Salvage 33: Pieces in Play
by Rantarian
More than one day and less than two. That was about as certain about Earth-time as Jen could be about anything these days, and it had taken that long to get themselves to the source of the radiation burst.
There had been some local suspicion that it had emanated from the red dwarf near those coordinates, but that information had been unfounded and from what Zripob had said extremely unlikely from a scientific standpoint. They had still traveled there in short hops, however, because neither of them wanted to drop out of FTL into a radiation oven.
What they had dropped into was just as staggering; the dark form of the Zhadersil lit only dimly by the small stars wan light, surrounded by a field of Hunter vessels; some of them still showing signs of power, and others destroyed with huge holes in their hulls.
Zripob gasped involuntarily at the sight of so many Hunters, and immediately readied to get the fuck out of there. Jen, however, ran a scan across them.
"Wait!" she said abruptly. "We don't need to go anywhere. I can't see those vessels being any sort of menace. Take a look at the readings."
Zripob did so, reading over them twice before he was satisfied. "They're all as radioactive as that Celzi cruiser was. But that's impossible, the Zhadersil only has one such gun."
"There was a famous detective on Earth - who wasn't real mind you - who said the 'once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'" Jen quoted. "What we're seeing here is the truth, Zripob. Somehow he must have done it."
Zripob sat thoughtfully, eventually sighing and looking back towards his own console. "Even the badly damaged vessels are irradiated. When you consider that and the radiation burst that was detected, it seems as though an undirected attack was made. The Zhadersil itself is also incredibly radioactive."
Jen was silent at that, she hadn't yet looked that far down the list of data to see. She hadn't really wanted to, because that being the case meant that even though they'd found the Zhadersil, they had absolutely no way of getting onboard; the radiation would cook them in under ten heartbeats, and then two more corpses would join Adrian on the ship.
"I'm seeing plenty of light hull damage to the Zhadersil," Zripob noted as he looked over the more detailed scans. "Looks like the Hunters really gave it a pounding. There are assault pods landed on the outside as well... And that's strange, the whole cargo bay door is wide open. Jen, it may be possible to send in a hover camera we're not afraid of leaving behind."
"Let's do it," Jen decided immediately. "Maybe was can get a better understanding of what happened here."
"Go get one out of supplies. I won't bring us in too close to the Zhadersil because it'll start cooking our own hull," Zripob told her. "That shouldn't cause us any problems though."
"Good," Jen replied. "I think we've got enough of those already."
Irbzrk Orbital Factory Main Station
Cameron White had been somewhat surprised when the mice had split their numbers. Two of them had left on the freighter, including the redhead, but he other two had stayed and begun offering their assistance to the manhunt.
Cameron had considered following the redhead, but there was little to gain from that right now and much to lose if they detected his own ship following at his usual discreet distance. The redhead was interesting but the two left behind had piqued his curiosity. What did they hope to achieve? Did they have a plan? The prospect was exciting even if the plan turned out to be as shit as he expected.
He wanted to know what their plan was, and then he wanted to turn it against them. That was always the most sublime part of the game, seeing the knowledge in their eyes when they realise that all of their efforts have worked against them; seeing their fear and desperation when they finally began to understand the futility of resistance and yet resisting anyway.
He hoped he would see that look in the redhead's eyes before he had to kill her. It was always a better experience with another human, especially a pretty young thing, and just thinking about it made him get a little hard.
He would have to take his time on her though, he mustn't rush; it might be a long time before he had to deal with another human and he would have to savour this one.
But for now Cameron White was focusing on the other mice, and he was very pleased to discover the creation of a citizen's militia to deal with the 'human menace'. Dressed as he was he was he had no difficulty in joining that and it amused him to take part in hunting himself. It also let him learn their plans and to sow disinformation where possible.
And it let him play at being the wolf amongst the sheep.
He'd been keeping the fear up as well, striking at the xenos with impunity and leaving his silly little notes that none of them - save the redhead - could ever possibly read. For a full night he played at Jack the Ripper, slicing out organs and leaving them to the police as little gifts.
The outrage on that had been wonderful, the terror in the air had been palpable. The ground was fertile for his little suggestions that none of this would be happening if not for the human woman and her gang of thieves. That if only they were to leave and never return the people of Irbzrk would be left in peace. That if they didn't want to leave voluntarily they would have to be made to.
Those little suggestions had taken root far faster than he had hoped. Almost overnight the rumours had spread, twisting their way into new and hateful forms the further they spread. It made a fine London lad proud to see his hard efforts taking on a life of their own like that, and he was smiling on the inside every time he heard one with a new spin.
And then, on the third day, they started handing out stun guns.
Those clever little mice.
Cavaras, Corti Directorate Core World
"This seems like a very stupid plan," Askit remarked as they sat watch outside Iridis Industries headquarters.
"Your comments were noted the last fifty fucking times you repeated them," Adrian replied irritably. "The plan might be simple but simple usually works."
