It was late aboard the station only known as the "Barrier Gate Station" in Coronado. The mercs and random bounty hunters had either tucked in for the night or gone out on some late night missions. The blood never stopped pouring with those guys. It was like a ritual with them. I remembered the night well because I was there when the strange man limped into the bar, thudding into the wall and resting there for a few moments before sitting down at the bar.
He didn't do much of anything, he didn't even order a drink, he just stared at the bar top. Before long, other patrons that were in the bar started to get wary of the man. Some later admitted there was something familiar about him...like he had been there once before a long time ago. The man looked up, ocular implants clearly peaking out on either side of his right and left eyes. It was clear he had sufficient work done as far as implants go. This guy didn't seem like a joke.
"Whiskey." he said. His voice was deep, reminded me of an older man who had probably seen life's horrors and then some. The bartender put the drink down near the man gently and requested to be paid. The man didn't answer at first, he turned to the bartender with an irritated look. Suddenly he reached in his pocket and withdrew a credit chip worth close to a hundred-thousand credits. The bartender gaped. The man grabbed his drink and approached the tables. He smiled and looked behind him. "Don't lose that tab this time, Toby."
---
Why the crazy ones always sit with me I won't know, but I'm glad this guy did. He didn't give me his name at first, it seemed like he continued to think that saying it would invoke some kind of reaction from everyone in the bar. He settled with "Guy" for the time being, that's what I came up with to call him before he told me who he was. Only once did he look me in the eye while he talked, and god I wish he hadn't. The rest of the time he focused primarily on his glass as he sipped it's contents.
"So, Guy, what brings you to Barrier Gate?" I asked stupidly, like any man in his right mind would give me a straight answer out here in this part of Sirius.
"Looking for old friends." he said with a hint of a smile. "Trying to get the old gang back together. Drift out into space and take some marks for our own. Make some credits you know."
"So you're a mercenary?"
The man laughed and swirled his drink. "Something like that." he replied with another smile, almost like he knew a funny secret but wasn't telling. "Maybe you've seen them around. I'm looking for a skiddish fellow named Vadim Petrov, a hard-ass named Daniel Schneider, a partial humanoid robot named Render Beleren, and beautiful little flower named Jasmine Keller. Seen them around?"
I gaped. Those were some of the men apart of a mercenary group named the Children of Conviction. Mind you, they weren't around much when I was here, they were before my time aboard this station. I had certainly, however, heard and seen some of their legacy aboard this flying heap of junk in space...the only name he didn't have was...but that's not possible, he was dead.
Jacob Keller, their leader. One of the most ruthless, evil, and terrible men that had ever come through this station...minus that of the Joker, naturally. No one had ever truly seen his face. He vanished shortly after going on a patrol in the distant Omicron systems.
"I-I haven't. No one has for years, sir." I replied, trying to keep my wits about me.
"Hrm, those slackers probably went off somewhere to get stupid drunk." he mused to himself. "Then again...maybe they've just gone to ground." He continued on like I wasn't there. It went on for a few minutes before he stopped and looked directly at me and smiled. "Say, you looking for a job, kid?"
"Er...depends on the job, sir."
"You any good at flying a fighter? Anything really."
"Not really, Guy, I just stick to the bars and hop bases every once and a while."
"...are you at least literate?"
"One thing my mother made sure I had, smarts."
"Good, you're coming along with me to find these people. I need someone to record our little adventures."
"I'm not going to like these, 'adventures' am I?"
"Depends on how good your stomach is..." he offered his hand out to shake. "What's your name, son?"
"William Daniels, sir. Friends call me Freckles."
"Ha, I see why. My name is..." and in a whisper. "...Jacob Keller. We're going to have some fun."
I wish I'd have just continued knowing him as "Guy"...I about pissed my pants.
I'll say one thing for Commander Keller, the man is a neat freak. I've never seen a fighter that clean...or new...hell, I'd never even been inside a fighter until we left Barrier Gate Station. Soon as we hit the jumphole, I remembered why.
"Haha, yeah, I remember the days when I wasn't used to jumphole travel." Keller said from the seat in front of me. I was bent over puking my guts out into a small bucket. "Don't get any on the floor or you're cleaning it up."
I tried to tell him to stick his comments somewhere but was lurched into another violent dry heave.
He just kept laughing.
* * *
We made it to the California system. The Navy is searching the ship for contraband. Have to put down the log.
* * *
I'm convinced now, that man is totally bugf**k. The Navy got to our ship pretty quickly and began scanning the ship for contraband. That's when Keller got really really antsy. Something was bothering him. Something he felt he didn't need to tell me. To be frank, I don't think he expected it at all. Soon as they got to the cockpit for scans, the Navy member made a surprised gasp over the comms.
