The Black

“Wake up Jakey-boy….”

Jake’s eye snapped open and frantically scanned the immediate area. Several seconds later his brain caught up with his body and a pained groan escaped him as his body reminded him of the wringer he had just survived. “Fuuuuuuuuuuck” was all he could muster before staggering to his feet, barely conscious of his surroundings as he started stripping his clothes off in his slow plod toward the wall shower.

The misty, rainy steam enveloped him in its strange, but now familiar embrace, as he felt the night's mind fuck of a dream drain from him. Leaning forehead to the wall, Jacob’s remaining eye lost its focus as if seeing things from deep in time and space. Several minutes passed before he regained his composure, quickly lathering and rinsing before stepping out of the shower and reaching for the towel.

“Um, I'm sorry. I.. Uh….” Came a voice from his blind side, which also happened to be the side of his Captain’s Berth where the door to the rest of the ship was located. He hadn’t noticed the change in gravity until now, but Jake didn’t bother responding. He calmly continued to his towel and wrapped it around his waist before turning to the door. The stewardess of the day was standing there with a levitating breakfast pushcart just staring at him in a combination of abashment and shock.

“Thank you, Ms…” He placed his replacement patch on his sewn-shut and scarred eye before taking the tray from the young woman… she couldn’t be more than 17 or 18.

“P.. Priva” She stammered.

“Thank you Ms Priva, that will be all.” His kind finality had her bob her head and positively bolt from his quarters and down the hallway. A dark chuckle escaped him as he pulled the towel free of his waist to continue drying himself. He dressed quickly, in his uniform and sidearm then picked through the assortment on the tray before just scarfing it all down anyway. Departing from his quarters he started wandering the halls with no real destination. ‘I need to talk to the fab about a saber. Silu might have a point on that.’ his thoughts meandered around on what form or fashion his weapon would take until his feet arrived at the Rec room. He saw that the room’s gravity was set to about 20 percent above Delmar’s gravity and decided to investigate. He stepped through the door to a ruckus of cheers/jeers and jovial laughter as a group of Humans and Delmar were watching two Delmar men trying to walk a loop in increasingly heavier weighted vests that had become standard exercise equipment since their introduction a couple of years ago. Plodding over to a chair currently occupied by non-other than Martin, Jacob just patted the cook on the shoulder and shook his head no as Martin reflexively was about to announce his presence. Martin just grinned and sat back down, never one to say no to a little extra entertainment. Jake simply leaned up against the side of the chair’s back and watched. The two men were struggling. The other was hooting and hollering for him to get going as they staggered their way around the course. Both succeeded and thus more weights were added. Jacob estimated that they were both quickly reaching double their own body weight in this gravity. Several of the other spectators had taken up seats to rest in the extra weight of the room-adjusted settings.

Discretely typing a message into his wrist pad, Jacob watched as 2 other Delmar lifted each vest and put it on the contestants. The slightly smaller one was instantly driven to one knee, but gamely waved away assistance as he gathered himself and stood, starting his stagger around the loop behind his companion. It was not to be as about halfway through his legs failed him and he was driven bodily to the floor under the vests weight not 2 feet in front of Jacob.

“Quite a predicament you’ve managed.” Jacob spoke for the first time, instantly alerting the crowd to his presence and he let out a quick “As you were!” before anyone could shout for attention. He smiled down at the young man, who by this point was having trouble breathing under the vests weight, before reaching down to the hand hold on the back of the vest’s head opening and hoisting the boy up with one hand and held the vest as he scrambled out of it. “Valiant effort.”

“Thank you, Sir. I’ll get him one of these days. He’s my older brother.” The boy panted before being semi tackled by the other contestant and Jacob waved them both away to celebrate or commiserate. He suspected a bit of both.

Jacobs next stop was his ready room, settling somewhat heavily into his seat and opening his console’s interface. He flicked through several screens before settling on an abbreviated star-chart with their course/speed/progress on it. He slewed its view over a few systems as their open contracts opened as he centered on each system. They were currently headed to pick up a load of control boards that were bound for a Shipyard on the edge of the home worlds operating area. He grimaced as he saw how far it was and began plotting alternatives when the door opened, and He found a mildly stern Hera glaring in at him

“Doc says no Duty, you’re lucky he is busy checking up on those boys after their escapades with he vests” She scolded. “Out, the ship will be fine until you get back on your feet.”

