Message for the Dead Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  PART I

  01

  02

  03

  04

  05

  06

  07

  08

  09

  10

  11

  12

  PART II

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  EPILOGUE: CHHUN

  More Galaxy's Edge

  Join the Legion

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  MESSAGE FOR THE DEAD

  By Jason Anspach

  & Nick Cole

  Copyright © 2018

  by Galaxy’s Edge, LLC

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  All rights reserved. Version 1.0

  Edited by David Gatewood

  Published by Galaxy’s Edge, LLC

  Cover Art: Fabian Saravia

  Cover Design: Beaulistic Book Services

  For more information:

  Website: GalacticOutlaws.com

  Facebook: facebook.com/atgalaxysedge

  Newsletter: InTheLegion.com

  PART I

  KEEL

  01

  Indelible VI

  Orbiting the Planet Porcha

  The Indelible VI hovered above the planet Porcha, its remote docking corridor extended and coupled with the Black Fleet shuttle waiting to receive Exo. Inside the Six’s cockpit, Captain Aeson Keel monitored a holodisplay that flashed undulating green text in stylish fonts curated by celebrity designers. A model of a modern shipboard AI text-to-user interface.

  “All right, docking hookup is complete,” Keel reported to his navigator, Ravi. “Pressure’s good. Air is flowing. I’m gonna go see Exo off the ship.”

  “And you are thinking this is the last stop?” Ravi asked the question from under a sharply raised eyebrow. A triumphal arch. “There will be no more impediments to reaching the Republic’s secret fleet?”

  And Leenah and Garret, thought Keel. He gave a noncommittal smile as he rose from his chair. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

  He found Exo waiting for him in the ship’s lounge. The shock trooper was kitted out in his glossy, black armor, his rifle slung over his shoulder, looking every bit the soldier ready for combat… except for the way he held a forge-vault case to his chest like a lady clutching her pearls as she walked through a dark alley.

  Exo nodded as Keel approached. “All right. Now we’re gonna get this done, right bro?”

  “Yeah,” Keel answered. “Save the day. Steal some ships. A real good time.” He let the sentiment marinate. “You sure you don’t want to fly with me? We did good against the mids down there.”

  “Nah,” Exo said, looking around the ship as though he were pricing it out. His tone was politely dismissive, suggesting their destruction of an escaping speeder column had been a fun but ultimately meaningless diversion. A weekend fling and then on to better things. “I’d gotta get back with the other guys. I know them, and other than Bossa, they’ll get suspicious if I choose to spend time with someone other than the Black Fleet. Come to think of it, Bossa’ll probably get suspicious, too.”

  “Suspicious of what?”

  “Ah, you know.” Exo waved his hand, the universal gesture for avoiding a point that needs addressing. Just because. Because you don’t want to talk about it. “Black Fleet, Empire, shock troopers… you’re outside of all that, Wraith.”

  Keel gave a fractional nod and a conciliatory frown, conceding the point. He wanted to stress that the Legion was what Exo was supposed to be fighting for—saving it from itself, as Exo had so often announced. Keel wanted to push the point, to get Exo to make a firm commitment that, when it came right down to it, he was still Victory and Legion. But he wasn’t sure the bond of the Legion was enough to cover for the trouble that kind of pushing might cause. So he didn’t.

  Something of that inner thought must have been readable on Keel’s face. Perhaps a look that asked what was so bad about traveling in a different ship—or that asked for Exo to at least acknowledge how many times Keel could have wiped out Exo’s team of shock troopers and never took it.

  Keel had learned how to read a man in his time out on the edge. He had a whole second education beyond what the Legion Academy had taught him. Right now, just by standing in place and being the man he was, Keel was triggering a sort of inner conflict in his former squad brother.

  He crossed his arms stoically. Playing the role of a father waiting to hear the reasonings of his son. Giving no emotional or conversational quarter, though it was clearly desired.

  Of course, it was Keel’s scheming ways that had gotten Exo and his shock trooper team involved in the fight with the mid-core rebels at the Creiswel Bazaar. But not without good reason. The Black Fleet and its shock troopers didn’t exactly show up on the galactic stage inviting trustworthiness. If they were willing to sneak-attack Tarrago, wiping out a garrison of legionnaires and countless civilians, they would be willing to put a knife in Keel’s back.

  “You know it’s just squad stuff,” Exo said finally. It was a feeble explanation for why he was leaving the ship. Then again, it wouldn’t be such a big deal if he weren’t also depriving Keel of perhaps the only insurance he had to stave off a double-cross. “Doesn’t change no matter where you’re fighting. You understand.”

  Keel rocked back on his heels and rubbed the back of his head. “Yeah, I understand. Just remember, Exo, we were squad brothers first. You, me, Chhun, Masters… and a whole lotta good leejes who didn’t get to live long enough to see today.”

  This seemed to frustrate Exo. “What’s your point?”

  Keel placed his palms on his chest, looking hurt. “My point,” he said, taking care to give his voice just enough of an edge to sound serious, but not so much that he might inflame Exo’s considerable temper, “is that you’re dealing with an unknown entity.”

