Chapter One: Cowards

     It’s funny how one’s appreciation for space disintegrates the moment they’re thrown from an airlock. Hurtling through the void. Nothing to act upon. Nothing to act upon them, lost. In this regard, Reed Firlow was no different than anyone else. Long held memories of his childhood dreaming of the stars felt more like suicidal ideations than hopeful ambitions as he watched the vessel he had called home for the last three years continue along its course without him. Fifteen minutes worth of oxygen in a suit that would fail any honest inspection was all he was promised as he was thrown from the Sigrun. It almost made him regret the times he had cast others to a similar fate. Almost.

The Sigrun’s engines flickered and waned into the void, taking with it any hope that Reed had of a last second miracle. The time-worn and heavily modified frigate continued its retrograde orbit around Saturn on the heels of the sickly white state-of-the-art science vessel it was under contract to escort; its own ion engines pulsing purple as it went. The science vessel, The Autumn’s Rest, had been sent by Torbeck Industries of Mars to the outer colonies and The Sigrun had been hired to protect her on her return journey. The intercorporate war waged between the Torbeck/Haide Auxiliary Forces and whomever their shareholders demanded wore the galaxy’s militaries thin. When enough honest men had died the companies began making independent contractors of pirates. Reed had been willing to take up the title of privateer if it meant half of the galaxy would turn a blind eye to him openly robbing merchant vessels belonging to the other half. Unfortunately that wasn’t the direction Tarron Farrowman, The Sigrun’s second, had wanted to take things.

“I would say it wasn’t personal,” Tarron had said as his cabal forced Reed into an emergency envirosuit, “But it got that way when my grandmother offered you the helm of The Sigrun.”  Reed’s hazy mind scrambled to reconstruct the last things he remembered before being thrown into space. Senek Silentsteel, Pharther Raze, and a handful of similar snakes that Reed didn’t recognize manhandled his torpid body as Tarron stood over him running his mouth. “At the risk of seeming sentimental, you were actually my friend there for a bit. And then after all of the battles… After all of the loss… After everything… This was my legacy. You just couldn’t look past your own ego. All you had to do was tell her no.”

Reed had told Commodore Esmeralda Davinow no. It just turned out that when a century-old pirate lord asked if you would do something for her she was actually issuing you a command shrouded in a brightly hued masquerade mask. That ancient, bedridden hag had promised Reed just one more job, one run with The Sigrun flying under his colors and she would hand over the encryption key. For five years Reed had tracked down the memories that had been plundered from his mind when he took his first contract with Haide Corps and then for half a decade more he had been strung along with the promise that the security that held them could be decrypted if he just worked hard enough.

“Maybe I should just put a scatter gun in your mouth or my sword through the nape of your neck,” said Tarron, kneeling down next to Reed’s face, “But I’m feeling poetic today. I want the last thing you see to be the reaping of what you’ve sown. As Death comes to hear your final story, I want the only thing burned into that thick skull of yours to be the image of me with what’s rightfully mine. I brought you into my family and you spat in my fucking face!” Flem and saliva harmonized into a grotesque projectile that splattered against Reed’s forehead and ran down his brow and into his eye. “You always wanted to know if it’s all been worth it. Well, now that you’re here at the end; was it fucking worth it?”

“Frph yur,” said Reed, the paralyzing agent Senek stuck him with showed no signs of ceasing its hold on his face. Though his cybernetic arm and leg whirred with anticipation, the compound held back the rest of his body. He blacked out as the cronies forced the enviro-helmet into place and didn’t come to until he was freely floating in the void. As he watched the ion thrusters of the two starships fade into the background of Saturn’s glittering rings, he wondered if Commodore Esmerelda knew her grandson would mutiny against him. He wondered if Tarron had always been so venomous he had convinced himself it was okay because it was part of the ends that were helping him to reach his means. He wondered what would happen to the crew that were closest to him; would they be killed for simply knowing him? He wondered if the decades of violence and revenge for something he couldn’t even remember were actually worth it. The only conclusion all that wondering brought him as he tumbled through the stars, however,  was that none of it mattered.

Rage flared somewhere deep within Reed Firlow’s soul. It was a rage that’s lineage included ire, regret, and fear. It was a rage that demanded retribution, pain, and blood. It was a rage that burned out with Reed’s hope as he accepted the spacesuit as his tomb.

*****

If Tap knew one thing about power it was that it never made a man better. He read enough history to know that when most men attempted to reach the peak of the proverbial mountain, they found it far easier to scale a ladder fashioned from subordinates' bones than to callous their own hands with a climb. Any inklings of decency needed to have been cultivated long before authority was inserted into a person’s repertoire to even give hope of sympathetic leadership. Unfortunately for Tap and the rest of The Sigrun’s crew, freshly self-appointed captain Tarron Farrowman was an asshole.

“You spaced him?” asked the portly, white-bearded man named Forge. “You set out to mutiny and you spaced him?” Tap stood next to Forge, his left hand on the hilt of his knife.

“Mutiny is a bit of a strong word, my old friend,” said Tarron, laying a lean, sinew-scored hand on Forge’s shoulder. The confined corridor outlined his muscled form perfectly, as if it were tailored for him that morning. “I prefer… Course correction.”