“I’m just fine on my feet” Jacob responded halfheartedly. He rose to his feet with only a … slight... wobble before walking to the door that was currently occupied with Hera’s unimpressed presence. “But I wouldn’t recommend the trip that shit took me on…” he said, almost to himself, as his eye drifted off before returning to a now concerned Hera.

“You are not well.” She stated firmly, “We need to get you to Doc.”

“I’m fine..” He tried, but his heart wasn’t in it. Hera noticed and took a step forward, taking hold of him by the shoulders and looking at him in his good eye. She was searching for signs of concussion or something else wrong. He proceeded to resign himself to being inspected. As she flicked out a small light to check his pupil’s, the recycler systems kicked on and the changing air currents ruffled her hair slightly, blowing her scent gently into his face. ‘Magnolia’s… huh?’ went through his mind as the currents and the smell visibly relaxed him significantly… “I’ll be fine, eventually.” He mustered before gently pushing the light from his eye. As his flared-out vision cleared he saw a different look on Hera’s face, one of concern mixed with sad suspicion.

“Go rest, please… I know I can’t drag you to your quarters, but please… We are going to need you when we do this next drop off…” Her voice held an odd pleading ‘and don’t do anything stupid’ tone to hit.

“On one condition, before your shift ends, come give me a daily update. I hate being out of the loop. It’s too dangerous.” He responded, “I’ll be good.”

“Fine, deal. Now get, before I send Doc after you.” Hera stood to the side to let him pass as he squeezed by her and headed to the door.

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Hera sat in the command chair on the bridge of the Traveler, ostensibly taking command of the day shift. Her mind was on her captain. The man was the strangest human she had met to date. Clint, Mac, and Gwen were clearly Warrior’s, “Apex’s of Apex’s” Jacob had described them, and it fit. She had met Martina in passing and she saw it in her as well. Nicole had made her acquaintance on one of her sister’s early checkups after she conceived with Clint. Nicole was a gentle healer-type Human, yet still straight forward in how she acted and felt, if somewhat hard to understand at times linguistically.

Jacob wasn’t any of those things. His oddly dashing eye-patched face held secrets. He was almost never thinking what she thought he was, and it made it hard for her to predict and augment his moves with Traveler. His smile held a sad edge even at his happiest, or the happiest he had shown her. It worried her, she saw some of the same demons she had been forced to face haunting behind his one remaining eye. They were more visible since his brush with M8800. Doc had confirmed that he was in the clear, but something felt off about her captain since. She needed to figure out what it was before these distractions turned into dangers.

Then there was the rest of it… She noticed him take in her scent and relax in his ready room. She had felt old feelings stir when she had to help him to his quarters from the infirmary. She had taken the position on Traveler to get away from all of that. She wasn’t interested in Humans. They were too intense, so why was she interested in this one… She pushed the thoughts from her mind as her wrist monitor showed Jacob entering the infirmary ‘good, maybe something is wrong.’

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A Consortium Deep space Mining Vessel loomed over its prey, the Asteroid was 20km wide at its thickest, but that did not matter. A circular cavity opened in the bow of this titan and grinders began to spin like mechanical teeth in the maw of a creature of nightmares. The asteroid slowly drifted in, aided by the gravimetric pull from inside the back of the Maw’s depths. Vacuum transmitted no sound, but he asteroid’s destruction was as brutal as it was final, different pieces being drawn into separate parts of the ship as its precious metals were extracted while the res was discarded like the half-chewed remnants of a carcass of one of terra’s great whale species after being mauled by a predator. Subspace rippled and flashed as a scarred and burned UGN frontier brig dropped out of FTL… It was named UGN Reliable Truth, and it was crewed by an all Thermian contingent that numbered but a skeleton of its former numbers.

*UGN vessel, you have entered Mining Consortium space, State designation and mission.* the automated signal sent in its mechanical monotone…

The UGN ship opened a signal to the Automated titan, “I am Kar, the Unity had betrayed uss… We know you are Vorath… I speak on behalf of the Thermian Primearch… we wish to.. talk”

The weapons that had been spun up halfway through the transmission paused… scans of the ship revealed as severe a firefight inside of the ship as well as outside of it.. This crew was not the registered crew of this vessel.

