Halo: Taking a Chance

{|style="width:100%; font-family:Verdana;"
==Dramatis Personae==
:Gavin Dunn; former Insurrectionist ringleader, current smuggler (human male)
:Simon-G294 "Stray"; renegade Spartan and mercenary (augmented human male)
:Zoey Hunsinger; Thief-in-training. (human female)
:Diana; rogue AI and Stray's partner (artificial intelligence, feminine persona)
:Judith Ives; thief (human female)
:Redmond Venter; Insurrectionist commander (human male)
:Helen Powell; leader of the Syndicate (human female)
:Shinsu 'Refum; Covenant Remnant shipmaster (Sangheili male)
==Halo: Taking a Chance==
===Prologue===
Plasma blasts and gunfire split the air, their cracks and whines carving out an ugly symphony amidst the chorus of shrieks and cries echoing out amidst the hangar. A series of explosions rocked the entire station, but even the thunderous tremors couldn’t halt the battle that raged from bulkhead to bulkhead.
Gavin Dunn wrapped his arms around the ladder and clung to it for dear life. A grated catwalk loomed just a few meters up the rungs, but that might as well have been a mile when every second on the ladder risked a plasma bolt or bullet finding its way into his head. As the tremors subsided, Gavin scrambled up the remaining rungs and dragged himself up onto the catwalk just as a fuel rod blast tore the ladder apart behind him. The smuggler yelped and fell, the heat from the blast singing the edges of his overcoat. His cap was torn from his head and landed a few feet down the catwalk.
How could things have gone to hell so quickly? Gavin wondered as he pushed himself upright and made a grab for his hat. He certainly hadn’t gone looking to land himself in the middle of a full-scale war--at least, not this time--but here he was, dodging bullets like a rabbit on a firing range. He had to get out of here; find the Chancer, spin up those engines, and jump out-system without looking back.
But where was Zoey?
Gavin wasn’t sure what made him reach for his pistol and scan the chaos below. Maybe it was duty. Responsibility. A shot at redemption. Or maybe it was just common decency. Whatever the reason, he squatted there on the catwalk like an idiot instead of making tracks for a ventilation shaft.
It was a dumb move, one that was swiftly rewarded by a barrage of plasma bolts that sent him scurrying back into the wall. He slammed into an open wall panel and got tangled in the wiring, looking for all the galaxy like the fool he was as plasma shots burned holes all around him. Before he could even disentangle himself, yet another fuel rod blast tore the catwalk beneath him apart.
The wiring saved his life, keeping him dangling above the hangar as the grated walkway collapsed beneath his feet. He thrust out an arm and grabbed what was left of the railing, hauling himself and more than a few trailing wires onto the remaining catwalk grates. Shaking himself free of the wires, he ducked low and crawled on all fours towards the waiting door.
Two plasma grenades hurtled up out of the melee below and landed beside him. The glowing blue orbs hissed evilly as Gavin regarded them with a weary sort of horror.
“Oh, you've got to be kidding...”
He threw himself down and rolled. The explosion picked him up like a child’s toy and threw him into the wall. The pain from the impact rang through his body and he couldn’t tell if he was on fire or just plain bleeding internally. He dropped down onto the catwalk only to feel it tilt and groan beneath his feet.
“Bloody Elissa!” Gavin swore. He lost his balance and slid down the collapsing walkway. His fingers found purchase in the grating and he clung on for dear life, dangling precariously over the war raging on the hangar floor some forty feet below.
I can’t take much more of this. Part of him--the bit he hoped was the smaller, dumber part of his being--was tempted to just let go. Be done with all this nonsense once and for all. The hopefully larger and more practical part of him was screaming in terror and demanding that he pull himself up.
Gavin’s arms burned with the effort, but he dragged himself up the side of the lopsided catwalk. He had to get back up. Get out of here. Escape. Just like I always do.
He hadn’t thought it was even possible for so much bad luck to follow one person, but then again, no one he knew was particularly lucky and he seemed to be the unluckiest acquaintance by far.
Come on, he wheedled at God. Cut me a break. Just this once. I’ll be good, I promise. No more smuggling, no more customs evasion. I’ll even pay the proper taxes for all my cargo. Really.
The catwalk groaned, about to give beneath him. Gavin couldn’t really blame God--or whoever up there was in charge of doling out good and bad fortune--for choosing to look the other way and pretend not to hear. He made promises like that all the time, not that anything ever came of them.
His arms couldn’t hold out much longer. The edge of the catwalk was a few feet away, teasingly beyond the limits of his endurance. Really. I mean it this time.
Gavin gritted his teeth and dragged himself up. Blood welled up from cuts in his fingers, trickling down his arm in small, crimson rivers. Just one more good pull, and he’d be up. One more pull...
The catwalk lurched and Gavin was nearly thrown free. Bullets whizzed past his head; one caught the edge of his cap and tore it away. He couldn’t even see where the hat fell. It was all he could do just to keep himself alive.
“Come on,” he hissed, though he wasn’t sure who he was talking to. “Bounty hunters? Syndicate? The Covenant? My frakking ship stolen? There is no way in hell I’m standing for this nonsense one damn minute longer!”
With a sudden burst of strength he pulled himself up, grabbing hold of the last bit of catwalk that was still bolted onto the hangar wall. He dragged himself up onto flat grating, wheezing and wincing from the effort.
I’m alive. Still alive. I don’t believe it. I don’t--
And then he looked up and saw the armored feet striding towards him.
He scrambled to his knees and drew his pistol, but a single blow knocked it away. A gauntleted hand wrapped around his throat and pushed him down, forcing his head back as he struggled for air. His eyes peered up at an all-too familiar helmeted face, a battered visor that peered down at him with expressionless menace.
“Gavin. No more running.”