"Eagle 4-2! Weapons--" the Navy pilot started. Before he could clear his weapons, Keller had his thumbed on. He ripped the small Navy ship apart before it could get clear of Keller's weapons. The other pilots cursed and began to form into an offensive maneuver to cut Keller off from retreating back out the gate. Another squadron of fighters were coming up fast from Planet Los Angeles, but Keller wasn't going to either of those places, oh no. He bolted straight for the nebulae cloud directly in front of us.
Weapons fire danced around us for only a few minutes by the time we cleared the outer threshold of the ice cloud. Keller wasn't in a friendly mood anymore. He was uttering some kind of mantra under his breath, cursing the Liberty "bureaucrats" for their meddling in human physiology and something else that I couldn't catch. I think he forgot I was there for a few minutes because he kept on wishing very bad things on their mothers. I tuned him out and began to look out the windows of the ship.
The Ice Field, I forget its name, was one of the largest landmarks in the California system. Supposedly there were rumors of people catching glimpses of a station deep in the cloud, but those who have sworn it's there are branded insane. The field's asteroids tend to like to randomly collide at high speeds either into one another, or into whatever is in their way.
"Stupid groups...Liberty funding...idiots having more children...should just...blow them all up." Keller said under his breath before exploding out of the cloud at the other end. Directly in front of the ship sat California Minor. The planet was small, tiny even. He configured the ship to angle wide around to the dark side of the planet and throttled completely back until the ship was stationary. He looked back to me with a sh*t eating grin on his face...I see his mood improved fast..."You're going to hate me."
"Uhm?" I replied stupidly.
"We can't dock at the docking ring anymore because we've been flagged by the Navy. Seems they knew I was coming and tracked me." he tapped his skull. "Implants some times are more trouble than they're worth. Especially mine which are easy as pie to identify. Hey, I made a poem. Heh heh." he wandered off into his own mind for a second before coming back. He smiled that damn smile again. "Buckle up. It's going to be a bumpy ride." He turned around and popped his neck staring at the planet. He still had that damn grin on his face...then I caught the hint of what he was going to do.
"Oh no. No no. You've got to be bullsh*tting me. You're not going to...no...oh GOD no."
Keller laughed like a maniac and punched the throttle. As soon as the planet had us in it's gravity well, he angled the nose up rapidly. Fire began leaping out from around the metal on the ship. For the fourth time that day, I lost more contents of my stomach. Keller was still laughing like a madman.
Keller landed near the platform on the very edge of the more populated areas of California Minor. I use the term, "populated" lightly. California Minor was, for the most part, a miner planet for Planetform. Most of the men and women stationed here were either shippers or miners for the company.
"You stupid f***ing worthless piece of a man!" we heard a woman scream as she kicked a man working on a transport. "I told you to equip the new turrets to the rear not the front! FIX IT." she said again. She seemed to have a rather bad temper. I made a note not to get too close to her.
"Victoria." Keller said as he approached. "Good to see you're still alive."
She turned to tongue lash Keller next, but stopped just as she opened her mouth, her eyes got as big as dinner plates.
"C-Commander?" she said squinting her eyes ever so slightly. "Is that you or have I been awake too long?"
Keller laughed that hearty laugh. "It's me, Victoria. Get your sh*t, we're going to get Schneider."
"But...where have you been?"
Keller smiled. "All in due time my dear, in due time. Get to your fighter, we lift off in ten."
* * *
I thought Keller was insane. He's a psychiatrist compared to his friend Victoria. The woman is flat out, insane. First she tried to shoot me because I was standing behind Keller because she didn't know who I was. THEN she tried to hit on me...then she went back to trying to kill me again because she thought I was a spy for Liberty. Then she was my friend.
I 'm not looking forward to being around her much.
Ho-sh*t. Liberty dogs coming up fast, gotta put this down.
* * *
The Navy dogs, I first thought were going to open up on Keller and Quinn without a second thought...but boy was I wrong. They were a couple of Keller's ex-members of the Children. They stated they had paid hefty credits left over from their bounty hunting days to get their reputations wiped clean and joined up with the Navy. Soon as they heard about the skirmish in California with the infamous "Jacob Keller", they came running to the system to find him. Seems the man has a draw about him...
The two men began telling Keller that the Liberty government knew he was alive now. They were expending millions of credits to find him and take him out. Keller cursed under his breath and began muttering about how he was sick of them meddling in his affairs.
"How many battleships are they sending for the search?" Keller asked.
"Just four right now." said the man they called Lucky, "They're sending out TONS of battalions and fighter wings trying to find you. California is crawling with them."
"We can out run them back to Coronado. I don't think they will follow us out of the Cortez system. Too far away from backup support if things go bad." Victoria said.
"Freckles," Keller said, acknowledging me for the first time since our decent to California Minor. "What do you think?"
"Me?" I asked.
"Yes, you."
"Well, I think that if there are tons of fighter wings roaming around the system looking for you and the signal your implants put out. We should cut through New York, through the badlands interference, and then cut back through Texas, California, then back to Coronado."
Everyone looked at me surprised.
"What? Just because I can't fly a fighter doesn't mean I don't know tactics."