"You're intending to go in there, take senior employees hostage, and leave by the roof where Gdugin will be waiting. That is both simple and stupid! What makes you think security will just let a government investigator through?"
"I had considered that maybe I would lie about that," Adrian replied dryly. "You know you're very unadventurous for someone who hacked Dominion Intelligence."
"A lesson in humility hard learned," Askit returned.
"So long as you can get into the security systems here we won't have a problem," Adrian assured him. "As long as this little wireless plug works you don't even have to go inside."
"It does help that you're only risking your own self," the little Corti admitted.
"Then just sit tight and let me go take the chances," Adrian said. "I'll contact you once the connection is ready."
He switched to his communicator. "Gdugin, are you in position?"
Gdugin responded immediately. "Standing by. I put down a plastic sheet for if you wanted to do the torture straight away."
Adrian frowned; there was something wrong with anyone who was that eager to conduct torture. "That's... great," he said reluctantly. "And on that fucked up bombshell let's get this show on the road."
With that he slipped out of the transport cab and walked towards the entrance to Iridis Industries looking as much as he could as though he was supposed to be there.
He strode directly up to the front desk which was managed by a Corti receptionist and some kind of disgusting slug in a robot suit. Just when you thought the list of fucked up shit was as long as it was going to get, you discover slugs with big brains.
He leaned across the desk and waited for the Corti to pay attention to him.
"G'day," he said. "I'd like to see the man in charge. You see, I'm here to make us all incredibly rich."
Irbzrk Orbital Factory Main Station
Jennifer Delaney. Mid-twenties, space-babe pirate queen. Utterly disappointed by two days of solid efforts involving searching through a thousand Hunter corpses for a body that was decidedly missing. The best they had found was a Hunter with a smashed face just outside of the cargo bay.
Neither of them had any explanation as to what that meant, but it seemed to Jen that if they couldn't find Adrian's body that meant it wasn't here. That meant that the Hunters had taken him, or it meant that he was alive.
Neither possibility gave her the closure she had sought. She didn't want to think about Adrian being eaten, but if he had somehow survived then why hadn't he been seen? Why hadn't he come looking for them? It didn't seem likely that he would have abandoned them, no matter how ashamed he might be of what he'd done to... them.
Fuck. She'd really been hoping for closure. She'd contacted Chir and Trycrur as soon as the ship had dropped into the Irbzrk system, wanting to know what was happening here. She had been hoping for good news but she had been almost instantly disabused of the notion.
"I'm not even sure how many people have died at this point, Jen," Chir said. He sounded like the investigation had put him through hell, and knowing what a really demented psychopath could do, Jen thought that maybe he had.
"I might regret this," she said, "but tell me what you have found."
"I can do better than that," he replied. "I took pictures. There were more messages and... other things."
Jen knew she was going to regret asking the next question, but at the same time she knew she had to. "What other things?"
Chir whined, not a noise she'd ever previously noted from the normally dour Gaoian. "There were some victims who had their organs cut out. The pieces were dropped into the police physical mail bin."
"Like Jack the Ripper?" she asked automatically. She recalled her history lessons on that rather well since it had been one of paid television's favourite topics.
"You know about this sort of thing?!" Chir asked in complete horror. "Is this sort of thing common on Earth?"
"Of course not!" Jen replied sharply. "That happened generations ago, and it was notorious exactly for the same reasons you are so horrified by all of this."
"How did your own authorities catch this 'Jack the Ripper', then?" Chir asked. "Perhaps we could-"
"They... didn't," Jen interrupted. "Not exactly, anyway. It wasn't until just recently that they learned his identity, and the only reason that he stopped killing was because he was arrested on unrelated charges and locked up forever in an insane asylum."
"That is not the heartening news I had been hoping for," Chir replied unhappily. "We've created a militia to keep searching, but they just keep finding more bodies. Now there's rumours going around saying that we're to blame for the killer being here. You in particular, Jen."
"That's just stupid!" Jen protested. "Why would they think that?"
"Maybe they think all humans are the same?" Chir replied. "I don't know. We've just given them the 'stun guns' Trycrur has designed, so maybe that will improve things, but if nothing changes soon..."
"They're going to turn on us," Jen finished. "That's what mobs do. It isn't possible that we really are to blame, is it?"
"I don't know," Chir said after a brief and awkward silence. "Maybe. Take a look at the pictures I'm sending over and maybe you'll know for sure."
"Alright," Jen said. "Take care of yourself, Chir. Zripob and I will dock and lay low, so if you need to get away in a hurry you know where to come."
With that Chir was gone, and pictures were dropping onto Jen's data pad.
She sighed and started the process of looking through the ghastly things. What had she done to deserve all this?
Not for the first time she wished that Adrian was still here, and this time she didn't even bother to push the thought aside. She missed him, but he was dead and she was alone to deal with a crazy man.
Life just kept throwing the punches.