Something flashed out of the corner of Gavin’s darkening gaze. His attacker raised a combat knife and angled it towards his throat. The edge of the dagger would be the last thing he ever saw.
Gavin tilted his neck back and closed his eyes. Most of his brain was screaming in terror, but a small corner was still trying to work out how things had gone so wrong.
If only I’d never taken that damn job...
===Chapter One: On the Hunt===
One week earlier
"Come on, Stray, we can talk this through."
"That didn't work the last four times." Stray's electronically amplified voice bounced off the rusting walls. He definitely didn't sound like he was in a "talking things through" sort of mood. "Are you really gonna play it this time around?"
"We-ell," Gavin said, stretching the word out as he pocked his head around the crate providing his cover. "Seeing as I got away the last four times, I'd say it's got a better track record than you're giving it credit for."
Stray didn't have an answer for that one. Gavin heard a series of dull thumps come echoing around the corner, which meant that his pursuer was either taking his anger out on the wall or literally trying to beat the door down. Though he wouldn't put furious outbursts past Stray, Gavin decided that it was more likely for the armored hunter to be finding a way in after him. The kid's persistent, I'll give him that.
Though persistent was beyond understatement. This made for the fifth time Stray had chased Gavin down and the third that he'd managed to push him into a corner, dead to rights. This time around Gavin was trapped inside the upper levels of a Venezian casino. Gavin wasn't usually into gambling, at least not the organized kind, but this time around Stray had actually lured him here with a fake job offer. It was only a combination of the rowdy crowd and a passing knowledge of pre-fab community building layouts that had allowed Gavin to make a break up into this corroded upper level. It also didn't hurt that Stray was too miserly to hire decent help.
Either that or he's as broke as I am. Gavin looked around at the crates in the storage room he'd been backed into. It was rather worrisome how well set up this little trap of Stray's had been, poor funding notwithstanding. Usually the rogue Spartan burst in on Gavin when he was in the middle of refueling or brokering an actual job. This time around he'd gone to the trouble of actually setting up a trap and luring Gavin into it.
And I had a head start getting to Venezia, too. Gavin shook his head with a rueful grin. He's getting faster and smarter.
Not a good sign, at least in the long run. Gavin was starting to get tired of dodging Stray every time he made port. But for now he'd just roll with things as they came. After all, there was always some kind of way out of situations like these.
At present, the way out was a ventilation shaft in the corner. It looked as if it had been added manually to the existing pre-fab design, which meant that not only would it be easier to open up but it wouldn't appear on the casino blueprints that Stray was most definitely operating off of.
"Come on, let's cut a deal!" he called out, bending over and pulling a small multi-tool out of his overcoat. Stray hadn't blasted through the safety door yet, probably because he didn't want the casino owners after him for property damage. That was the problem with arranging traps like this, you usually had to cut a deal with the building owners beforehand. Since security guards weren't showing up to help Stray get the door open, Gavin assumed that the deal had simply been for them to stand aside and let Stray take him. But Stray would soon either figure out another solution or just lose patience and smash the door down.
"Fine!" The irritation in Stray's voice told Gavin that his pursuer was likely working the same thought process out himself. "You give up and I promise to use a tranquilizer to knock you out. No hitting, no electrocution. How's that sound?"
"Well, see, you're missing out on the finer points of negotiation." The vent cover slid over. "So why don't you think your strategy through a little more and I'll just wait here."
Gavin slid into the vent. It wouldn't take Stray long to figure out he was on the move. With that shabby kit he carried around on his armor, it was hard to tell just how advanced his tech was at any given point in time. Gavin hurried through the shaft, trying not to let the tight spaces stress him out. He was used to squeezes like this, but he preferred navigating small air ducts when there wasn't an armored mercenary on his tail.
The first exit led out into what appeared to be a maintenance room. Beside a handful of status monitors, a ladder led up towards a hatch marked "Roof Access." Gavin grinned and quickly climbed up towards the accessway. He had just reached the top when the hatch let out a small yet oddly defiant-sounding click. A quick jiggling of the activation lever confirmed the pit that dropped in Gavin's stomach: the hatch had just locked itself.
"It won't be quite so easy this time, Gavin," said a silky voice, tinged with amusement. One of the computers below hummed to life and a small figure clad in darkly elegant medieval armor appeared on its holo-pad. A blonde young woman smiled up at Gavin, gauntleted hand resting on her transparent hip.
"I can see that." Gavin gave the hatch one last shove before lowering himself back down. "Hello Diana. I knew the whole fake job gig was too complicated for Stray to pull off all by himself."
"Give him a little credit, he got the time and location down on his own. I just doctored the job offer so that you'd fall for it. And I must have done a good job, considering that you did." The artificial intelligence's smile broadened. "I don't suppose you could just turn yourself in? Watching Stray chase you across the colonies is getting a bit tiresome."
"If it bothers you so much, just tell him to stop. Get him onto another contract, why don't you. I'm not exactly having the time of my life getting chased, you know."
Diana shrugged. "Look at it from his perspective. He's been after you for so long, if he doesn't bring you in he'll be a laughingstock."
She considered this. "Well, more of one than he already is."
"Look at it from my perspective," Gavin shot back. "I'd rather not have the Syndicate take my money, ship, and more than a few pounds of flesh."
"Always so melodramatic. I did warn you about how this spacer dream of yours would end up. Back on Mamore--"
"That's enough out of you." Gavin was already halfway into the shaft. "Have fun watching him chase me around for another five colonies."
Diana just laughed. "Oh, I will. Don't get me wrong, even failure has its own amusements."
***
"He's in the ventilation shafts," Diana reported. "I'd get a move on if you want to actually collect on him this time."