“Semantics be damned, Tarron. Reed Firlow was a storied man and you spaced him. He deserved more than that,” said Forge, his inflection even keeled. Tap couldn’t believe how calm Forge was. They had served as Reed’s advisor and ward, respectively, long before he had managed to become captain. They sought counsel with him, drank with him, and ate with him. Yet there they stood before the man that had killed him in cold blood and Forge sounded as if he was chatting with the cooks in the galley. A stiff ache coursed through Tap’s left hand and he realized the cautionary hold on the handle of his blade had evolved into a white knuckled grip on its pommel.

“Deserved? He was given far more than he deserved. Both in life and death.” Tarron stepped back from Forge and untied his topknot of silky black hair only to restore it even tighter. His eyes flicked from Forge’s gaze to Tap’s grip on his knife and back again. “He had enough oxygen in that suit to think which of his many stories he wanted to share with Death first.”

“Your grandmother’s code forbids the removal of a living captain without her consent, a crew’s vote, or by taking him to the chain. You had three choices and you missed them all, Tarron.”

“First of all, I think enough time has passed now that Reed no longer fits the criteria of ‘living captain’. And secondly…” Tarron grabbed Forge by the scruff of his cloak and pulled him closer than a partner in a waltz. “Don’t ever mention my grandmother again. The Sigrun is mine. This legacy will be mine; not hers!” Tap took half a step toward the intertwined duo to intervene before Forge stumbled back into him, pushed away by Tarron.

“You fucking cowards,” said Tap through gritted teeth, stepping once more toward Tarron before being pushed back again. This time by the lean, pale arm of Senek Silentsteel.

“Show your captain some respect, whelp,” said Senek, “I think it’s about time you and the geezer hit the trail, or should I carve you up?” Forge stepped forward now, his marble beard capped with anger fueled rosy-red cheeks. Tap felt a press against his back and turned to see a stream of crewmembers filtering through various corridors toward the commotion.

It had been mere minutes since Tarron and his coterie had heaved Captain Reed Firlow through the airlock, but it felt like news had already spread through the frigate bow to stern. The underlit maintenance corridor that ran along the belly of The Sigrun from fore to aft was cramped under normal circumstances and with each passing minute it introduced a new concept of discomfort by allowing more crewmates into its dark, metallic fold. Tap fought to stay at the front of the growing group. The pattering exchange of words between Forge and Tarron escalated to a thrum as everyone in the corridor attempted to be involved. 

Tap’s temples pulsed as the rising sound forced the constricted corridor even closer around him. Forge barked at Senek, planting his finger into the spindly man’s chest repeatedly, punctuating a point that wasn’t audible to Tap. The only words he could clearly hear from anyone involved in the disorderly scrum were the curses that were delivered with keen inflection. Though he couldn’t hear anyone in particular, he could see Tarron clearly. Standing less than a meter away, just behind the safety net of his ass kissers with a shit-eating grin on his face. He was relishing in the chaos; certainly an interesting way to begin a captaincy. Tap felt the vibration of his knife’s steel against its sheath as he readied it with no conscious or consideration. Just as the blade’s edge threatened to come free a hand clasped his wrist and forced the knife back into its leatherbound home. 

“Not now, boy,” said Forge into his ear, “Not like this.”

“They’re cowards, Forge,” said Tap, his grip loosening on his weapon as his friend’s words grounded his soul. Forge gently guided him far enough into the crowd to lose sight of Tarron and his minions. “They killed him.”

“I know, son. I know. But no sense letting them kill you as well, is there?”

“Is there no honor here?” Tap’s vision blurred with tears; tears of anger more than sorrow.

“No disrespect to Captain Firlow, may Death hear his final story, but I’m not certain honor’s been aboard The Sigrun for some time.” Tap dabbed his tears away with the brim of his own cloak, heaved a deep breath and ran his hand through his short hair. Forge gave him a comforting nod and a reassuring pat on the shoulder, “That’s it, son. We’ll have our day, but we have to be smart about it. He took care of us when he was here so it’s only right we take care of his loose ends now.”

“He always did care for us, didn’t he? Us and the rest of his Gathering… Shit. We have to tell the rest of the Gathering!" Every champion born in the Asteroid Fringe took up a Gathering of their own. An intimate group filled with individuals who tested their resolve and fashioned a bond with the champion. Reed, a proper Fringer until the end, wasted no time in forming a Gathering of his own. Tap, far from a Fringer, had just been lucky enough to be close to Forge as he was summoned to join. He counted the happenstance as his greatest blessing. Reed’s small group of mercenaries was filled with fierce warriors and tested tacticians; the type of people Tap dreamed of being as a kid and aspired to follow in the footsteps of now.

“Yes. They need to hear this from us first if possible. Shareef was in the bridge, I’ll grab him from there. Head to the barracks. Find Gorwik Endless. Waste no steps and meet me at the Well.” Tap nodded his head and forced his way through the throng, he stopped to look back only when the crowd’s reverberating chatter stopped and the lone voice of Senek.

“Ladies and gents, give it your all for the new and rightful captain of our beloved Sigrun, Captain Tarron Farrowman.” His grating voice bounced down the corridor and the crowd cheered.

 

 

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