The Forgotten Planet
Chapter 33 – Independent Contractors

I came-to in the middle of a firefight. Vee was at the weapons station controlling the dorsal turret and the hull was shaking from return fire. On the internal monitors in front of me, I saw Max and Adan in the hold, preparing to repel the black-armored troops that were attempting to cut through the external locking mechanism to the boarding ramp. Poochy was curled into a ball under my feet, panting and whining.

“What’d I miss?” I asked Vee.

She turned towards me with a look of happy surprise. “Tiger, you’re ok! I was so worried.” She furrowed her brow as she worked the controls. “What happened?”

“They attacked me with some sort of…” I shook my head and frowned. “I don’t know what. How long do we have?”

She shook her head. “One more hit on-” Just then, the ship shook, and she stepped away from the console. With a sad shake of her head, she said, “Turrets gone.”

I didn’t waste any more time. Apparently, I’d locked down the ship and got the anti-personnel systems online before I blanked out. I saw at a glance that the engines and navigation were still offline. Lucky for me, I now had the codes to override whatever Philip had done to the ship. Oh, and not just the codes to the ship, but the codes to the entire base. At least until the station’s army of white hats and engineers undid my logic bomb’s handiwork.

Logic bombs are little packets of code that can be set to do any number of malicious activities inside a server. I had Merlin drop one into the station’s system when I was messing around inside it the day of the sales pitch. The instructions were to override all security pass codes on the station’s network with a master code. And that was the code that I now had in my possession.

Usually, I use a logic bomb to do damage to a system at some predetermined later date, but since I didn’t know if I would ever end up needing it, I’d used a build-in trigger. That made the weapon tricky to use. If Philip’s people had been able to close the backdoor before I had triggered the bomb, we would have been screwed. No Christmas bonus this year fellas.

I didn’t know exactly what the station’s security program had been doing inside my head, but I was pretty sure it would have had catastrophic ramifications if I hadn’t gotten free when I did. As it was, I was experiencing a bit of a lag between when I thought a command and when the ship responded. There was also an annoying buzz in my ears that only seemed to stop when I clenched my teeth.

I fired up the engines and got the navigation computers online. I knew it would be a few minutes before the ship would be flight-ready, so my next task was to get the station’s doors open. The double door system wasn’t designed to have the two doors open at the same time, but with the new codes at my disposal, was able to force them both open all the same, frying a number of safety and backup systems in the process.

The ship rocked violently, and I pulled the external feeds up on the main viewer. Vee and I looked up at the screen in horror.

“Oh, bloody hell...” I said.

“A mech?” Vee asked, then asked, “Wait, is that Russell?”

Dual Gatling’s, a pod of surface-to-surface missiles, a massive plasma cannon were the visible armaments, and who knows how many smaller offensive systems were hidden from view. He had to get a few meters closer before my inferior human eyes could make out the face inside the white, metal monstrosity. When I could confirm it was Russell, I felt a hot surge of anger.

“It wasn’t enough that he had betrayed us,” I said, “but now he was going to blow is to pieces with this walking weapons platform?”

It was the kind of suit build to hold off entire squads of lizard troops and it was more than a match for our depowered ship. The tip of the cannon glowed hot orange, and I could see the rockets making micro adjustments in preparation to fire. Then I realized the pilot was taking fire from somewhere.

“What are we firing on him with?” I asked.

“We’re not firing. The boarding party is – or what’s left of them,” Vee replied.

I realized then that a few of Philip’s soldiers were down and the rest were firing at Russ from behind crates and heavy equipment. The cutting machinery rested on the ground unattended. The unarmored men that had been working on getting the door open were now running at speed in the opposite direction of the death-dealing mechanism.

The mech’s cannon fired and the cutting machinery went up in a ball of flame, and once more we were shaken and jostled. Moments later, missiles took out two more of the not-boarding party and sent shrapnel and flaming wreckage flying in all directions.