  Exo waved off this line of thinking.

  Keel persisted. “I get the Legion is broken. The Legion, hell, Legion Commander Keller himself, allowed what happened to us on Kublar. They let more and more points in. I get all of that. But we always knew what to expect in the Legion. We knew it was a calculated risk. Agree with the House of Reason’s demands for the sake of peace now, and hope things get better in the future.”

  “Oba,” Exo said, shaking his head as he looked down at the deck. “You sound like Chhun.”

  Keel smiled. “I’m just saying, there was always a point on the horizon where the Legion was going to bring the reckoning. You saw the holos. Saw what they did on Ankalor. The Legion woke up and kicked some ass. And instead of sticking with it and being a part of it… well, you’re part of another element standing in the Legion’s way. That ain’t helping.”

  “Look.” Exo’s voice had a cutting tone. He sounded like a man who had been patiently suffering a fool out of courtesy, enduring a long-winded speech by a respected elder, but who now had important business to attend to. “Article Nineteen, whether it’s legit like Keller says or whether it’s a power grab like the House of Reason says, I mean, I just don’t know.” He shrugged.

  “What? You trust the
House of Reason? C’mon, Exo.”

  “I’m just saying, I bet none of this happens if the Black Fleet didn’t show up. Without the Black Fleet, I bet everybody’s just waiting to see how much longer they can take advantage of legionnaire deaths. I bet Keller and the House of Reason and the points are all just fine to sit back and watch legionnaires die collectin’ taxes—and then sip champagne while Dark Ops teams fix the problems they created. I mean, we lost a piece of our souls with every one of those ops that needed doing, Wraith. How many people have we killed? No one was in a hurry to stop the dying. It was always just wait and see. Wait… and… see.”

  “Okay, it’s a bet.” Keel gave a disarming smile. This was not the time to escalate the conversation into a fight. The ships were docked, and it wouldn’t be long before someone among the shuttle’s crew would come wondering what was taking Exo so long. It was time to say goodbye. Time to check mags, kit up, and surrender himself to the Wraith, who would do what needed doing. “If I win I get the scope on your blaster. If you win, you get my seamball holocard collection.”

  Exo chuckled. “Yeah, I guess we’ll see.” There was finality in this statement. Like a man at the end of long argument in a sports pub, with nothing left to do but to sit down and watch the game.

  Keel motioned toward the docking door. “Once you’re on your ship, I’ll go ahead and beam you the location of the fleet.”

  Exo nodded and reached out to open the docking access hatch.

  “But hey,” Keel called after him. “Make sure your friends over there don’t take the opportunity to try and shoot me out of the stars once you’ve got the hand and the coordinates. I made myself expendable for you, pal. And I generally try to avoid that in life.”

  Exo shook his head. “Nah, I would never let that happen.”

  Keel gave a lopsided smile devoid of any warmth or mirth. One that communicated that he knew better than Exo how the galaxy really worked. He held out his hand. “Things tend to go sideways in times like this. And sideways is where you find out just how little you have control over.”

  Exo shook the hand. “It’s fine.”

  Keel pulled Exo in close. “Your boys go after me again like you did on Wayste, and you’re still on that shuttle with them… I can’t promise you don’t go down with ’em this time.”

  Exo broke away from the handshake with a downward wrench of the arm. “Said that wouldn’t happen.” He opened the docking door, revealing the pressurized extendable corridor that telescoped from the Six to the Black Fleet shuttle.

  Over Exo’s shoulder, Keel could see Bombassa and another of the shock troopers. The two men were only few meters from the door of the Six.

  “Come to pay a visit?” Keel said.

  Bombassa’s helmet was on, his armor fully sealed to protect against the potential rigors of deep space. The shock trooper accompanying him looked jumpy and uncomfortable in a silvery, thin emergency survival suit; his armor was probably still among the wreckage left in the Cresweil Bazaar. Keel didn’t blame them for preparing for the worst. These docking connectors were supposedly tested to withstand all sorts of catastrophic beatings, but there were plenty of stories: faulty connections, debris carving out holes that depressurized the connection and sucked hapless souls into open space. It paid to make these trips, short as they were, in a full spacesuit.

  Bombassa’s voice came from his external comm speakers. “I came to see what was taking so long.”

  Keel shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged innocently. “Just saying our goodbyes. You know how it is with old war buddies: always one more story to tell.”

  “Come on, Bossa,” said Exo, stepping over the Six’s threshold into the docking corridor.

  Keel walked amiably over to the door controls. As soon as the shock troopers turned to make their way back to their waiting shuttle, he sealed the Six’s door and headed for the cockpit.

  He sat down next to Ravi and did a quick check of the display showing the Six’s passive scanners, looking for any visiting star craft. “They make it aboard their ship?”

  Ravi shook his head. “They all three are having some sort of conversation outside our airlock door. I transmitted the fleet’s coordinates as you requested, and we are nearly free to do as we please.”

