Madness isn't what everyone thinks of when they hear the word. It isn't screaming and erratic behavior. That's the sane part of your mind trying to hang on. True madness is seductive and quiet as a first kiss. It's also as forceful and insistent as entwined lovers straining, yearning for release. The longer the madness is allowed to run freely, the weaker the other part becomes until it's no more than the beating of a moths wings in the back of your mind. The madness first entered Reuben that awful day the news came of the death of BROTHER. He still can't say his name. Weasel, as Reuben was now known, had first let the madness run 3 months later, the day he found Mother dead. He knew she had died of a hole in her heart caused by the death of the elder son that the younger one could never fill. He left Garoun Investment station in Amygnon, family home for years, that day aboard an egger freighter. Then another ship and another, his engineering skills buying passage until he finally caught one going to Serpentis Prime station. The Snake Pit, as the locals call it, where all snakes eventually return.
He watched the recording before going to sleep, as he had every night since that day.
"Turning to station news, engineers investigating last nights power outage on Restaurant Row, found the body of the manager of The Aurora Lounge. He had been bound and beaten to death according to the coroners office. Police are theorizing the outage was caused by malicious code inserted into the power grid controller to give cover to a gang of thieves that robbed a number of establishments there. They believe the manager was working alone in his office at the time of the outage and was killed by the robbers. The chief engineer could not explain why the Aurora still had power nor why the manager had not heard or heeded the evacuation order for that section. Police say they have no suspects and are asking anyone with information to contact them. They declined to identify the victim pending notification of his family."
The second part of his ritual: He switched to the second holo-vid.
"This is Jeina Marova for Amygnon Action News with an update to a story we brought you 2 days ago. The body of a suspected Serpentis slicer was found in an airlock this morning. Police believe Tarik Lovatnos hacked the power grid and that he was killed by the Restaurant Row thieves to ensure his silence about the murder of the manager of the Aurora. GPD sources say they are seeking information on what they are calling seven "Persons of Interest" in the crimes. The seven men were caught on holo-vid entering the affected area and then again about an hour later leaving. They were later seen boarding a suspected Serpentis transport. A system-wide apb has been issued,but it is feared they have left the system and very probably, Federation space."
Weasel had known them all. He had gone to school with them. Jax D'Ornan was their leader, being bigger and meaner than all the rest. Being four years behind them, they never knew Weasel existed. After graduation, Jax had tried to enter the academy. He had wanted to be an egger, but the scientists who conducted the testing said he was susceptible to a condition called "Mindlock". If he were ever to be implanted into a ship, his mind would be trapped, unable to interact with the outside world except thru a ships' interface. Stung by that rejection, all he ever talked about was joining the Serpentis and killing capsuleers. And where Jax led, the rest followed. He could've gone to the police. He could've told them who the men were. But the madness was already there, whispering "Their punishment belongs to US. We know where they're going. We wil bring HIM justice."
He began the third and final part of the ritual: The Picture.
He took the small, glass-covered pastel-on-paper drawing down from its' place on the shelf. Behind the glass, a young man, dressed in his Federation Navy dress grays, stared out into his future while a four year old boy stared up at his big brother with hero worship in his eyes. The paper, once a pristine white, had yellowed with the passage of time. Had it really been almost 30 years? It had been made for them by a travelling artist and was the only personal memento he had taken with him. He spoke to his brothers' image, promising justice for him and vengeance for himself. He put the picture back and shut off the light with a final prayer.
"Lord, let tomorrow be the day."
There are 2 classes of pilots in the Serpentis Corporation; the combat pilots,who are called "Snakes" and hauler pilots who are called "Rats", because, as the old joke goes, Snakes eat Rats. The general progression of combat pilots was to serve as crewman for 3 months. If they survived, and didn't cause any major catastrophes on board, they were sent to 3 days flight training. It basically consisted of classes in how to undock, dock, this button locks target, this one fires the guns and here's how to run like hell. Now here's your frigate, Captain. Go get 'em. New captains were generally assigned to hi-sec space, doing things like harrassing miners and performing escort duty. If they survived 6 months of that, they would be upgraded to a cruiser, then a battlecruiser and ultimately to a battleship. Weasels job as ship maintenance tech allowed him access to all of them. He had also made friends with a personnel director who would keep him posted on crew assignments and when they were scheduled to come to the pit.