I got on the intercom and called Max and Adan to the bridge. They arrived moments later, and I quickly explained to them that Russell had just taken out our resistance. As Russell closed the distance to the ship, one last soldier popped out and got a few shots into the Mech’s cockpit before a burst from the Gatling cut him down as well. That last attack mangled the clear aluminum and metal latticed faceplate, and we watched as Russ knocked a panel free so he could see out of the rig.

“Max, you there?” Russell asked over the com.

“What the hell are you doing?” Max asked in reply.

“Saving your ass, as usual.” He lit up a stogie off the hot plasma cannon and started puffing away on the thick cigar.

“Well, we didn’t need saving,” Max said without feeling. Russ just grunted in reply. As the engines reached full power and the display flipped from yellow to green, more troops in black power armor began pouring out the entrance that Russ had just come through. They fired their plasma rifles at Russ, then scrambled as he loosed his last few missiles in their direction. After that, Russell took shelter behind the wreckage of a cargo container.

“I heard your engines come online,” he spat. “Get out of here while I hold them off.”

“Russ, we’ll lower the ramp,” Maxine pleaded. “You can come with us.”

“He can?” Adan asked and got a glare from Max for an answer. “Yeah, no – that’s totally cool,” he amended. I looked at Vee and she shrugged. I guess if it would have come down to it, we would have let him in, but Russell never replied. Instead, he left the cover of the crate and walked towards the armored troops, Gatling’s on each arm spitting rounds.

“Russ!” she called. The only response was static.

“Max, we’ve got to go,” I said. She looked ready to argue, but after a few tense moments, her shoulders slumped, and the fight seemed to drain out of her. Resigned, she sat in the navigator’s seat and worked the controls for takeoff. Within a minute, we were speeding out the jammed doors of the station. The last we saw of Russ, his mech’s left leg appeared crippled, and Philip’s troops had his position flanked and under fire.

...

Once we were sure we weren’t being followed, Max set the autopilot for the wild wormhole, and we all retired to the galley to plan our next steps over fresh mugs of strong coffee. Then Adan recommended that we fortify the cups with a shot of Philip’s whiskey – for medicinal reasons due to the stressful events of the morning. There weren’t and dissenting votes.

That loosened tongues and made it easier to talk about Russell’s initial betrayal and eventual sacrifice. The difference between Max and the rest of us was that we all stopped at two drinks. Thirty minutes in, Max was taking hits straight from the bottle. She and Adan were intertwined on a couch, though for once Adan’s hands seemed to be acting shockingly appropriate.

“Babe,” Adan said, “why don’t we slow down with the fire water.”

Her responding glare could have peeled paint. Maintaining eye contact with my brother, she slowly took another long pull from the bottle. Adan sighed and reached for the bottle, while Max pulled herself in the opposite direction while trying to take yet another drink.

A cute little struggle broke out, with only half the poured contents getting into Max’s mouth – as she stretched her neck and licked at the falling liquid – while the rest went everywhere else. Finally, Max gave in and let Adan have the bottle, while Poochy licked up the spilled remnants.

“Dammit Poochy, stop that,” Adan said. Poochy didn’t. “Should he be drinking that?” Adan asked me. I shrugged, and he took that to mean it was fine. It could have meant I didn’t know, or I didn’t care (really it was a combination of those two), but he accepted the answer he was looking for. After licking the floor clean, Poochy laid down and licked himself in a manner that I believe is inappropriate for mixed company.

I figured Max could use the distraction, and since I’d wanted to know the inside scoop about Max and Russ since I met them, I figured this might be the best time to get it. “How did you and and Russel end up working together?”

“Huh?” With effort, Max tore here gaze away from Poochy’s inappropriate display. “Oh, well, it all began about eighteen years ago on the colony of Starfall.” Her words were coming out at about half-speed and with extra enunciation.

I’d never heard of the place, but that wasn’t exactly surprising. It’s not like I traveled. Or read travel books. But I digress. Vee obviously had because I heard her gasp.

“Yeah, Vee knows,” Max said. She was slurring her words a bit as well. “Why am I not surprised?”