*Stand by*

The Thermian ship did not respond, only falling into formation with the slowly progressing autonomous Asteroid strip miner. Day’s turned into a week. A week turned into two. On the 15th day, Kar decided to leave. He had sacrificed so much to earn this chance to erase his shame wrought by the Demon. His new crew had sacrificed in blood to take this ship in the height of UGN reorganization. He would not waste away in some fri….

Subspace flashed once more and a ship of unknown pattern dropped out of FTL, haling Kar’s beleaguered vessel.

“Kar, this is Centurus. Slave your ship’s navigation to ours. We will not ask twice.” the voice said. Not bothering to activate visual contact, or maybe refusing to.

Kar simply nodded to his Navigations officer... 10 minutes later, the two ships disappeared into subspace… the Deep space Mining vessel plodded on, devouring yet another asteroid in its insatiable hunger for precious metals.

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Hera rang the chime on the Capain’s Berth a second time... It was the last day of her captain’s “purgatory” he called it. Aside from refusing to elaborate, He did little to explain his dark amusement at the term… This wasn’t like him... She rang a third time, then opened to door and nearly closed it again in terror…

The room was dark save for a weak overhead light, usually reserved for reading in bed. A shirtless Jacob sat on the edge of his bed, covered in dripping sweat. A mostly full bottle of human alcohol sat on his desk and the shards of a shattered sniffer coated in booze and blood lay at his feet. His left hand was covered in blood with a few bits of glass sticking out of it as he sat with his legs spread and his elbows on his knees. His hands were before him palms up, glass and blood occupying his left, and a Very different-looking Human pistol in his right. Its frame and slide were metal with some kindof reddish-tan coating. It was in rough shape; the muzzle was covered in a strange rust pattern running the length of the slide and down under the grips.

“Jacob?” she asked quietly as she stepped into the room and closed the door. She slowly walked up to him with her hands palms forward, “Jacob.. Its Hera… can you hear me..” She slowly stepped toward him, staying in his surviving eye’s vision as she watched the weapon in his hand. He made no motion of recognition, or of any other kind, as she slowly walked towards him. She paused slightly as she got close enough to recognize the rusted patterns on his weapon as handprints, finger prints… and blood smears rusted into the very being of the pistol. She finally arrived, standing directly in front of him as he remained frozen staring at his hands, and their contents. She took a deep breath, and slowly knelt in front of him. “Jacob, Its Hera.. let’s get you patched up… ok” she said as she knelt to his level, looking him in his eye. She held her gaze refusing to gawk at the scarred and healed wounds that pock-marked and marred his torso. He finally stirred, raising his head up to meet her gaze. Slowly, very slowly, he gave her a nod. He ignored her pulling the shards out of his hand and using the scanner to check for any glass stragglers before pulling a bandage from the drawers of his desk. She paused, under the bandage roll was a picture of a group wearing some kind of reddish-tan bulky armor and sort-of familiar human weapons. She picked it up, noticing a younger Jacob as one of the men. She also noticed the pistol in his right hand in the holster of one of the other men photographed… she set it back down, gently closing the drawer, and began to wrap his hand. Patch job done; she turned her attention to the weapon in his other hand. This he seemed to notice as she carefully placed her hand on top of his and the weapon, “There’s no threat. Traveler is safe. You don’t need this right now.” He didn’t seem to respond for a moment before she remembered his reaction in the ready room. Gathering herself, she closed with him and pulled his head to her shoulder with her other hand and prayed she was right. Several moments went by before a soft sound of a deep breath being taken in let her know she hadn’t imagined the previous morning. His bandaged hand and arm wrapped around her and pulled her into a not quite crushing embrace His breathing became ragged for a moment before he released her and seemed to properly acknowledge her presence. “There you are… Let’s put this away for now, ok?” She patted the hand holding the gun as he looked down and nodded, sliding it back into the drawer that held the picture.

They sat for several minutes in silence, “I’m sorry… I must have terrified you. It’s been a decade since I had a strong one of those…” his voice began to regain some of its own strength, “how long have you been here”.