Over the past two years, they all had come thru the station several times and Weasel always made a point to seek them out and show them a good time. As he expected, not one of them showed the faintest flicker of recognition. He felt invincible. The first time he saw Jax, he was afraid that Jax might recognize him, because he had known Weasels brother. At least enough to know to stay away. He needn't have worried. Jax tended to ignore anyone he considered inferior, which was almost everyone he met, unless they were buying the drinks. Weasel always bought the drinks. That was how he found out how much Jax still wanted to be a capsuleer.
A very drunk Jax had told him many things the last time he came through. He told Weasel about his many exploits since joining the Snakes. In Jax' mind, he was the best pilot out there. It wasn't his fault they kept giving him incompetent crews and poorly maintained ships. He couldn't understand why he didn't have his own cruiser yet, especially when two of the guys he had brought in with him were already in BATTLECRUISERS! Jax just knew he was a much better pilot than those two idiots. Of course,he was better off than one of his old crew. He had gotten himself killed tangling with an egger somewhere in Gallente Space. (NONONONONO!! THEY'RE OURS!!! How could we have missed that!?!). Weasel called it a night shortly after that.
Weasel made his plans after that. He now had an endgame. He decided Jax would be last. The more he thought about it, saving him for last just felt right. He had enough friends in the right places to ALMOST guarantee the idiots safety. He couldn't take the chance on any more of the rest dying. Also, what he had planned REQUIRED that Jax get his ass in a GODDAMN BATTLECRUISER! That was the smallest ship the Snakes bothered putting escape pods on, deeming those crews harder to replace. And he was still running around in fucking FRIGATES! Didn't he realize he was screwing up his own funeral?
With Jaguar dead, that left five deaths to plan. Easy enough to do when the madness runs free. Except for Jax, they didn't even have names to him anymore, just callsigns.
Swoop was the first. A fleet was being put together meet a Guristas attack force that was trying to take control of the Aunia system. Everyone was supposed to fly to coordinates in the system where a warp gate was set up to take them to the marshalling area. The first units there found a Guristas gate 100k away from theirs. When they sent a message to base, It was simple to hold him up for a few minutes for a "maintenance issue", tweak his navicomp to send him to the wrong gate, and install a subroutine that would simultaneously cut his comms and play a special message to him on his console when he was down to 10% structure. The entire scene on the bridge was recorded, encrypted and transmitted back to Weasel. A ghost of a smile played on his lips that night while he slept.
The whispers were blessedly silent, for a while. But when two months had passed, they began again. They pushed and prodded him, while he performed his regular duties, while he slept. Even while he was performing the tasks neccessary to bring it all to an end.
Rattler was next. His was actually the easiest. He was a gambler, an addict, and deeply in debt. A rumor was planted in the ear of someone who Weasel knew would enlarge it and pass it on. Within a few hours, with the help of a "misplaced" datapad, Rattler was a Concord spy. He was treated to a spy's death. He was chained to the wall in his quarters, which were then slowly exposed to the cold and vacuum of space. The vid-screen told Rattler exactly why he was dying thanks to a short-range transmitter. When he finally died, his body was tethered over the docking bay, as a warning to others.
We must work faster. Someone is going to put the pieces together and then it will be too late. Weasel was afraid the voice was right. The next week, Wizard, Squeak and Wolf had come to the station.
Wizard was going to be a problem. He had transferred to Rat Squad. Haulers were always well guarded and all incidents were thoroughly investigated. He had also become sullen and withdrawn, according to some of the other Rats. Wizard had even turned down Weasels' usual offer of a drink. It seemed he couldn't get away fast enough. He had a haunted (hunted?) look in his eyes that Weasel couldn't explain. Squeak and Wolf of course joined him. Unfortunately, they could shed no light on Wizards behavior either.
Explanation came the next afternoon. It was Weasels' day off. He was spending it as he usually did, in ship storage modifying the Brutix-Class hull he had selected as Jax'. It wasn't a standard Brutix, but a capsuleer hull someone had stolen from a wrecked freighter. When it came in, he knew it was perfect for what he had planned. He immediately logged it in as damaged beyond repair and moved it to storage. He had been working on it for months and it was nearly complete. The capsule recepticle was turned back into the ships' bridge, but Weasel had modified it to look as much like a capsule as possible. Jax would love it. The other modifications he would hate when he found them, but by then it would be too late. He was installing the last pieces, the roof cap for the bridge and the hull plate that went over it when an explosion shuddered the station. He took off at a run for the docking bay, which was where it had come from.
It was chaos. Outside the end of the docking tunnel, between the force field and the station shield, was a mass of twisted metal that once was at least one ship. Weasel saw one of the new techs standing there slack-jawed.
