Salvage Merc One: The Daedalus System (24 page)

“Good to be back, buddy,” I said. “Now turn the ship around and—”

“Go back,” Mgurn interrupted. “I know, I know.”

He did.

We had a few hours to kill before we reached the iron door that Mgurn had busted down. I made my way to the cargo hold and found Alya sound asleep. I watched her for a couple of minutes, making sure she was breathing easy and not gonna croak on us, then started back to the lift.

“Joe?” she asked, her voice clogged with sleep. “Joe, is that you?”

“It’s me,” I said and hobbled back to her. “How are you feeling?”

“Where are we?” she asked. “How long was I asleep?”

“Only a few hours,” I said. “And where we are isn’t as important as where we’re going.”

“Where are we going?” she asked then I watched as realization hit her. “Mgurn can’t find a way out of the Daedalus System can he? You told him to go back.”

“Yeah,” I said. “On both counts.”

“I understand,” she said. “It is because of me that you can’t find the way out. The labyrinth won’t let go.”

She must have seen the surprise on my face because she laughed and shook her head sadly.

“It’s alright, Joe,” she said. “I wasn’t meant to leave. I told you that.”

“What? No, you are way, waaaaaay off base here,” I said. “We aren’t going back to drop you off and save our skins. We’re going back so we can fly right back through that open door and shove this ship down the throat of the labyrinth.”

“We’re what?” she shouted and sat up straight. Her big snake body quivered with rage. “Have you lost your Salvage Merc mind? We cannot fly this ship through the labyrinth. That’s suicide!”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because…” She faltered and thought for a minute.

When she didn’t answer, I said, “You have to trust me on this. We’re flying through the labyrinth. That’s the end of it.”

“Joe, we have arrived,” Mgurn announced over the com.

“What? It’s been like twenty minutes,” I replied.

“That may be true, but we are most certainly back at the iron door,” Mgurn said. “I do not know how we arrived so quickly, but we did.”

“It wants you,” Alya said. “It wants me. The labyrinth must be fed.”

“Well, I’m about to feed it a load of crud,” I said. “Hang on tight. This is going to very interesting.”

I hurried back up to the bridge and found a familiar landscape waiting for me on the view screen.

“Joe, I am officially filing my protest,” Mgurn said.

“I’m officially not caring,” I replied. “Punch it, buddy. Let’s get the fo out of here.”

“We cannot get out of here if we are flying into there,” Mgurn said.

“Have a little faith,” I said. “I’ve seen much weirder things lately.”

Mgurn’s hands hovered over the thrusters. He waited a little too long, so I gave him a nudge by shoving his hand down on the controls, sending the ship rocketing through the open doorway.

“Joe!” Mgurn yelled. “Let go of my hands!”

“Yeehaw!” I cried as we zoomed past the entryway and into the pitch-black corridor beyond. “Ride ‘em, space cowboy!”

Twenty-Five

“We never talk about that trip to anyone ever,” I said. “Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Mgurn said.

“No one, hear me?” I snapped.

“I will go to my grave,” Mgurn said, refusing to look at me. “But can we talk about it with each other?”

“Fo no!” I exclaimed. “I don’t want to remember any of that!”

“It’s just that I have some questions,” Mgurn said. “None of that was real, I understand that part, but was it representative of our subconscious desires or underlying emotions towards each other?”

“Mgurn?” I said quietly.

“Yes, Joe?” he asked.

“Forget about it,” I said. “It never happened. If anyone asks how we got out, we’ll say we found another quantum backdoor, which, in a way, we did.”

“I am not comfortable lying about this experience, Joe,” Mgurn said. “I will never volunteer to speak about the subject, but if someone were to ask me directly, I’m afraid I won’t be able to hold back.”

“You’ll hold back,” I warned. “Or one night you may find yourself floating in space with nothing on but your jam jams.”

“That’s rather harsh,” he said.

“We. Do. Not. Speak. Of. That. Ever,” I growled.

I could see the conflict in his eyes, but he finally nodded and said, “We do not speak of that ever.”

“Good idea, buddy,” I said and stood up from the co-pilot’s seat. “How long were we in there?”

“Seventy-three seconds,” Mgurn said.

“Worst seventy-three seconds of my life,” I said.

“Agreed,” Mgurn said.

You want to know what happened, right? No, you don’t. Just no. Big whopping no. A plate full of no with a side of no.

I left the bridge and hurried, slowly, down to the cargo hold. For a few seconds, I panicked when the lift opened, and I didn’t see Alya’s big snake body curled up in the cargo netting.