"Oh, now you decide to start helping." Stray, once known as Gamma Company's Simon-G294, gave up on trying to hotwire the safety door. He reached into one of the combat pouches strapped across his SPI armor's combat webbing and slapped a small blast charge onto the lock. "I could have used a little backup, oh, how about five minutes ago!"
The charge burst and the door slid open. Stray gritted his teeth, regretting ever having bothered clearing this snatch op with the casino staff in the first place. I knew the setup was too elaborate. Stupid, stupid...
He moved into the storage hallway, his M45 shotgun at the ready. He flashed through his HUD's scan settings, wary of any traps Gavin might have left for him. At this point, he wouldn't put anything past the wily freighter captain. After all, Gavin had been the one who'd trained him in the finer points of "improvised welcoming gifts" in the first place.
"Oh, so tracking him down for the fifth time and fooling him into thinking you were some local mogul doesn't count as backup?"
"You could have shut down the doors when he started running." Stray moved through the boxes and spotted the ventilation shaft. "You could have opened that damn door for me so I didn't have to blow the damn thing open!"
"I was busy," Diana replied primly. "I do have other priorities outside of your sad excuse for a business."
"Oh, look at me, I'm Diana." Stray knelt beside the ventilation shaft and took off the assault bag strapped to the back of his armor. Placing the bag in front of him, he wormed his way into the shaft. Even with the pouches and weapons adorning his armor, he made the tight fit. Navigating small places while clad in their armor was a skill all Spartans learned very quickly. Even ones at the bottom of Gamma Company's performance rankings. "I'm so brilliant and advanced, I can be everywhere at once. Except, you know, for when someone actually needs my help."
"Well now you're just being petty."
"Screw you, Simon, your tiny meatbag brain can't possibly understand the complexities of my existence. Now you go do all the real work while I have a laugh with my Assembly buddies. Try not to get shot!"
"Your words, not mine. Besides, Gavin Dunn is hardly a dangerous quarry. If anything, you keep failing because you're entirely too restrained."
"Last time I cornered him he hit me with a freaking supply container."
"Only because you were too stupid to dodge it."
Stray rolled his eyes and shot a quick glance behind him. He opened his mouth, then closed it just as quickly. He'd been about to order Zoey to move in and find another vent entrance.
But Zoey wasn't with him anymore.
He wriggled into the shaft, pushing the assault bag in front of him as cover. He didn't like to think about it, but things really had gone downhill ever since Zoey had walked out on him. The little urchin had been a pain in the ass to take care of, but she'd made for some good backup on hunts like these. Stray was pretty sure that if he still had Zoey, he'd have nailed "Captain Dunn" on his first go.
But there was no point dwelling on that now. He hurried onwards down the shaft, determined not to let Gavin slip away again.
***
Gavin scrambled out of the vent and stumbled up onto the casino's rooftop. The city lights blinked all around him as he hurried across the roof, clutching his cap to his head as his coat whipped about in the evening wind. His free hand held a small chatter device which he busily tapped commands into.
"C'mon, c'mon," he muttered as lines of text scrolled across the screen. "Work with me here, baby."
Venezia was another bust as far as jobs went. As ridiculous as this little war Stray seemed determined to wage on him was, Gavin had to admit there was a certain attrition strategy starting to factor into the merc's constant failures. Every time he was chased off a colony was another Slipspace jump he wasn't getting paid to make. In the months since Stray had decided to take on the Syndicate's bounty Gavin had taken all of two jobs.
So what, we'll just see who runs out of money first? This really was ludicrous. If Gavin weren't so bound and determined not to bend and scrape to the Syndicate's murderous whims, he'd have dialed up the criminal empire's nearest enforcer and arranged some sort of deal. But that was out of the question; he'd heard rumors that this time around the Syndicate wanted to take his ship away as a trophy and a warning to any other freelance captains who thought it was a good idea to snub its authority.
He would die before he let them take the Chancer.
Gavin glanced back at the ventilation shaft. Stray couldn't be far behind. What was with this obsession of his, anyway? Gavin couldn't understand it. He'd have sat the young man down for a chat and a round of coffee if he didn't know Stray would beat him unconscious the moment he was within reach.
How the hell do I make him stop coming after me? Gavin was truly at a loss on this one, not that he really had the time to think it over right now. He glanced back down at the chatter and thumbed the buttons anxiously.
"C'mon, baby..."
Gavin glanced up. Over the hum of the wind and the sounds of the city around him, he heard a familiar rumble. A grin split the captain's face as he backed towards the roof edge. "I knew you wouldn't let me down, girl."
***
Stray heard the rumble from inside the ventilation shaft. With a furious snarl, he pushed himself further along, carving dents in the metal as he raced for the exit. "I fucking hate that sound!"
He burst out onto the roof, assault bag falling off to the side as he scrambled out of the shaft. He scooped the backpack up and slung it over his shoulder as he ran, bringing his shotgun up just in time to see Gavin waving a small device at the freighter that was now descending from the sky. From the screams coming from the streets below, Stray could tell this was not an everyday occurrence.
"Get the air patrols!" he yelled at Diana. "Don't let that ship get away!"
How could he have let this happen again? He knew Gavin could call in the Chancer remotely; that was how the smuggler had escaped his last ambush. But he'd assumed that he'd nab Gavin inside the casino this time, and besides, who in their right minds would call a freighter in on autopilot inside a crowded city?
Gavin Dunn, evidently.
Stray sprinted across the rooftop just as the Chancer's battered hull descended just below roof level. The engines rotated, preparing for a liftoff as Gavin hopped onto the top of the ship's hull.
"Son of a--" Stray sprinted the last few yards and leaped just as the Chancer began to ascend. He landed at the fore of the ship, struggling to clip his shotgun onto his combat webbing as he grappled with the freighter's rough exterior. Gavin was just a few feet away, struggling to crawl towards an access hatch. The smuggler spotted him and shook his head in frustration.
