Hard Luck Hermit

“Kamak? Kamak, are you there?”

The communicator was as dead silent as everything else around Corey.

“Kamak, all that backup you sent- shit, man, they’re all dead,” Corey said. Two ambushes by the Horuk had completely wiped out the bounty hunters that had arrived to help. Corey had only escaped by the skin of his teeth. “I’m still on track, but I could use some help. This is harder than we thought.”

“There is no one there to answer,” Morrakesh said. His voice was quieter than usual. Instead of booming out over invisible speakers, Corey felt like it was whispering right into his ear. Morrakesh wanted it that way. Of all the bounty hunters on the ship, it believed Corey to be the most vulnerable, the easiest to break. The isolation from jamming his comms was just the first step. “Even the Hard Luck Hermit has been overrun.”

Corey glared at the ceiling and kept limping forward.

“Tooley Keeber Obeltas still lives,” Morrakesh said. “For the moment. Your behavior will affect how long she survives.”

“Go fuck yourself, houseplant,” Corey said. “If you’d already won, you wouldn’t be talking.”

Corey knew a bluff when he saw it, even coming from a plant talking through an intercom. Morrakesh secretly bristled at the called bluff. Its position was growing more tenuous by the moment. Kamak’s stunt in the hangar had vented the bulk of the Horuk aboard his ship, and the battles with the bounty hunters were gradually whittling away what few were left. It had almost nothing left to defend itself with, though it still had quality, if not quantity.

“I simply wish to convince you not to throw your life away, Corey Anathedus Vash,” Morrakesh said. The mispronunciation of his middle name made Corey’s eye twitch. “Ah, the rage. Your suspicions are correct, you know. She is part of me now.”

Corey barely resisted the urge to aim and fire at the ceiling. Save the shots for when it mattered, he reminded himself.

“Her knowledge has been delightfully illuminating,” Morrakesh said. “Her condition. ‘Lung cancer’, you call it? The Galactic Council possesses a cure for that, you know.”

Corey did know. It had been one of the first things he’d looked up. The bitterness had occupied a small corner of his mind ever since.

“You tell yourself there was nothing to be done, but there was,” Morrakesh said. “The Galactic Council knew of Earth. They knew of your world, and all its residents, all the suffering they had the power to prevent, and they did nothing.”

In spite of himself, Corey missed a step. He had long told himself that he was from an unknown world in the far reaches of space, that no alien visitor could possibly have known, possibly have saved his mother. If that was a lie-

“You fight so hard for a universe that has done nothing for you,” Morrakesh said. The ill-timed taunt only served to remind Corey of Morrakesh’s true goals. Nothing he said could be trusted, especially not now.

“I could give two shits about the universe right now,” Corey said. “I’m not leaving this ship until you’re dead.”

“Then come,” Morrakesh said, before falling silent. Even it had underestimated Corey’s defiance. Mental defiance, at least. Breaking the body did wonders for breaking the mind.

Corey’s furious march towards his target took less time than anticipated. Morrakesh had deliberately cleared the Horuk out of his path -save for one.

The door to Corey’s destination opened, and he found the tangled mass of Morrakesh’s roots he was looking for. The only obstacle was a single Horuk, with a carapace so black it almost seemed to devour the light around it. They held a small metal rod, but no other visible weapon.

“Corey Anathedus Vash, allow me to introduce the One. The leader of the Horuk horde.”

Corey introduced himself in the form of a few shots from his rifle. The laser bolts seemed to vanish into the light-drinking hide of the Horuk. Corey briefly considered retreat, but the automatic door slammed shut behind him.

“Do remember to manage your pace, oh mighty One,” Morrakesh said. “I would prefer to break him without killing him.”

The One grabbed on to its metal rod with two of its hands, and used the remaining hundreds to skitter towards Corey at top speed. He tried to shoot it a few times, and then to kick it away, but the Horuk just grabbed on to his leg and then used it to hurl him across the room. Corey impacted one of the tangled roots of Morrakesh, crushing a few sensory blossoms on impact. As an afterthought, Corey fired a few rounds into one of the other exposed branches.

“Come on then, bastard,” Corey said. “I’ll take you with me!”

Corey fired off a few more shots, and burnt a few more holes in Morrakesh’s body. The lights in the room actually started to flicker. Their plan was working. The synaptic spark of delight in Corey’s mind clued Morrakesh in to the fact his deadline was drawing nearer.

“One. Faster.”

The Horuk leader obliged. Corey was in the middle of firing at Morrakesh when a white-hot blur of light cut his gun in half. He stared at the glowing fragments of what had once been his gun, and then looked back at the Horuk.

The metal rod in his hand had ignited, shooting out a concentrated beam of energy. It emanated an overpowering heat that already had Corey beginning to sweat. He barely registered that, fixated as he was on the thin blade of energy cutting through the air.

“Lightsaber,” he mumbled.

The One laughed, and Morrakesh laughed with him. Corey tore his eyes away from the sword long enough to glance at the Horuk’s open mouth. The interior was not armored in light-eating black. Just like Farsus had said.

“You admire this?”

The One waved its weapon tauntingly, and Corey’s eyes tracked it perfectly, like a cat tracking a laser pointer.