Maxine had never really warmed to Vee – or, now that I thought about it, stayed in the same room with her for any length of time – but the angry outburst still caught me off guard. I looked back and forth between the two them, not understanding the tension that was suddenly filling the room.

“What’s that supposed to mean exactly?” I asked, more than a touch defensively.

Vee touched my arm and shook her head, but it was too late. The can of worms was wide open.

“Oh, ok, I’ll tell you what that means.” She pulled away from Adan and sat up straight. She pointed a finger at Vee and said, “Your people knew what was coming at Starfall, and they didn’t lift a finger to help.”

“What was coming babe?” Adan asked.

“The Salarians showed up in orbit and blew the shit out on my planet,” Max said, “and I overheard my parents begging someone over subspace to evacuate the colony.”

I looked over at Vee. The fur under her eyes was wet.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but I’m totally lost.”

Max ignored me and continued, “The man, who I believe my dad called Admiral, had a very distinctive accent. I never really thought about it until I met you, Veesil Pax. You have the same accent when you speak Cali.”

“We all learn Nipponese is grade school,” Vee said softly. “For those of us that learn Cali, it’s as a third language.”

“Wait, why would your parents be talking to a Servine admiral?” I asked. Then it dawned me, “Oh.” Then the implications dawned on me. “Oh, damn.”

Maxine nodded and reached for the whiskey bottle that was no longer there. She glared at the empty spot on the floor, and I looked away before she could turn the glare on me.

“I assumed Vish was a common surname,” Vee said. “I didn’t know they were your family.”

“My parents,” Max answered. “I knew it, but Russ always told me I misremembered my childhood. He almost had me convinced.”

The frown of Adan’s face was getting deeper and deeper, and finally he said, “Can someone please explain what the hell is going on?”

Max sighed. “I’ll tell you, but it’ll cost you a beer and a foot massage.”

The ship’s Heisenberg manipulator was stocked with a year’s supply of raw materials, and it made more versions of beer than any of us had ever heard of. Max had taken a liking to the brown ale, and Adan quickly returned with an oversized mug. A trickle of foam worked its way down one side of the glass as he handed over the mug.

“Oh no lover,” Max said as Adan slid in next to her. “You have duties to perform.”

Adan smiled and slid to the edge of the couch. Only when her feet were naked and in my brother’s practiced hands did Max continue.

“Yeah, that’s the stuff,” Max said after a significant swig. It left a line of foam on her upper lip. She looked at Adan and asked, “So where was I?”

Adan looked up from dainty feet with red-painted toenails. “Your parents, nuclear bombardment, Servine admirals.” He shook his head and added, “Honesty, I have no idea how any of it is related.”

“Come on son, put your back into it,” Max said to Adan. “Oh yeah, that’s the ticket. Alright, so I’m pretty sure my parents were spies of some sort. They had day jobs – my mom was a seamstress and my dad a carpenter. But the nights were full of secret meetings with strange people and glimpses of advanced technology that was hidden during the day. Does this sound familiar?”

“Yeah,” Vee replied. “Most of the information about Starfall was above my pay grade,” Vee answered, “but I heard it had something to do with entangled communications devices that came from Earth and were passed down from parents to their children since before the war ended.”

“I got really good at pretending I was asleep when they would come to check on me. I found out that they only did that when they had something planned.” She made a sour face. “Although once it had to do with... things that a child doesn’t want to think of her parents doing.” She waved the thought away with her hand. “Anyway, on the days they weren’t doing that, I’d follow them down into the basement and listen to them discuss Earth and secret plans and confidential informants. I imagined that when I got older, they would take me into their confidence and make me part of the team. Then one day I came home from school to replace mom smashing some sort of communication device with a hammer.”

The glare was back, and she turned it on Vee. “That night I heard them begging an admiral to evacuate the planet, and the next morning my world was on fire.”

Vee left my side on our couch and knelt down next to Max. Max flinched and didn’t seem to know what where to direct her eyes. She covered by taking a sip of beer. Adan and I looked at each other warily.