“I’m over here,” Alya said from a jump seat she’d pulled down from the wall. “Hi.”

“Hi, yourself,” I said, stunned by her appearance. “Uh…you’re not Naked Snake Lady anymore.”

“No, I am not,” she said and looked down at her normal, human body. A body that needed some clothes. “What I am is a bit chilly.”

“Oh, right, yeah, here, hold on,” I said and popped open a storage cabinet. I yanked out a set of coveralls and tossed them to her. “May be a bit big, but you can change into a regular uniform up in the personnel section. I know we have extra SMC uniforms up there of all sizes. Just in case.”

“Just in case?” she laughed as she pulled the coverall on. “You get a lot of naked women that used to be naked snake women on board?”

“More than we should,” I said. “But that’s the job, right?”

“That is the job,” she replied and looked at me. “Thank you.”

“No need to go through this again,” I said. “Come on. Let’s see what we’ve got to eat. I’m foing starving.”

“I am also,” she said. “I would prefer rodent free meals, if at all possible. As a snake, I ate way too much of my share of rodentia.”

“Rat free food, coming right up,” I said.

It took us five days to get back to SMC headquarters. Partly because we popped out on Earth and that place sucks.

Mainly, it was because of traffic. Some of the wormhole portals were just bumper to bumper spaceships. I made myself a mental note to get fully acquainted with the off-grid trans-space portals the ship had in its navigation system. Main Street was for suckers.

We were met by a large contingent of security personnel when we reached SMC headquarters finally. I wasn’t too happy since they were in my private Salvage Merc One hangar. It felt a little intrusive.

But that was really the worst of it I had to deal with. It was more of a pain in the butt for Mgurn and Alya. The guards kept forgetting I was with them every few seconds. Which meant their ire was focused on Mgurn and Alya.

Which was puzzling. Why was their ire even focused on anyone? What was with the ire in the first place?

We all found out fast as we were marched into the Bosses office. They were just finishing mid-afternoon tea when we were shown in. Boss Five waved the guards away, and they left quickly, snapping snotty looks at Mgurn and Alya.

“Salvage Merc One, you made it back alive,” Boss Five said. “And you brought Alya Horne with you.”

“Was he supposed to do that?” Boss Three asked. “Was that his mission?”

“Did he have a mission?” Boss Two asked.

“What are we missing?” Boss One asked and stood up to look in his seat. “Hey, I found my gum.”

He grabbed it up and started chewing noisily.

“I am not sure you were clear on what was expected of you, Joe,” Boss Four said. “The return of Alya Horne was not in the description.”

“I improvised,” I said. “Salvage Merc One’s prerogative and all that.”

“You may have overstepped, Joe,” Boss Six said.

“Is that so?” I replied. “I saved a woman, a former Salvage Merc One, from a life in purgatory, and I overstepped how?”

“She had her time,” Boss Five said.

“Most definitely,” Boss Three agreed.

“Her fate was sealed,” Boss Four added.

“You are messing with forces that you cannot understand,” Boss Six said.

“Don’t care,” I replied. “Salvage Merc One. Me. Not you. You guys are just dead asshats.”

There was a collective gasp, except from Boss Seven.

“Joe, come on,” Boss Seven said. “You’ve barely been in this position. You don’t know what you—”

“Don’t care,” I said, holding up a hand. I nodded at Alya. “Embrace her return or not. I don’t care. I’m not asking for her to take her place among you foing bungnuts. No point in doing that. She’s not dead.”

More collective gasps, even from Boss Seven.

“Yeah, that’s right, Bossmen,” I said. “Alya Horne is alive. She’s also a badass, and I want her back on the SMC payroll. She’s one of few beings I can trust around here. That means a foing lot. She gets assigned a number, and she’s put on active duty.”

“Two assistants? Insanity,” Boss Two said.

“Insanity?” Boss One chirped. “Why, yes, thank you, I’d love some! Third helpings are my favorite helpings!”

“No, not as my second assistant,” I said. “She gets a real number and has access to the ticket pool just like all the other numbers. If we work together, then great. If not, no worries. She’s free to do what she wants and take whatever jobs she wants.”

I catch Alya out of the corner of my eye. She’s staring at me, her mouth hanging open. Mgurn’s mandibles are hanging open as well, but not because of what I was proposing, more because I was handing the Bosses their asses.

Before they could keep arguing with me, I continued.

“I noticed something while I was stuck in that labyrinth,” I said. “None of my gifts came into play. I never had clarity, I never read minds, I didn’t have any of your old gifts inhabit me and help me along.”