"Just give it up!" he yelled over the roar of the engines. "This is ridiculous!"
"You give up!" In the annals of great retorts it wasn't anything special, but Stray was too busy clinging on for dear life to put more effort into witticisms.
"Easier for you than me!" Gavin wrapped an arm around the access hatch, fumbling with something in his pocket. "A lot easier!"
The ship lurched like a bucking horse. Stray tried to find better holds for his fingers but it was too late: he lost his grip and went flying. "Son of a bitch!"
The Chancer's hull rushed back towards him...
***
Gavin winced as Stray bounced down across the Chancer. From the crunching sounds he made with each impact, it wasn't a pleasant fall. The armored mercenary narrowly missed getting caught in one of the engines before flying out over the end of the ship. He made one last valiant effort to grab onto the hull before tumbling out of sight.
"I told him it'd be easier," he said to no one in particular. He scurried through the access hatch and dropped down into one of the Chancer's maintenance passages. The freighter's autopilot had brought the ship in from its berth in the local hangar, but Gavin preferred a more personal touch when it came to making his getaways. He raced to the cockpit and seized control.
I don't know how many more of these little escapes I can take. Normally he'd have taken a close shave like this as an opportunity to lie low, maybe take a little vacation, but Stray was so damn persistent. Any "vacation" Gavin tried to take would more likely end with another close shave from a shotgun barrel than a pleasant bit of fun in the sun.
What he needed to do was get some cash. Money spoke on the frontier--and just about everywhere else, really--and enough of it just might talk loud enough to get him some help with his little bounty problem. Trouble was, the Syndicate was the one that gave out the real juicy contracts and it was a bit hard taking a job from them when they had a bounty on your head. And Gavin wasn't all that popular in the Inner Colonies, seeing as the UNSC still had him up on the public enemy list for that whole Philadelphia business.
Gavin pursed his lips, guiding the Chancer up towards the atmosphere. Good thing he'd paid off the local air controllers in advance, not that he could afford it. Even with things drying up on Venezia these days, a little money still went a long way.
There was one lead he could try. One he hadn't tried in years, but desperate times called for desperate measures.
And as much as Gavin hated to admit it, he really was starting to get desperate.
***
"Good thing this was here to break your fall."
"Shut up." Stray dragged himself out of the dumpster and sprawled wearily in the casino's dusty alleyway. A cardboard box had managed to lodge itself on his head; he dragged it off and tossed it away, disgusted.
"I'm going to get him," he growled. "I'm going to get him and then I'm going to blow that fucking ship of his sky high."
"You keep telling yourself that," Diana noted. "You know what they say, sixth times the charm. This was the fifth time, right? I'm not selling you an attempt short, am I?"
"I'm gonna find that son of a bitch and drag his ass in to the collectors." Stray realized that he sounded decidedly less threatening now that he was busy picking bits of trash out of his combat harness. "He can't run forever."
"I don't know, with you on his trail he's got a pretty decent shot at it."
"Cram it." A radio ping cropped up in his HUD. The casino owners had probably discovered the door he'd blown through. Stray ignored it and limped out of the alley. A few passersby looked perturbed by the sight of a trash-covered suit of combat armor stumbling down the street, but no one cared enough to bother him.
"So, where are you off to now?" Diana asked, clearly enjoying his latest defeat.
"You're going to track his ship. Figure out where he's headed." Stray opened up a map of the city in his HUD and marked a waypoint near the city outskirts. Venezia might be drying up, but he still had a few resources left on the planet to draw from. Just keep focusing on the next step, the next step the next step. Not dwelling on last minute's miserable failure was something he'd been good at ever since the innumerable screw ups and humiliations of his training days on Onyx.
There was always a silver lining. At least Zoey hadn't been around to see him fall into the dumpster.
===Chapter Two: Honor Among Thieves===
“Better hurry up, something’s moving over near the security office.”
Zoey Hunsinger adjusted the night vision settings on her binoculars and focused on the office in question. The two night shift guards on duty at the server station were both accounted for out on the perimeter; there were only supposed to be two, but now she could definitely see something moving around in the shadows beyond the office door.
From where she was perched atop one of the outdoor server nodes she could see Judith Ives quicken her work. Talitsa’s top thief slotted new network jacks into the node she was working on, fingers nimbly rearranging the wires inside the node’s emergency access slot. If Zoey’s warning phased her, she gave no sign.
Zoey looked back at the office. This wasn’t her first job with Judy, not by a long shot. She’d been helping out with gigs like this for over two months now--staying calm under pressure had been drilled into her before the thief had even taken her in. Still, beads of sweat were forming on her brow and beneath her armpits. There was definitely something out here with them.
“Almost got it,” Judith muttered. She and Zoey both wore small headsets that let them talk with barely audible whispers. “Get ready to bolt, kid.”
Zoey nodded and leaned down, swiping her backpack from where it rested beside Judy’s work spot. A quick check confirmed that the slicing tools she helped lug around were all in place. Now came the part of the job she liked the most: getting the hell away from the scene of the crime.
And I’m still hauling stuff around, she thought. Some things never change.
She’d played the pack mule even back when she was tagging around with Stray back on Venezia. With him it had been extra explosives and ammunition; every time she’d gone out on a job with him she’d lived in fear that a stray bullet or plasma charge would catch her assault bag and blow her into a red mist. The tools of Judith’s trade were far less glamorous than satchel charges or rounds of assault rifle ammunition, but at least they weren’t liable to explode.
And she didn’t get shot at as much with Judy. Mostly.
Judith removed her tools and resealed the node covering. “Done,” she hissed, pulling the hood of her sweatshirt up over her tangle of dirty-blonde hair. “Let’s bounce.”
