm clouds: “You tell our names to anyone, you’re dead.”

Threat delivered, Hatred marched out, shouldering his bulk through the door.

Kee smiled sheepishly. She looked at the others.

None of them smiled back. Not even War. He had a grimace, now.

“Okay then,” Kee said, her smile melting. “Won’t be sharing that!”

“Yeah, best be forgetting this happened,” Death advised. “Been sleeping, but Hatred be seeming all in a mood. Scares me. Scares anybody.”

Death stood, his gun hanging from his neck. The others followed him out.

War paused at the door. “Wanna come with? I’ll show you around our new ship. It’s a lot bigger than the last one you met us in.”

“Alright.” Kee said.

---

Kee stepped through the door and immediately fell flat on her face. Incredible weight pinned her to the floor, and her vision steadily went grey.

“Ah shit,” War said. “Murder! Slow us down!”

“Why?”

“It’s killing the girl!”

“Then put her back where she belongs. We’re on a tight schedule with more missions coming in.”

“I’ll put one up in your…” War mumbled under his breath. He walked back to Kee, metal floor panels flexing under his weight. He grabbed her up as gently as he could and shuffled with her down the hall.

Kee came close to passing out. Next she knew, she felt herself being lowered gently to the floor. Pinholes of a distant room sped at her, flooding her eyes, her grey-tinted tunnel vision retreating as fresh blood once again flooded into her brain.

“What the…”

“I’m assuming you’re not a fan of the dead lift.” War stood over her, his ever-present smile brightening his knotted face.

“Uh…”

“Well, if you do try a dead lift, you know to start with less than five times your weight…” he eyed her up and down. “350? 340 kilograms?”

“Rude,” Kee said. She made to stand, and War helped guide her to her unsteady feet.

“Feeling alright?”

“What happened?”

“We normally travel under 5g’s of acceleration. We can handle that just fine during a combat drop, so not every part of the ship enjoys inertial shunting. Saves a ton of power and heat capacity for other systems. This ship was designed with us in mind, you see.”

“Oh…” Kee said. War’s talk made her feel like a weakling. She pushed on his arms, and he let her go.

“Sorry,” War apologized. “I didn’t think it through. We’re not used to having guests. Actually, you’re the only one we get now. Been like that for years.”

War started wheezing. He pulled up a breathing mask hanging from his suit, pressed it to his face, and breathed deeply from it.

“Who are you guys, really?” Kee said.

War dropped his mask and spewed steamy vapors from his nostrils. Then he shrugged and said: “We’re simply mercenaries.”

Kee gave him a look.

“Complicated mercenaries, then” War amended, hands splayed wide in surrender. “Do you mind waiting here? I’d like to go stow my gear.”

“Okay. I didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”

War smiled.

Kee really did find it endearing, despite his profession and the stark ugliness of his face, or perhaps because of the contrast.

“It’s no trouble,” he said, then indicated the room: “This is the kitchen. Most of us still eat normal food. And sometimes not just for fun. The fridge is the big grey one, and the autokitchen is the blue box. Help yourself. Just put something in and hit the button. Got it?”

“Got it,” Kee said.

“I’ll be back soon.” War gave her a lingering look, then nodded, smiling again. He left.

Kee wandered over to the fridge, grabbed its handle. Before she opened it, she saw her reflection in its mirror shine. Grey eyes, blonde hair. Welts and dried blood covered her shirt and face.

The horror of a few hours ago hit her again. She saw snapshots of the strange machine doppelgangers firing guns at Camille. Her best friend’s chest disappeared into red mist.

Her boyfriend, Kuzo. He had been a spy the whole time, a machine-person clothed in false flesh, a century old. They had shared a bed and still she had not known.

He had confessed to all of it earlier today, his being a spy, and the last-second admission that he loved her. He had died minutes later, attempting to save her from the false men his covert actions had summoned.

Kee reeled, knees weak, a sudden nausea. She had made it clear that Kuzo’s love was not requited. But was that true? Had she loved him? And what of his claim? Had anything Kuzo said been real? She would never know, now. The pressure of tears built up again.

Kee heard heavy footsteps in the hallway, startling her to fear in this vulnerable state. She searched the room for a place to hide, the sudden animal need to get away.

“You alright?” Death said from the hallway. Wearing only his lock suit, even without his armor his hunched, muscular bulk still filled the door completely. “You looking all green, girl.”

Kee’s nausea overwhelmed all sensation and swallowed her response. She spied a sink and ran to it, emptying her stomach down its drain at the moment of her arrival.

“Damn my ugly face,” Death said with a laugh. “I’m all apologies.”

Kee had not had time to see Death’s face. She felt Death walk past her and heard his hands rummage through the fridge and cabinets to retrieve items and put something in the autokitchen.

“Hungry?” Death asked over his shoulder.

Kee continued emptying her sickness into the sink.