I watched them closely. Not a one said anything. Even Boss One kept his trap shut.

“Yet here I am,” I said. “Alive and kicking.”

“Your point?” Boss Three asked.

“My point is I’m better at this gig than any of you were,” I said. “And the artifact knows it. It sent me there to put me to the test. I passed. Now it wants to give me a reward.”

“It does?” they asked.

“It does?” Alya asked as well.

“What reward?” Mgurn asked. “Is it a chit bonus? Can the artifact handle chits?”

“Not a chit bonus,” I said to Mgurn. He looked really bummed. “It’s even better.”

“Oh,” Mgurn said. He looked wary since his idea of better and my idea of better rarely meshed. “How much better?”

“I got lucky,” I said. “If Mgurn had found a faster way out of the Daedalus System then I would never have discovered what the artifact wants from me. But he didn’t, so I had us turn around and fly through the labyrinth.”

More gasps.

“Knock it off,” I said. “We went through a lot of strange crud as we flew through the labyrinth. Stuff we will never, ever, ever talk about. But one thing that I went through, singular to me only since I’ve got the handy dandy artifact tucked away deep down in my insides, was that it doesn’t care about any of the gifts we had. Those gifts were not why we were chosen to be Salvage Merc Ones. Those gifts were just a sign that we could handle having the artifact in us and not go supernova. Which, by the way, is what happens to normal beings it tries to inhabit. Boom.”

“Then what does it want from us?” Boss Seven asked.

“It wants us to choose,” I said. “It wants us to sort through the labyrinth of our own souls and find what truly, madly, deeply matters. Only then will we even get close to unlocking the artifact’s potential.”

They waited. I had them on the hook. It was just time to reel them in.

“So, right now, here today, in front of all of you, I’m making that choice,” I said. “I could choose anything from being super strong to possibly being able to navigate wormhole portals on my own, no ship needed, just a spacesuit and a lot of guts.”

“Oh, please do not choose that,” Mgurn said. “That sounds awful.”

“I agree with ya there, buddy,” I said. “But, back during the trials, Alya told me what her gift had been. I didn’t pay attention then, but the second, never to be spoken about trip, gave me a chance to revisit her words. And I realized hers was the greatest gift ever.”

I had them. They were waiting with baited breath.

“So, what I choose is this: I want to be remembered,” I continued. “I want people to know who I am and what I am and not forget either of those things within seconds of walking away. I want to be a person again.”

“Joe, that is impossible,” Boss Seven said. “It is something we all wanted when we were Salvage Merc One, but it’s not going to happen. Alya didn’t ascend to being a Boss, so her gift was not transferred. That isn’t how the artifact works.”

“It is now sucka,” I said. “Call the guards back in.”

They hesitated, but Boss Four finally snapped his fingers and the security guards came in fast, carbines up and ready for whatever threat had presented itself.

“Do you know who these beings are?” Boss Four asked them.

The guards stared at us and finally one spoke, “From her description, that is Miss Alya Horne, former Salvage Merc and listed as missing in action. The Leforian is Mgurn, of course. Hello, Mgurn.”

“Hello,” Mgurn said and waved at the guards. They waved back. Everyone loved Mgurn, they couldn’t keep their ire focused on him forever.

“The gentleman is, of course, the great Salvage Merc One, Joe Laribeau,” the guard said. He looked puzzled. “My visor is telling me he is deceased. I’ll have HR fix that as soon as I leave, sirs.”

Middle fingers went up from me. The Bosses all frowned.

“Yes, please do that,” Boss Four said to the guard. “That will be all.”

“Joe, you haven’t been around for a while,” the guard said as he was leaving. “There’s now an open spot in the security personnel’s weekly poker game if you want to join.”

“Hey, I might do that,” I said. “Thanks.”

The guards left, all looking a little confused, but none seemed hostile to me. If anything, just like the offer from the one guard to play poker, they were all happy to see me and completely content with the fact I was Salvage Merc One.

“Yeah, I think we’re done here,” I said. “Unless you Bosses have anything to add?”

“We will discuss this new arrangement and call for you when we have come to a conclusion,” Boss Six said.

“Yes, that,” Boss Five said.

“You may leave, Joe,” Boss Seven said. “Go enjoy your freedom.”

“While it lasts?” I asked.

“What? No, I wasn’t implying that at all,” Boss Seven said. “We’re all on the same side here, Joe. I hope you see that.”

“Oh, I see something,” I said then turned and snapped my fingers. “Joe out.”