Zoey did a final sweep of the network complex with her binoculars before lowering herself to the ground beside Judith. She gently pressed her sneakers into the gravel that covered the node complex, not making a sound. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Judith nod approvingly. A warm flower of pride opened up in Zoey’s chest, but she kept her mind on the task at hand. It was a focus that had been drilled into her, first by Stray and then by Judith: Don’t lose focus out on the job at hand.
“You got the hatch on the gate open, right?” Judith hissed, glancing about the compound.
“Yeah, it’s all set.”
“Good. You say something’s moving by the security office; we’ll take that exit instead.” Another practice Stray and Judith had in common: Always have a backup escape plan. Sometimes it surprised Zoey just how much in common her two teachers had. One was a scruffy mercenary, the other a professional thief, but they both knew a lot when it came to slipping in and out of places they shouldn’t be.
And I guess I know that stuff as well, now, Zoey thought as she fell in behind Judith. She’d learned a lot from her teachers, absorbing everything they had to show her and doing bits of self-educating on the side. Her stomach tightened a little as she remembered what she was planning to tell Judith once they were back at her apartment.
Stop being such a wuss, she told herself. It’s not like this is the first time you’ve done this. She could almost see Stray’s face in the shadow of the node, his gaunt, grubby face spread into its usual mocking sneer.
Cringing and whining about it won’t get you anywhere, he’d say. Nut up and embrace the suck.
Zoey’d been “embracing the suck” a whole lot for the past year. Ever since her parents had burned alongside the family farm back on Venezia, she’d been chased, beaten, and shot at. She’d lived with the kinds of criminals and scumbags her parents had always warned her about, forcing herself to endure things worse than she ever could have imagined back on the farm. It was bizarre to her sometimes, how the world had changed so much in such a short period of time.
And I’ve done things...
She shook that last thought away and crept after Judith. She wouldn’t fall into that trap again. She’d done what she had to do, nothing more. She hadn’t chosen to fall in with killers and thieves, but that was what had been thrown at her so that was the reality she lived with.
You can lie down and die or you can do what you have to to survive. That was another Stray-ism. Judith had her own: Take what you can get, ‘cause life sure isn’t handing the candy out for free.
She was doing a lot of thinking these days. Maybe a little too much. She couldn’t help but think back on what she’d been taught, and it crept into her head more and more often.
Sometimes she realized that she could remember more of what Stray and Judith had taught her than she could recall things her mom and dad used to stay. Maybe that was something to be ashamed of. She couldn’t really tell anymore.
Judith reached the small hole Zoey had cut in the fence around the node complex and slipped through. She held the flap open for Zoey to crawl through, parting the spokes so that they didn’t catch on her backpack. The fence was electrically charged, but a contained EMP charge had taken care of this section. Once they were both through, Judith dropped the flap back and motioned for Zoey to follow.
Neither of the security guards were in sight. The lights and noises of the city around them winked and hummed from all directions, inviting the thief and her protege into their concealing alleys. Judith motioned for Zoey to come in closer, activating a small disruptor field on her belt. The field would cloak them from appearing on security cameras. Zoey couldn’t help but be amazed at the little marvels Judy carried around with her. Most of Stray’s equipment was military-grade hardware looted from the battlefield or purchased on the black market. Judith had assembled her toolkit with stuff she had simply purchased at local electronics stores.
They hurried away from the node complex. Judith extended a palm towards Zoey, their signal for wait here. The thief darted out of the shadows, leaping up onto a low-hanging roof with practiced agility that Zoey could only envy. She crouched in the darkness, waiting for Judith to return and say the route was clear.
I’m going to do it, she told herself, rubbing her patch jacket against her arms to ward off Talitsa’s cold night air. I’m going to tell her. Once we get back.
She’d done this before, with Stray. Only this time she’d do it better. This time she had a plan. She just needed to bite the bullet and...
“Hey,” a voice hissed beside her. “What’s in the bag?”
Zoey spun, her heart skipping several beats. A helmeted head dangled beside her, its owner leaning down backwards off of the fire exit on the building above. The helmet was all too familiar; she’d seen Stray pull it down over his head every time he strapped on his armor for a job.
“Stray?” she gasped instinctively, then realized it couldn’t possibly be him. Her hand plunged into her jacket, but the newcomer’s armored hand shot out and caught her harm in an iron grip.
“Come on, let’s keep it friendly.” He certainly sounded friendly, though Zoey was too terrified to appreciate it. “I’m just wondering what you and your pal were doing over in the server complex. Wanna fill me in?”
The stranger’s grip was gentle, but firm. There was no way of breaking free, so Zoey stopped struggling and just glared up at the faceless visor. Her free hand dropped low; her fingers were already stretching up and fiddling with the watch on her wrist.
“Look, you’re just a kid. I don’t want to get you in trouble, so just tell me what you were doing in there and you can get out of here.” He was still talking like they were discussing the evening’s sport scores. Zoey wasn’t giving him the benefit of the doubt.
“Sightseeing,” she said under her breath. “Let me go.”
The helmeted stranger sighed. “Don’t want to be a jerk, but you’re obviously lying. Come on, I know it’s not your fault, but your pal’s up to something shady. Tell me what’s up and I’ll let you run off before I--”
Something moved on the rooftop beside the fire escape. Judith’s voice split the night air: “Get down!”
Zoey ducked as something bright and loud went off above her. Her armored interrogator let our a yelp and let go of her as he fell from his perch onto the street. Zoey seized the opportunity and darted back, reaching into her pocket and grabbing a small handheld charge.
The armored guy crawled to his feet, slapping his helmet and shaking his head. “Hey, an EMP charge? Come on, that’s just not cool.”