"Shel, what the hell happened?"
" I don't know. The tugs had just turned them loose. When they hit the shield, the Itty went up. The two escort frigs just melted. I never seen anything like it. Why didn't their shields protect them?"
" They were still inside the station shield. Ships can't raise their shields until they pass thru it. An Itteron and two frigs, you say?" A horrible suspicion began to take root in his mind. " Any idea who it was?"
"Yeah. Wiz was in the itty and Wolf and Squeak were in the frigs. It was a milk run to an outpost with a load of ammo. It wasn't even supposed to be their run, but the assigned pilots were all down sick."
Shel told him something else, but he wasn't listening. He was trying to hold back the scream threatening to tear itself from his throat. It was a long moment until he trusted himself to speak coherently.
"Grab some of the guys and give the dock crew a hand. I need to go check the logs."
He turned and left without waiting for an answer. When he returned to his quarters, he noticed the message light blinking on the holo-vid and automatically punched play without even looking at the screen. What he heard made him turn so violently he fell down. He sat on the floor, staring at the screen.
It was Wizard.
" Hello Reuben. By the time you see this, I will be dead. So will Garan and Chet. It's taken me a while, but I finally remembered you. I figured it out last night when I heard about Kailen. He was no spy. But he was the third guy from the old crew to die. That took me back to when we left the GIBV station for good. I knew their deaths had to be connected. When I remembered Dallren had a brother, I tried to contact him. I was told he had disappeared a few months after his brothers' murder. Then I knew. Garan and Chet will know,too, before they die. I want you to know how sorry I am. We should've left when we saw the Aurora still had power. Jax said we had to finish or the Serps would never take us seriously. Back then, we all just followed his lead. When we found your brother, we got him to open the safe, then we tied him up. I thought we were just going to leave, but Jax said no witnesses. He also wanted to teach "Mr High-and-Mighty" a lesson. He started the beating, but we all took turns. Anyway, I'm glad it will soon be over. This is my act of atonement and my gift. I've disabled the dampers in the hold. When we hit the shield, the power surge will cook off the ammo. Jax I leave to you."
Tears streamed down Reubens face. He mourned his brother. He mourned the man who had found redemption only at the moment of death. And he mourned for the man he had become, driven by madness, set on an unalterable course by events he had not been a part of, but had nonetheless brought him here. He sat there staring at Wizards frozen image through the night.
The tears were done. It was time to make an end. He checked the time and saw that the ship was finished. Flight operations had resumed after the clean up. Reuben sent a mission profile to Jax and a flight crew. He then went to check on his handiwork. Everything was perfect. He moved the ship to the ready line, left a datapad on the main console and disappeared.
Jax and the crew came aboard and began their pre-flight checks. When he got to the bridge and opened the blast doors, he stopped and stared. Instead of a standard Brutix bridge, what greeted him was an almost organic looking control pod. It had one command chair in front of an impressive array of monitors and controls. Jax noticed the datapad and picked it up. The message read "sit down and power up the ship." As soon as he did,the main monitor came to life. Reubens smiling image came to life.
"Hello Jax. I hope you like the ship. I prepped her especially for you when I heard about your promotion. I tried to make the bridge as close to a capsule as I could. Your destination is preprogrammed into the autopilot and a bookmark is in the navicomp when you get there. Undock, hit the button and there's nothing between you and your destiny." With a grin,he did.
It was 33 uneventful jumps to Amygnon. Jax had a momentary twinge of conscience when he saw where he was that was replaced by very real pain in his spine when he began his warp to the bookmark. He found he couldn't move his limbs.
When the ship came out of warp,all hell broke loose. Alarms rang out across the ship. The P.A. came alive,ordering the crew to the lifepods, warning of a warpcore breach. The ship began to shudder from the launches. Jax could do nothing.
When the last pod left, the engines suddenly came to life. The ship had been orbiting above the blue-green gas giant planet, Amygnon 6. Suddenly, it was diving toward the planet. That's when Reuben came out of hiding and stood in front of Jax.
" What the Hell? What are you doing here? What's happening? Why can't I move?"
Reuben checked the readouts. Everything was perfect.
"Sshh, all in good time Jax. We have about three hours. Plenty of time to talk. Plenty of time for you to feel."
"What happens then?"
"The atmospheric pressure of the planet will crush this ship and put an end to this. together, we will enter eternity."
"But why? Who the hell are you?"
And for the next three hours, Reuben told him.
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Topic: [Fiction Contest Entry] Criminal Justice (Read 1371 times)