Chương 106: KK3 - #24 THE TEARS OF THE SWALLOW (2/4)

Blue Monday. New Order!" Satori shouted, less than a second after the first notes rang out. The Cronian techie was almost unbeatable at any blind test.

"What's the score?" Wilson asked, as he was passing by in the canteen.

"Decency forbids me from saying it out loud," Big Brain joshed, flying off the table thanks to the reduced gravity.

"Don't you have a Falstaff's data-core to defragment?" I grumbled. As a loser I had to rewind all the tapes Mute had lent us.

"Yes, I do! The life of a privateer isn't an easy one! Even alongside Captain Bellescharettes!" Destiny moves mysteriously. After the battle of the Blazing Firmament, the Marquis Rodrigue de Bellescharettes had drifted unconscious with the remains of a pirate ship to the border of the main belt. Rescued at death's door from oblivion by metal salvagers, the ex-Commodore of the G. T. C. was fated to be recycled before a converted mercenary, going by the name of Satori, recognized him at the last moment.

Refurbished, the android became a privateer. He and his new first mate were piloting his antic Falstaff enhanced with mirror technology stolen from Osborn.

"Where is my captain anyway?" my opponent asked, adjusting his cabled goggles once he was back in his chair. The gravity shifted briefly as the nuclear reactors changed cycle, causing the dishes in the dining hall to tint.

"Gone with Ali and the Major. A story about a fencing room," Wilson replied before slipping away for good.

"You see? They got along. You owe me another C$1, 000!" Satori laughed.

"By the way, have you pondered about your future once this Arch-Prince is turned into powdered milk? Do you think you'll clear your name to the Alliance? You'll need to print some dead presidents to pay your grossing debt!" Ali and I hadn't really thought about the question. Making plans wasn't in our nature. But it was true that I wasn't thrilled about being hounded by our former peers anymore. Unfortunately, I doubted that such a large bounty could be erased so easily. Even less, by killing an Arch-Idiot.

"You don't know, do you?" Satori continued.

"I might like the self-sufficient life of the New Worlds," I replied, gazing up at the motionless stars displayed on the mess's monitors.

"But Ali wouldn't survive in such a wild environment. We don't pick up Cartoon Network on Pluto."

"You plan to stay with her? Didn't you think of sailing away on your own?"

"What a ridiculous question! We're a duo." Satori pouted.

"Maybe she wants to settle with the Soviet guy, no?"

"Are we talking about the Ali we know? The one who bit the running Techno-Governor Koizumi for grabbing her butt in a Hook'n'Tacos parking lot?" Satori picked up Mute's cassettes and shoved them into a green string bag before continuing: "People change, Lee. Wouldn't you like to hear Bambi's opinion on the matter?" I could tell by the look on his face that he was thinking of Ada. Did these two intrepid mercenaries have this kind of retirement plan when they left Titan? I didn't dare to ask.

Big Brain was right, of course. I, who until then had found solace in chaos, started having doubts about the infinite uncertainties presently disrupting my shared existence with my sapiens. Although my beacon in the night was her presence, today the mere thought of losing her filled me with dismay.

"Ali will do what she wants, as she always has. As for me, well…"

"Rodrigue would gladly take you into his crew," mentioned Satori, stepping out to reach his wheelchair. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

"Lee, the space adventurer? Like Han Solo?"

"Lee, the space adventurer." Lee the space adventurer. The smuggler. The scoundrel. Why not? The rest of the trip to Sedna was quiet. Big Brain had cracked the mystery of the chrome MKs and gave us a long lecture on the subject as we encountered the first Brown-Tyson comets. On several occasions, the alert was given when the T. M. S. Africa radars detected raider flotillas near the Tycho Spheres. Fortunately, they had chosen to turn away from our route after a few warning shots.

Through the portholes, it was like seeing the snow fall. For in the vacuum, the slightest explosion would cause the ice particles forming against the hull of the hypercruiser to tumble. The most amazing event of our journey remained an alert from the Interceptor Alita as her crew was scouting near an asteroid field cutting our path. There, embedded in a planetoid, a cosmodon rested in an eternal glass case. How had the Soviet colossus drifted so far from the Middle System? A mystery.

Sedna came into view a few weeks later. Bathed in the darkness of the cosmos, the last Dwarf before the end of the system possessed a gloomy purple and black mantle. Its geothermal activity, reanimated for the needs of the only habitable trading post on its surface, Far Harbor, gave it a thin atmosphere that looked more like a ghostly veil.

"Enemy ships identified in the fourth quadrant!" alerted one of the officers, as the entire command deck seemed hypnotized by the morbid star. The silver and ivory vessel was drifting in orbit, hidden in a train of rock hoppers. Around it danced small white pebble-shaped vessels like the one we met before. The Arch-Prince was already there. And with reinforcements. They had beaten us to the punch, and our ambush fell flat. The Lunar ship must also have detected us.

For just as the Africa' s course slowed to catch Sedna's gravitational field, a bright halo emerged from one of the chrome aircraft. The energy beam silently struck an asteroid that passed over us.

"Party on…" Satori grumbled through the sirens. Like Ali and the others, I was staring at the main CRT screen above the bridge when an officer alerted us to an incoming communication.

"What do you think you are achieving here?" sneered the Arch-Prince as his life-size hologram appeared over the conference module.

"Far from technocratic corruption, your power is waning!" Graves retorted as he moved closer to the God he knew could materialize.

"Out of your cryo-chamber, it will be a duel in the rules of art. Cannon against Cannon! We shall bring you justice!" The Arch-Prince Taranis stared at the colonel, Braun, Rodrigue, and finally Ali.

"Who the hell do you think you are, sub-humans?" He then glanced at Admiral Toto, a few meters behind us. She was pointing her service weapon at my partner's back. The click of the safety catch resounded through the muffled laughter of the God. Graves turned away from the hologram to stand in the line of fire as several soldiers aimed their rifles at us and the Falstaff's captain.

"What does this mean, Sigourney?" Graves asked, glaring at the superior officer.

"Oh, Gaylord, don't be childish…" Toto retorted.

"You know very well how it goes. You play the paragon of Justice but your blind trust is doing you a lot of harm." Taranis, proud of his maneuver, laughed, making the purple diodes on his skull glow: "Excellent. I think you have much to discuss. Admiral Toto?" The traitor grunted without glancing at the hologram.

"Keep the Omega clone girl alive. Execute all the others, and use your marvelous ship to destroy Far Harbor." Silence fell on the communication bridge again, just after Graves took a step forward towards the admiral.

"I can't let you continue this madness, my dear."

"How are you going to do it without a pistol or a sword?" Toto quivered.

"You know well I don't need any baking utensils to beat you to a pulp!" Gaylord Graves leaped ahead, ignoring the bullets that hit him in the chest and neck, to send a stratospheric slap to Toto. The latter flew to the side before pulverizing a control console. No projectile had pierced the ex-Colonel's uniform, which appeared completely unharmed.

"Damn!" shouted Ali.

"She got super-smashed…"

"That was a lousy fight!" exclaimed Satori without anyone asking him anything.

"Pay up!"

"Silence!" roared Graves, stiffening his mustache, before Rodrigue's mercenaries could add their comments.

"Everyone in position! At once!" After a brief exchange of gunfire, the loyalist Marines let their weapons slide to the ground to surrender to Graves' rebels. The bridge officers began their attack maneuvers. Despite this anecdotal postponement, the battle of Sedna was about to start.