“Just moments, I found you like this. The blood on your hand had already dried.” Hera kicked herself as a small quaver escaped around the edges of her voice. Jacob caught her fear… she decided to press forward, “I think I Understand” he looked a question at her and she continued, “I was the first officer of a Delmar Defense Warship when the V.R. attacked... Marg, void rest her, had just returned with Traveler to warn us; and we were set up about where port royal is now. Those animals sent in their smaller ships into a late drop… it was over in a few brutal moments... their screening ships slammed into us at barely sublight speeds and everyone died. I barely had time to trigger my void suit before my ship was hit. I survived because our killer had dealt a glancing blow, but we were dead in the water. Their heavier ships passed through the wake of their carnage, opening fire on us, on escape pods, on everything. I’m only alive because a Metal shard caught me here.” she placed a hand on her side, “and I was flung out of a hull breech moments before my ship died.” She shook slightly staring at nothing for a moment, “Clint found me floating in space and almost left me for dead. That’s how bad off I was. I spent weeks in the vacuum exposure unit on Delmar, most of it in bed. All alone,” she looked back to his gaze, “with my Demons from that day.” Hera took several shaking breaths before rallying herself once more, “If there is anyone on this tub that can talk to you and understand, it’s me.”

The two stayed silent together for several more minutes before Jacob made the first move, reaching over with his right hand to take hold of her left, “Ok…. Ok… You deserve that much at least.” He said using his good hand to lead her to stand and come sit by him before reaching for the drawer and pulling out the picture, and the gun before smiling gently at her, before placing the pistol in her lap, “for safe keeping.” He said quietly. She watched as he fought for control, looking at the picture for a long moment before she put a hand on his forearm. It seemed to steady him as he handed her the picture next and began…

Jacob pointed to the man next to him, the one wearing the pistol in her lap, “Jesse Ellis,” he continued down the line of men, “Mike Vickerson, Kent Till, and Sean Cunningham… We were a team, all graduates from the same class in the same year of BUDs… We were inseparable, we were in our prime, and we were good at our job. It was a few years into Humanity’s Civil War. Terra was trying to look for some way to break the stalemate. We caught wind that something big was being worked on by the Martians, and we got picked to go in to... well… stop it from being worked on and bring it back for us to use. We had TALON support all the way in and out, but nothing else. The TALONS could do it because they could stay hidden, anything bigger was going to get spotted and killed while they waited for us. It was a long trip. We spent it in a cramped stealth shuttle made for little more than eating, sleeping, shitting, and doing bodyweight exercises. We were good, we spent a year in that shuttle doing pretty much that, aside from all the digital media we brought for downtime. We were ready when it came time for insertion. It went flawlessly, too flawlessly. We landed on our mark and set off on our ruck to the target. We found it all right.

Kent was our demo guy, and we spent the next 30 hours sneaking up to every vent, every observation window, every pressure door, every air lock. We rigged the whole thing to go at once… Mike and I were on security and Sean was overwatch when we blew the place. Just enough explosives to cause too many breeches to survive, but not enough to break whatever they were working on. Kent triggered it all at once and I still remember the ground shake. We hit the front door hard but didn’t need to. Everyone was already dead. The thing about Martian atmosphere, is it's thin enough that it can’t keep Terran pressures, so a human not wearing one of those suits has his blood literally boil out of his body. Its… messy. There were only three scientists in the structure, we were pulling cores when Sean triggered his com.. I still don’t know what happened to him. We never found his body. And it was never returned… he got out a fraction of a warning before we heard him die over open coms. It was a trap.” Jacob began to shake in suppressed sobs, before settling and continuing, taking the picture from Hera, and holding it like a prized possession. “Hell opened up and swallowed us. Mike died first... a crew-served energy weapon took the left side of his head off in a cookie cutter-shaped bite… he never screamed... he just fell and started filling our position with boiling blood. I got the APC that killed him with the missile launcher he was trying to aim when he died. They breached next. Kent kicked me out of the way and ate the first rounds to his plate. He didn’t make it to cover, and his suit failed completely after about 100 rounds of impacts. Me and Jessie killed em all... their first breech was dead and boiling on the ground when I heard a burble from Jessie... one of the last shots got him in the throat and he was spraying blood out through an artery… he pulled that pistol from his holster and handed to me… He and I were on the same team in the same class of BUDS... we had a special... pact… we would never get taken alive. He handed me that gun and held the muzzle to his helmet… I couldn’t do it… I was till shaking my head no when he stuck his thumb on my trigger finger and pressed… it took them 3 hours to take me… I had all of my dead friend’s ordinance... by the 4th hour I had run out of ammunition and grenades… I was shot up, and bleeding out. I knew it. I was going to make them kill me… I failed...