  “After our guests finally get a move on, let’s hang around for a bit.” Keel checked his sensors again, figuring he looked like an obsessive to his navigator. “I want to see when it’ll happen.”

  “When what will happen?”

  “The double-cross, Ravi.”

  Ravi tugged at his pointy black beard. “I confess that I did not obtain suitable readings of the disposition of the shock troopers, Exo and Bombassa excluded, to have a fully realized probability model for such an event. That said, I do not think it probable that Exo and Bombassa will renege on the agreement.”

  “Not them, but the others. One of them was with Bombassa when Exo was leaving, and he seemed a little too jumpy to be concerned with only a hull breach.”

  “Hmm,” Ravi answered, sounding unimpressed.

  “Don’t ‘hmm’ me,” Keel said stridently. “He looked like he was up to something.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Ravi, I know that look.”

  The navigator nodded and examined his own displays. “How long will we be waiting for this impending betrayal?”

  Keel folded his arms and didn’t answer. He knew he’d made the right assessment. The other shock troopers weren’t legionnaires. Bombassa and Exo had already expressed their concern that this was the case, and Keel had come to the same conclusion in the time they’d spent at the Cresweil Bazaar. And just because they weren’t really leejes, it didn’t mean they were schmucks. They were dangerous. Wildcards. Not to be trusted.

  Keel didn’t trust them by a long shot.

  Ravi arched an eyebrow at his display. “The shock troopers have still not moved from their spot.”

  Keel stood and rubbed his face. “Maybe they forgot to use the bathroom before they left. I’ll go see what’s up.”

  He walked back to the airlock and opened the docking connector door. The three shock troopers spun around.

  Exo handed the case that was supposed to contain Maydoon’s severed hand—but didn’t; Keel had made the switch on Porcha—to the shock trooper wearing the thin vacuum suit. “Here,” he said. “Take this back onboard the shuttle.”

  “Aren’t you are coming?” The shock trooper eyed Keel suspiciously through the clear viewport mask of his helmet.

  “Yeah.” Exo looked from Bombassa to Keel. “I just need to talk with our team leader about something in private. Something that concerns Wraith here.”

  The shock trooper hesitated, opening his mouth as if he had something to say, then closing it back up tight. He turned and moved away so fast that he nearly jogged down the corridor to the shuttle.

  Keel’s sense of an impending betrayal heightened, but he didn’t allow his body language to give away such thoughts. He simply unfolded his arms to motion to Exo and Bombassa that they step back inside. When they had done so, Keel closed and resealed the door to the docking corridor.

  “Call me old-fashioned,” he said, “but there’s something about leaving the door open while in deep space that I don’t like.”

  When no one answered him, Keel let his hand drop ever so gently toward the blaster holstered in his gun belt. “So what’s up?”

  Bombassa looked at Exo. “Yes, what is up? Because we have a mission to complete, and there should not be further delays.”

  Exo let out a sigh. “Wraith is concerned that once we have the location of the fleet, plus the hand, he’ll be expendable enough for us to cut his throat. I told him that wouldn’t happen.” He looked Keel in the eye. “And as far as I’m concerned, it won’t.”

  Keel nodded.

  Exo looked back at Bombassa and added, “But I think he ought to hear it from you, too. No hard feelings from any of us. No double-crosses. We stick with the plan a
nd work together. We stay professional.”

  Holding his arms out to the sides, Keel said, “Fine by me, Exo.”

  All eyes were then on Bombassa. Keel knew the big man was the shock trooper team leader. Presumably it was his call to make.

  “It is as Exo says,” said Bombassa, nodding at Keel. “You will not be double-crossed. You will not be discarded once we have completed our mission. You will be treated with respect and will remain safe. I assure you this on behalf of myself and the soldiers under my command.”

  Keel smiled and slapped Bombassa on his armored shoulder. “Thanks, pal. I knew you were one of the good ones.”

  An urgent high-pitched warning sounded over the Six’s speakers, flooding the ship. Keel tensed like an athlete ready to make a play. He looked up; he listened.

  “What’s that mean?” Bombassa asked.

  “Nothing good,” Keel muttered. He moved toward the cockpit, still looking up, like he was attempting to hear something just outside the ship. “Ravi, what’s going on?”

  The navigator’s voice answered from the ship’s all-comm. “It is most unusual, and not in a good way. A Republic corvette painted with the MCR flag has appeared over the planet. They have taken notice of us and are headed in our direction.”

  “The MCR stole another corvette?” Exo asked, no doubt recalling the last time. The mid-core rebels had managed back then to obtain the smallest and swiftest capital ship used in the Republic navy. It was a corvette named Pride of Ankalor that the surviving members of Victory Company—Keel, Chhun, Masters, Twenties, and Exo—had boarded in order to save the House of Reason from destruction at the hands of delusional MCR and murderous zhee.

  And now here was another one.

  “Maybe the dealer had some nice incentives,” Keel quipped as he raced toward the cockpit.

  “We should get back to the shuttle.” There was an urgency in Bombassa’s voice, one that suggested the big shock trooper was no longer sure whether such a thing was even a possibility.