He sprang forward with frightening agility, planting himself between Zoey and Judith. “Let’s not leave before we’re all friends again.”
“Find someone else to harass, you smug asshole,” Judith shot back. “We aren’t Syndicate.”
“Crime’s crime.” The stranger shrugged. He sounded young, but Zoey was more concerned with the array of gear strapped to his hodge-podge armor. She knew military-grade kit when she saw it. “And it’s a slow night. Besides, I know you take jobs for ‘em anyway. Just tell me what you’re up to and...”
Judith dropped down onto street level. Zoey couldn’t see her eyes behind the hood, but she knew her well enough to know that she was pissed. Clutching a crowbar in her hand, she swung at the stranger, who easily blocked the blow and yanked the metal shaft out of Judith’s hand. But Judith used the momentum to swing around and land right beside Zoey.
“Help!” Judith yelled. “Someone help, please! He’s attacking us!”
The armored stranger cocked his head, crowbar dangling at his side. “Wait, what are you...”
“Please! He’s after my daughter!” Judith grabbed Zoey’s shoulder and squeezed twice, another signal: Cut and run.
Someone appeared at the end of the alley. It was one of the night shift guards from the network complex. The man’s eyes widened as he saw the scene before him and he grabbed the radio fixed to his uniform. “Holy shit Mary, sound an alert and get the hell over here. We’ve got some psycho in combat armor after two civilians.”
The stranger whirled, tossing the crowbar aside. “Whoa, hey, this is just a misunderstanding. I’m not the bad guy here, they’re the ones who...”
Alarms were already squealing back at the node complex. Judith spun and darted off, Zoey hot on her trail. They raced down the street; a police patrol cab raced past them, sirens blaring. A Warthog full of UNSC peacekeepers soared after it. The stranger had picked the wrong block to make his appearance.
“Who the hell was that?” Zoey panted, sprinting to keep up with Judith.
“Asshole vigilante type,” Judith shot back over her shoulder. “Showed up a couple weeks ago, been pissing off all the local enforcers. All the weirdos are coming out of the woodwork now, I swear.”
“That ‘Renegade’ guy everyone’s so pissed about?”
“Yeah, him.” Judith waved for Zoey to keep running. “Now come on, let’s get back to the apartment before this shitshow gets any worse.”
***
"So that's it then." Judith folded her arms and leaned against the counter. Her apartment's kitchen hadn't been cleaned in a few days. Dishes and scraps from about five different meals were still piled in the sink. "You're out?"
"Yeah." Zoey had pondered over how best to broach the subject. In the end, she'd just gone straight to the point, just like she'd done with Stray. Her backpack was already packed. Everything she owned fit inside it, just a few changes of clothes, her personal datapad, and crushed at the bottom, the stuffed toy she had taken from her home the day it had burned down. "I've gotta move on."
"Move on." Judith snorted. "You think it's that simple? You're thirteen--"
"Fourteen."
"Fourteen years old, whatever. Have you forgotten how up the creek you were when I picked you out of that police station?"
"That was then." Zoey adjusted the strap on her backpack. "This is now. I can take care of myself."
"Yeah, sure you can." Judith shook her head. "So, what's the deal here? Getting too good for this sort of work? That run-in with the Renegade get you spooked?"
"It's nothing like that," Zoey protested. "I just want to move on. I'm going to space, like I've always planned."
"So, what, you just hire yourself on to some shady asshole at the spaceport?"
"Yeah, something like that."
Judith huffed irritably. "Fine. You think that's gonna work out, more power to you. Just don't come running back here when you run into trouble and things don't work out. Maybe you haven't noticed these past few weeks, but I've got my own problems to deal with."
This was it then. Zoey'd felt a little bad when she'd left Stray, but with him she'd known that she wanted out and he'd agreed. She'd been through more with him than she had with Judith, but Judith had still taken her in and trained her in everything she knew. She was rough and course and always irritable, but she'd been an easier teacher than Stray. Easier to live with, by far.
"Thanks," she said. "Thanks for everything."
Judith waved dismissively. A few feet away, her com unit pinged. "Ah, well, not like I didn't profit off having you around. Now I gotta get back to working on my own. That, or find a new assistant."
"There is one other thing..."
Judith was already off looking at her datapad, frowning at the identity of her caller. "Yeah, what's that?"
"You need to pay me. For this month."
The thief shot her ex-assistant a bemused look. "Oh, really? Last time I checked, I don't pay for half work. Should have waited until the end of the month to quit, huh?"
Zoey spread her hands. "Think of it as my severance package."
"This is what I get for teaching you words like that," Judith muttered, tapping the datapad. "Fine. I'll transfer the creds to your account. Now get out of here, you little parasite."
Zoey nodded and went for the door. Better to just get things like this done quickly than to drag them out. She had to keep moving, find a new chapter in her life. She had to follow her gut on things like this. That wasn't something Stray or Judith had taught her, but it seemed reasonable enough of a rule to follow.
"I meant it," Judith called after her. "About you not coming back. You be careful out there."
Zoey waved at her teacher one last time before stepping out into the breezy night. Her gut ached and there was a lump in her throat, but she smiled all the same. Judith talked tough, but she cared. She'd always cared.
She adjusted the backpack and walked out into the well-lit city night.
===Chapter Three: Washed Up===
"That was too close," Gavin Dunn said to no one in particular.
He leaned back in the Chancer V's pilot seat and glanced about the cockpit. Odds and ends were still scattered in all directions, upset from their usual cluttered resting places by the ship's emergency autopilot launch. Gavin would need to put everything back in its place, but right now he was just grateful that the autopilot functions he'd built into his precious freighter were enough to handle the precise maneuvering required to fly through a city without him at the helm.