“My people couldn’t evacuate Starfall without giving ourselves away,” Vee said softly, “and the Salarians would have crushed us. We’ve been quietly building up our fleet, but it’s nowhere near big enough to make any difference. Plus, Earth was dealing with some sort of local crisis, so we knew they weren’t ready.”

Max pulled her feet away from Adan and sat up. She handed him her half-empty beer, and I held my breath.

“Then tell me why whatever my parents were doing got an entire colony destroyed?” Max asked. I exhaled my breath.

“In terms of what information was being passed back and forth, I don’t know.” Vee answered. “But I do know how they got caught, and it wasn’t their fault.”

“It wasn’t?” Max asked. Vee shook her head. Maxine’s eyes filled with tears, and her voice began to crack. “I’ve though all these years... that it was my fault. I told a cute boy at school that... that my parents were spies... and then...”

I’m not exactly sure how it happened, but next thing I knew all four of us were crowded onto a couch made for three in a massive group hug as Maxine let it all out. That went on for a few minutes, until Poochy began to nose and climb his way into the center of the pile.

“Damnit Poochy,” Adan said, after being forced off the edge of the couch and landing on his butt.

Max laughed and said, “Oh, let him stay.” She hugged the dog’s neck, and I swear he smiled in response. I stood up and returned to my couch, but when Vee started to follow, Max grabbed her hand and pulled her back down. “Adan can sit with his brother. You’re better at this.”

When Vee sat, it put Poochy and Vee and the same head level. When Max sat back, it left the two of them face-to-face. After a few tense moments, Poochy planted a sloppy kiss on the side of Vee’s face. After another beat, Vee returned the favor.

Adan sat down next to me and rubbed a hand through my hair. “Would you look at that, broski. Were one big, happy family.” I smiled in spite of myself. “Who was it that betrayed Max’s folks?” Adan asked.

“It was their technology actually,” Vee answered.

“Don’t tell me they’re filtering entangled communication now?” I asked. It was something I figured was possible. The problem was that all particle-based communication, even systems based on entangled particles, are limited by the speed of light – which is why all extrasolar communications are shunted through the Casimir network. Otherwise, messages would take years to reach their intended targets.

“Everything that passes through a Casimir stabilizer in Empire territory,” Vee answered. “Starfall likely received the last communication Earth ever sent to this quadrant. Obviously both sides knew the moment the system was compromised.”

“Do I even want to ask why it’s obvious?” Adan asked.

“Not unless you want a rundown on quantum-based cryptography,” I answered.

“Hard pass,” Adan answered.

“So does that mean the lizards have known about Earth since Starfall?” Maxine asked.

“I... don’t think so,” Vee answered. “We would have heard something.”

“Maybe that’s why you didn’t hear,” Maxine said.

Vee sighed. “It’s possible I suppose, but they would have to know about a wild hole that the Confederation wasn’t aware of. Otherwise, there’d still be on their way. Most likely they just saw encrypted communications coming through a gate and followed it back to the source.”

I agreed with Vee’s hypothesis, but it’s possible it was just what I wanted to believe. “Someone needs to develop a true quantum teleportation device,” I said, more to myself than to the room. “Imagine, bouncing messages instantaneously between repeaters in an entangled nexus...” I trailed off as my augmented brain started crunching numbers.”

“How do you think our fleet communicates private information now?” Vee said with a smile. My mouth dropped open.

Before I could ask any one of the thousands of questions I had, Max said, “Nerds, please. Can we focus?”

“Huh?” Vee answered. “Oh, sorry. Anyway, the Salarians couldn’t pinpoint the signal with any precision, so in their typical heavy-handed fashion, Fleet Command decided to nuke all of the most heavily populated cities.”

“Damn,” Aedan said, pausing to look up from his foot duties. “How did you survive, babe?”

She drained a third of her glass before attempting to answer that one. “My parents put me in a safe in the basement when the local broadcast announced that we were under attack. I was only eight, so it wasn’t that tight of a fit. They held the door closed and I was shoving against it, screaming. It was dark and I was scared.” Max paused to compose herself and both Poochy and Vee snuggled in. After a few deep breaths she continued. “Then the floor shook and there was an awful noise that seemed to go on forever. When it was finally quiet, there was no longer any resistance at the door. But then I didn’t want to get out any longer.”