“Probably not,” Death speculated. “My bad.”

Kee heard a tone, and Death withdrew a serving of something with a clatter.

“I’ll just be on my way then. Eat someplace else,” Death said. “Sorry about blowing up that one dude’s head so close to your face. But you gonna heal just fine, be all pretty again, don’t you worry. Seeya toots.”

Kee sensed his departure. She gasped and panted, disgusted at the sight and smell of what she had put in the sink. It smelled strongly of sweetened alcohol, to the point it burned her nose. It made sense, after all - she and her friends had done what any teens would do during an apocalypse, partying nonstop for days.

She fumbled wildly at the faucet handles to wash it away. She got the water going, saw it came from a nozzle on a cord, grabbed it to aim the flow, feeling her health return as she rinsed her spill down the drain. She leaned over the sink to clean out her mouth, then thought, screw it, and hosed down her face as well.

“Uh, we got showers, you know.”

Famine’s voice startled Kee again, and her flailing reaction sprayed water across the room.

Famine dodged the stream with a single deft step, fast for such a big man. “Ho, ho! Almost got me!” he said in jest. “I’m good on a shower for now, thanks!”

Kee let go of the nozzle and it slinked back into its holder. “Sorry,” she managed to squeak through a tight, abused throat.

Famine tried on a smile, one not nearly as winning as War’s.

Kee looked away awkwardly.

“The showers,” Famine said, tossing a thumb over his shoulder. “They’re sonic. Feels great. I can show you the way?”

“No!” Kee said earnestly. Then a bit more levelly: “No. I’ll be fine. Seems I don’t handle the gravity in the corridors too well.”

Famine gave her a pained look. “If you say so.” He walked over to the fridge, pulled something out. “It’s Kee, right? You want some shrimp?”

“No, thank you,” Kee said. She wanted to disappear. Maybe if she held really still, Famine would take the hint, go away like Death had.

“Suit yourself,” Famine said. He removed something – not shrimp – from the fridge, then shoved it into the autokitchen. The blue box-shaped contraption hummed and buzzed and quickly produced some kind of thinly layered, red, cake-looking contraption. Famine collected a fork from a drawer then sat his bulk on a bench seat at one of the room’s two tables.

Kee cringed, rubbing back against the kitchen counter. “You’re going to eat that here?”

Famine gave her a funny look. “This is the mess. We eat in the mess.” His accompanying frown pushed thick, throbbing veins closer to the surface of his partially translucent forehead. His veins reminded Kee of eels tossing in the sand.

Hatred walked in. He saw Kee, saw Famine, and said to the latter: “Get out.”

Famine gave Hatred an incredulous look. “But I’m eating!”

“Go eat someplace else,” Hatred said.

“You’re not my boss, and this is a one-hundred-layer-lasagna!” Famine pointed to his dish like Hatred had gone mad. “The hallway G’s will ruin the texture and blur what should remain complimentary flavors!”

“You read that on a box somewhere?” Hatred ridiculed. “Get out. Now.”

Famine stared at Hatred with a defiant look.

Even though it was not aimed at her, Kee found it hard to look into Hatred’s stare.

“Fine,” Famine said, losing whatever contest had just occurred. “You owe me.”

“We’ll see,” Hatred said.

“Hold together baby.” Famine stood with care, cradling the plate of tall, fragile lasagna in his hands.

He made it a few steps down the corridor, then said: “Aw.”

Hatred stood still, seemed to be waiting for Famine to get further away. His eyes bored into Kee.

For lack of a better response, Kee withstood his scrutiny in silence.

An awkward, lengthy moment passed.

“Where’s War?” Kee asked.

“Busy,” Hatred said simply. Seeming to have waited for Kee to speak first, he now moved over to a bench seat. He sat, his eyes still on Kee. He beckoned, said: “Sit.”

Kee regarded him warily.

Hatred sighed, his irritation plain. “Sit, please?” he tried.

Kee sat, her arms crossed. An annoying wetness spread into her pants. She had accidentally caught some water dripping from the counter when Famine came in.

“You’ve been through a lot,” Hatred started.

Kee winced. She was not able to look him in the eye.

“I don’t just mean today. Your life has barely started, and already you’ve been through a lot.”

Kee had nothing to say.

“Okay, fine. You don’t want to talk. I don’t either. I’ll cut to the chase. I know a lot about you. More than I let on to the others. More than you might realize.”

Kee glanced at him. She was sad, tired, sick, and resentful. Resentful of her life and this cruel world, not just her current situation.

“I know you have abilities,” Hatred continued. His always-tense hands tightened as he spoke, his lock-suit gloves producing a squeaking sound as they creaked under pressure.

“I’m nothing special,” Kee said, sincere in the admission.

“Bullshit. You know you’ve got abilities that you haven’t mastered. Yet. And I’ve learned you’ve got ones even you don’t know about.”