This wasn't the first time the autopilot had saved him from Stray's pursuit. It wasn't even the second. But this was the second time that Stray had gotten within spitting distance before Gavin had slipped away. If the young merc wasn't so damn set on bringing him in alive, Gavin knew he'd have been dead a long time ago. Stray was a far more effective hunter when he shot to kill.
"He took a real dive on that one," Gavin told the empty cockpit. "That armor probably kept him in one piece, but I hope he's not hurt."
He considered this for a moment. "Well, not too badly, anyway."
He spread his arms theatrically. "Another daring escape, courtesy of Captain Dunn and the Chancer V," he announced. The words bounced around the grubby cockpit and left him sitting in silence and recycled air.
Gavin shook his head and folded his arms across his chest. "Yeah. Sounded better in my head."
Perhaps he should get the Chancer an AI. Not the smart variety--that would cost a fortune--or even a dumb personality--that would cost a slightly smaller fortune. Just a VI program with enough processing power to listen in on him ramble. And maybe, just maybe, to ramble back once in a while.
Because I'm just swimming in cash for upgrades right now.
Stray might have crashed and burned--again--on this latest capture attempt, but truth be told Gavin was feeling just as washed-up as his pursuer. Freighters didn't run by themselves, and they needed far more maintenance than a tune up and an oil change here and there. Upgrades and patch jobs all cost money, as did full-on ship replacement, as Gavin had learned the hard way with the first four Chancers. And right now he wasn't exactly swimming in job offers. Having a Syndicate contract on your head tended to look bad on a resume. These past few months, he'd been forced to make ends meet with hauling cargo for employers too small-time or too backwater to care what the Syndicate thought of him.
It wasn't even that he'd done anything that heinous. He might despise the Syndicate and everything it stood for, but he wasn't dumb enough to challenge them outright. He'd just skipped out on a few cargo "taxes" and made a point of not buying into the usual "trade coalition" scams local Syndicate kingpins liked to pull. But he and the Chancer had committed the crime of becoming too well known; soon people had started to see them as proof that independent spacers actually could make a living on the frontier without kowtowing to the Syndicate's authority. Most of them had come out here to escape the long reach of the United Earth Government, only to realize that the Syndicate's control over trade was even more far reaching. A few too many other captains had started following Gavin's lead, and before he had even realized what was happening there was a bounty on his head.
All things considered, it could be worse. The price on his head wasn't even that big, mainly just a warning from the Syndicate to toe the line and not rock the boat. But once Stray had gotten wind of it, he'd been after that bounty with a vengeance.
Gavin sighed. It always came back to Mamore, didn't it? The one shadow he could never escape loomed out of his rebel past and seeped into the life he was trying to build for himself out here. First Venter, then Stray...
He shook his head. "I'm sorry, guys."
Allana and Tom had been a good crew, always faithful and never hesitating to follow him into whatever job he took on. He'd led them away from the Humanity Liberation Front and into the spacer life... and then they'd come full circle and crashed right back into the Insurrection's jaws.
Gavin closed his eyes and tried not to remember his friends' corpses. Their eyes peered up at him, lit in the flames of the burning Chancer IV, as cold and dead as the look in Redmond Venter's remaining eye as he looked his best friend square in the face and ordered his execution. Death to traitors.
He'd led them to their deaths, just like every other time people had put their faith in him. It was better this way, just him alone on his ship. He trusted the Chancer and she trusted him back. Simple and uncomplicated.
Not a month after Allana and Tom had died and Gavin had christened the Chancer V, Stray had picked up his trail and been after him ever since. Gavin barely had time for even the few jobs left to him now that he had to be looking over his shoulder after the traitor Spartan every other minute. He was nearly broke, the Chancer needed maintenance, and he was running out of places to turn.
Gavin allowed himself one more sigh before straightening in his seat and flexing his hands. Time to get back to it. He could only allow himself so much melancholia at a time; it was bad for your health, not to mention your outlook. Gavin had not gotten this far by moping about things he couldn't change. You accepted that things were the way you were and you moved on, finding ways around the obstacles and adapting to the situation.
It was his secret of survival.
If the past wouldn't let go of him, fine. He'd use that to his advantage. He hadn't left just bad memories in his wake.
Gavin fired up the Chancer's navigation system and plotted a Slipstream course for Talitsa. It was time to ring up an old friend.
And I'd better pray she can point me in the direction of some work.
***
It took Stray the better part of two hours to hobble away from the casino and away from downtown New Tyne. The sight of an armed and armored figure limping down the streets earned a few strange looks from passers-by, but no one said anything or stopped to question him. People on Venezia knew the virtue of minding their own business and not getting involved with anything even remotely dangerous that didn’t also involve them getting paid.
The fall from the Chancer V hadn’t been that bad, all things considered. Stray’s armor had taken the worst of the impact, and even then his reinforced bones could handle far more than a tumble from a few stories. But the aches and scrapes were beginning to kick in and every step he took sent a tremor of pain through his body.
No one had ever bothered to tell Stray when his birthday was; things like that had never been much of a concern during Gamma Company’s training on Onyx, and after that he’d never had much of an opportunity to find out. He was fairly certain that he was nineteen or so; his body had been conditioned and augmented into peak physical condition and he had pushed through and endured far worse than falls and scrapes.
But the Spartan-III known as Simon-G294 had been fighting on battlefield after battlefield since he was seven years old with little in the way of rest or reprieve. He had gone from one fight to another, taking just as much punishment as he doled out, and once he had deserted the UNSC and become Stray he had lost access to the top-line medical treatment and intense physical therapy that kept Spartans in top shape. He made do with field medicine and the occasional stint at run-down frontier hospital. He was always on the run, always living in constant readiness for another ONI hit squad to come calling; there was no room for rest or relaxation. And now that he made his living as a mercenary, his life was simply battle after battle.