“I stayed inside the safe until I was thirsty and had to pee. What I saw when I came out...” she closed her eyes and shook her head. “The house was a ruin. The upper floors and walls were mostly gone, and what was left of it was black and still smoldering. Then I saw that there were... charred bodies... and I just ran. Our neighborhood looked the same as the house had – a mix of burned-out wreckage and death. I ran for what seemed like miles and didn’t replace another living soul.” Max finished her beer and Adan wordlessly got up to get her another. She discreetly wiped her nose on Poochy’s head while she waited for the beer, and then took a healthy sip after bro handed it over.

Re-fueled, she continued. “After a while I got tired and just gave up and sat on the ground. It was midday but the sky was black from all the fallout. I was already in bad shape from radiation poisoning. My stomach felt sick, and my eyes were molten. It must have been a clean neutron bomb, or I never would have lasted that long. Then a small craft passed over, and then circled around and came back. I thought it was the lizards coming back to finish me off, and I actually picked up a melted piece of a bench to fight them off with.”

Adan looked proud at that moment, while Vee let out a choked sob and turned away.

“Come here girlfriend,” Max said, as she leaned forward and wrapped Vee in bear hug until the sobbing stopped.

I was seeing Max in a brand-new light. She was obviously a badass now, but to know she had lived through a tragedy like this and then become the strong woman she was now was quite impressive. She could have easily let it crush her, but she didn’t.

Vee pulled her knees up under her and curled into Max, resting her head on the larger woman’s shoulder. I pretended not to notice the particular look in Adan’s eye as he took in the two of them in. At least he’s consistent.

Max continued, “Anyway, the ship landed and a human-shaped figure in a sealed suit stepped down the gangway. I knew what Salarian solders looked like, and I knew this wasn’t one. I dropped my makeshift weapon and ran to the man. I just jumped into his arms, and without a word, he carried me into the ship.”

“The rest of that day is kind of a blur. I know he put me in the decon chamber and after that he gave me the tablets to purge my system. Let me tell you, that may have been the worst part of it all. I was sitting on the toilet so long I actually fell asleep in there. Russell was kind but also sort of standoffish.” She looked around the room and said, “It’s obvious this was Russell, right?” Adan nodded. She didn’t look for confirmation anywhere else. If it was obvious to Adan... Anyway, Max continued, “I completely get it now of course. He was a male in his thirties with some rando eight-year-old orphan girl. He did tuck me into bed, and I made him sit at the foot of the bed until I fell asleep. He did that every night until, I was ten. Usually, he was snoring before I was.”

“How’d he turn up when he did?” I asked.

“Well, I’ve gotten different answers to that. You know how early memories are. I seem to remember him telling me that he knew my parents and that he was looking for us after the blast. Maybe he told me that on the day he rescued me, or maybe I created that memory after the fact. I’m pretty sure I had PTSD at the time.”

Memory is a funny thing. People think the brain works like a recording device, but it really doesn’t. Our senses give us limited view of reality that’s further mucked up by our emotions, age, and our level of alertness. There’s a reason why two people that just see the same thing don’t remember it exactly the same way. If that wasn’t bad enough, thinking about a memory has the potential of changing the memory itself. I could see where an eight-year-old trying to make sense of a tragedy could create all sorts of false memories around the event. However...

“When I was older and asked him about it, he denied it. He said he was there to collect a debt and showed up just after the attack. He said he was looking for survivors in order to get a reward.”

“The story you just told doesn’t like a guy looking to exploit a tragedy,” I said.

She shook her head. “Right? I think he knew my parents. He probably just didn’t want me getting involved in what got my parents killed. Instead, he trained me to be a merc. We were a good team, too.” Max stretched, and when her eyes opened, they locked squarely on Adan. “I’ll tell you all about our little adventures someday, but right now Mama needs a little naked time with her beau before bed.”

“Ma’am,” Adan said with a tip of his cap. “I am completely at your service.”