This piqued Kee’s curiosity. “Like what?”

Hatred’s grip loosened. He leaned back, his posture less aggressive, his hands sliding over the table. “Mind fuckery. You can charm the scales off a crocodile. Go invisible – eyes still see you, just not the nerve clusters attached to the eyes. Your presence melts the shit these ‘Ascendants’ put in the thought drives to bridge and control the minds of their slaves. You’re some kind of… brain wizard.”

“I can’t do any of that,” Kee said flatly.

Hatred’s hands flexed again. “I’m going to pretend like you’re not trying to piss me off. Lie to yourself all you want, but don’t ever lie to me. That’s the first thing you’ll want to learn when you start working with us.”

“What do I care?” Kee said, her resentment hitting her in full force now. She did not care what the outlet was, she had had enough. “Work with you? You’re just dropping me off wherever your bosses next tell you to go. Your only role in life is to fly me to my next torture site. You’re an over-glorified taxi driver, nothing more!”

Hatred went motionless, staring into Kee.

Kee stared back at him, feeling rebellious, pretending she did not feel herself crumbling inside.

Hatred slammed a fist into the table, startling her, and made some kind of grumbling, purring sound, like a giant feline.

Kee stood up, thought: he’s going to kill me. Fine. Bring it on.

Hatred’s shoulders started to heave in place. His deep burbling rose in volume, and he started to hunch forward.

“Wait, are you laughing?” Kee wondered.

Hatred laughed truly, then, slamming the table once more, his shoulders quaking with mirth. “A taxi driver!”

“Uh…” Kee started to feel real scared, now.

“Shoot a million bastards dead over three centuries,” Hatred squeezed the sentence out between laughs. “Build the biggest mercenary empire the galaxy has ever seen. Get bored with that, sell it, get rich, get bored with that too. Go back to shooting. Get gifted the most advanced ship in all of Arm and Rim space,” Hatred ran out of breath, losing his battle with laughter.

His lips tried to laugh from empty, wheezing lungs for a moment. He gasped for air, said: “She calls me a fucking over-glorified taxi driver!”

“I’m sorry!” Kee said hurriedly, standing up, contemplating her chances if she tried to flee down the 5 G’s hall.

Hatred recovered, breathing hard. “Oh man, I haven’t laughed like that in…” he shrugged, then gestured to Kee. “Sit back down, please.”

“Uh…”

“I said sit!” some of his rancor returned.

Kee sat.

Hatred regarded her with his sunken, colorless eyes, and tapped the table with an index finger.

“What do you want from me,” Kee said.

“Really you should be asking what you want from us,” Hatred said.

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ll give you more time to work on the ‘don’t ever lie to Hatred’ skill. Meanwhile, I’ll tell you what else I know: I know you hate your life. You don’t want to go ‘home,’ whatever that is to you. We can fix this problem.”

“How? Don’t you have a contract? I thought you guys were mercenaries.”

“Mercenaries need to get paid. That hasn’t happened in a while. Actually, with the galaxy headed in the direction it’s in, I’m thinking I might need to change my profession. Again. No amount of payment can compensate for what will happen.” Hatred’s finger stopped tapping and his stare finally broke. He contemplated the ceiling.

“Anyway,” he continued. “If you work for us, we can make you disappear. They’ll never find you again.”

“You can’t run from these people,” Kee said. “They’ll find you and kill you.”

“Is that so? Normally that’s how our crew is described.” Hatred gave her a sideways look. “And what do you care if we get killed? They’d never risk hurting you. At worst, nothing changes for you. You have nothing to lose, coming with us.”

“I don’t know how to do any of the things you say I can do. And I’m a pacifist.” Kee explained.

Hatred smiled. “We have ways of bringing out your potential, don’t worry. And I won’t ask you to kill anyone. We could put that in writing, if you like. There’s plenty of other ways to put your abilities to work. The galaxy’s always been dangerous, but now it’s getting increasingly complicated. It hurts to admit it, but we need you.”

Kee did not know what to say.

“You’ve had a long day, and I’m not a total brute,” Hatred said. “I’ll let you sleep on it. You’ve got three days to make a decision.” Hatred checked a wrist chronometer. “Less than 70 hours now, to be more precise.”

Hatred stood. “I’m going to go have a chat with the others. War will come by in a couple minutes. We’ll have Murder slow the ship down so you can move to a bunk. And if it helps your decision to sign up with us I’ll have the living rooms rearranged into one contiguous unit. You won’t have to fear hallways anymore. We only set it up like this to make it easier to hold the ship against boarders. This fancy ship is modular like that.”

“Thank you,” Kee said, her mind awhirl. At the mere mention of a bunk, Kee felt like ten kilos had been added to her shoulders.

“Goodnight. Sleep on it, if you have to, but you already know your answer.”

Kee did know her answer. But before she would say anything, she wanted to sleep.

---

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