How long can I keep this up?
Stray tried not to think about the future; disappointment cut less when you had no expectations. But every day he got by on just a few hours of sleep, taking refuge in makeshift hideouts he and Diana had set up across Venezia and other frontier worlds. Always on the move, never staying in one place more than a few days at most.
A circle, going around and around. Until the circuit breaks.
He missed Zoey. She’d been a constant, someone who shared the constant moving and fighting. She might have been an endless source of guilt and trouble, to be sure. An extra mouth to feed and an irritating waif of a student. But she’d been there. That counted for something.
He trudged to a stop and glanced up at his destination: a run-down, single-story building shrouded in shadows and surrounded on all sides by larger buildings. Its ceiling hung low as it crouched amidst the New Tyne outskirts like a defeated animal. Even in the shadows, Stray could make out a small sign lying in the dust by the crumpled door frame: Medical clinic. All are welcome.
He glanced up at the shattered clinic and shook his head. Another source of comfort, eroded away by the march of time.
Yeah, I miss you, Cassandra. Did you ever think I wouldn’t?
He slipped through the ruined door and into the clinic’s interior. Dust and splinters of building covered the ground; the walls and ceiling still bore the scorch marks of the blast that had torn the clinic apart.
This place used to stand for something. Now it's just another wreck out here with all the others.
Stray had helped set the charges that did this. He could still remember shaping the explosives as if he’d just done it yesterday. Cassandra had wanted to make sure the Insurrectionist mob that came after her paid for stripping the impoverished outskirt community of their best medical source. It had been an oddly vengeful move for his friend, but then again, she really had loved this clinic.
Stray had come to Venezia to hide from the UNSC and use his skills to turn a profit. His fellow outcast Spartan had come here to use her skills to help others.
He glanced about the ruined reception area and tried to remember it on a sunny day, when it was still intact and he was slipping into a bustling clinic for more medical supplies and another tongue-lashing from Cassandra. The image flashed in front of his eyes for a moment, but then it was gone, leaving nothing but an odd lump in Stray’s gut. Emptiness.
He found an open space amidst the blasted out shack and slid down to the ground. All of his other hideouts were a ways from here; the clinic was as good a place to rest as any. He leaned against the wall, a battered suit of armor lying amidst the wreckage, almost indistinguishable from the flotsam around him.
“Not going after Gavin?” Diana asked smoothly. She’d been oddly quiet ever since the Chancer had escaped; off on her own business, no doubt. “Gotten tired of failure? Maybe you should look into a different line of work altogether. You could try for a professional doormat.”
“Just be quiet,” Stray muttered, digging a proximity alarm out of his combat webbing and latching it to the floor beside him. “Keep watch and let me rest. Just a few hours.”
“Well, you couldn’t have picked a better spot. You want me to call her up for you? See how things are going?”
“Don’t bother.”
“You could have gone with her, you know.”
“No, I couldn’t have.”
“Oh? How’s that?”
“She didn’t want me to.”
Diana paused for a few seconds, as if processing this. “She never said that.”
“She didn’t have to.”
Stray closed his eyes and was glad when Diana didn’t respond. The hunt would resume, right after he got just a little rest in. He'd be moving again before these latest bruises had even started to heal. He pushed the thoughts of failure and poverty and loneliness and fear away and tried to rekindle the dwindling flame in his gut. Anything to keep himself going.
I’m going to bring you in Gavin. You can’t run forever. And I won’t stop until I’ve got you.
===Chapter Four: A Calling of Powers===
From a distance, Famul was merely a vaguely attractive jewel floating amidst the stars. The trackless deserts that covered most of its surface were interrupted here and there by patches of green and blue: the sites of terraformed forests and grasslands along with the artificial lakes and oceans that nourished them. These colors joined together in an uneven spherical tapestry that drew the eye for only a moment before becoming as commonplace as all of the oxygen-less companions that traveled alongside it in its endless journey around their sun. Merely another planet amongst the billions of others that filled the galaxy.
But when you drew closer and your ship's sensors became useful, the picture became much more interesting. What had once been nondescript specks against the light of the planet were now spacecraft, transports and warships that drifted together in a parade of different sizes and origins. The largest of these were battered, Covenant-made cruisers and even a single carrier that dwarfed all of the others, but the rest ranged from smaller corvette and transport class Covenant ships to blocky, ugly human vessels to strange hybrids of both. This ragtag fleet drifted around the planet and its two moons, both of which were dotted with weapons emplacements and pressurized living domes.
And when you moved through the upper atmosphere and the ships that orbited within it, you found even more activity on the surface. Fishing vessels and hovercraft trawled the lakes and oceans while the plains and forests were covered by pre-fabricated living spaces, defensive positions, and marketplaces that teemed with all the species the galaxy had to offer. A similar panoply of small craft filled the skies with their patrols and flight patterns, which stretched from the upper atmosphere to paths that nearly brought them crashing into the ground.
There was all that, on this one planet.
And then, of course, there were the slave pits.
The vast majority of them were just that: pits. Holes in the ground with walls supporting walkways and guard towers that overlooked the unending misery that played itself out below. Those unfortunate enough to find themselves as the captives in those pits were just as varied in race as the denizens of the marketplaces, though these were mostly half-starved, bleeding, and naked. Those not slated for work duty or being prepared for an exhibition in the market did their best to find what shelter they could and avoid the hungry gazes of the armed Jiralhanae guards who stalked amongst them, Spikers at the ready to carve savage marks of punishment into those who drew their ire.
These monuments to squalid misery dotted the outskirts of the terraformed lands, outnumbering the settlements by almost two to one and forming barriers between the lush plains and the unending deserts.
This, then, was the planet Famul. And like every isolated kingdom, it had a king.
***
Category:ZOD Stories