“It is a weapon born of the First One, crafted with a heart of pure carathatin.”

“Don’t worry about explaining,” Morrakesh said. “He will become intimately acquainted soon enough. Start with the fingers on the left hand.”

The threat broke Corey out of his hypnotic focus on the sword.

“Wait. Wait, hold on, don’t-”

Heedless to his pleas, the Horuk strode forward and grabbed on to his arm. Corey struggled, but the One overpowered him, drew his hand outwards, and swung its one of a kind blade down to his hand. Corey didn’t know if the sheer heat made it better or worse. The blade cauterized wounds before they were even cut, burning the flesh of his hand black as all four fingers on his left hand were sliced off just below the knuckle, taking a chunk of his hand with them.

The Horuk released Corey, throwing him to the ground to let him writhe and scream. The One and Morrakesh laughed at him again, his muted screams of agony still quieter than their mocking laughter.

“Shall we move on to his legs, then, or the other hand?”

“The legs, I think,” Morrakesh said. “Start with the right boot. That’s where he keeps that little knife of his.”

The Horuk and Morrakesh laughed again. Their arrogant mockery cut through the pain and gave Corey some focus. The knife. He watched the One’s open mouth, laughing at his expense. It all sounded familiar. Across the vastness of space, across strange alien species, the laughter was still that same arrogant, belittling laugh. The laugh of an arrogant bastard trying to make someone else feel small.

Just like dad.

Even Morrakesh was a little surprised when Corey stood up, ignoring his mutilated hand, burying the pain, burying any schemes and secrets, behind a wall of sheer, blistering hatred. Try as Morrakesh might, he could see nothing but seething rage in Corey’s mind as he used his remaining hand to draw the knife from his boot.

“Alright, alright,” Corey said. The searing pain in his cauterized hand made it difficult to talk, but he pushed through the agony. “You want to see my ‘little knife’?”

Corey held his knife out sideways, showing off the blade.

“This is a little trinket from back home,” Corey said. “Indestructible, just like you. Solid vibranium, from tip to handle.”

The reference was lost on Morrakesh, as was any attempt to read Corey’s thoughts, but he could still sense that the knife was nothing special. He laughed again, and Corey grit his teeth.

“It’s a basic carbon steel composite,” Morrakesh said.

“What, you don’t believe me? Come on then,” Corey said. He flexed his hand and waved the knife in the One’s direction. “Come on and try it. My knife versus that fancy sword of yours. We’ll see what happens.”

The One tapped several of its many limbs together in an expression of apparent amused delight. It walked forward confidently, blade extended, and Corey matched its pace until they were standing face to circular face.

Corey held out his knife once more. The One reached out and gingerly tapped its laser sword against the metal edge. In an instant, the blade of the knife warped and began melting into white-hot slag. Morrakesh and the One once again began to laugh their arrogant laugh.

The laughter stopped when Corey reached out and shoved the white hot-knife right into the One’s open mouth.

A burning shriek of agony bubbled past the molten blade, and the One reached towards its mouth with every hand -dropping the laser sword in the process. Corey snatched the metal handle out of the air as it fell, hefted it over his head, and brought the impossibly hot blade down on the One’s body.

The One became two as the Horuk fell apart, sliced into two perfectly even halves right down the middle. The buzzing blade of the sword rested against the floor. It was the only sound in the room. Until Corey took his turn to laugh.

“Ha!”

Corey raised his new trophy aloft and waved it at the ceiling, pointing it at random sensory blossoms to make sure Morrakesh got a good look.

“I’ve got your lightsaber, motherfucker!”

Once he was done gloating, Corey got to his real priority -killing. He took his new laser blade and plunged it into one of Morrakesh’s roots. The burning sword cut through it like butter, and with a mere flick of his wrist, Corey severed the root entirely.

“Stop!”

There was genuine fear and agony in Morrakesh’s voice now. In the past, he had only ever used this vocal setting to feign vulnerability. For the first time in centuries of existence, his terror was genuine. It was also ignored. Corey picked another root in arms’ reach and cut through it again, making sure to sink the stolen blade deep.

“Stop this!”

Corey didn’t stop. Morrakesh could feel the toxic cocktail of hatred and delight flowing through Corey’s mind as he hacked Morrakesh to pieces.

“You are killing us,” Morrakesh pleaded. “All of us! Everything we are!”

Corey did not stop, but the plea at least made him hesitate. Morrakesh latched on to that small hesitation.

“I know what your mother knew,” Morrakesh pleaded. “Everything she knew, everything she was, lives in me now.”

The reminder of Morrakesh’s grave robbing did the opposite of what he intended. Corey pulled the stolen saber back and plunged it deep into another root.

“I know what she wanted to say,” Morrakesh said. “Those final words you could never hear! I can tell you!”

Corey stopped again. His mother had mouthed some words as her lungs gave out, trying to impart some final message. A message that went unheard. Corey froze with his blade stuck to the hilt in a root.

“I can give you the answers you need, Corey Anathedus Vash.”

Corey’s grip on the blade tightened.

“Amadeus,” he corrected. “My mom named me Corey Amadeus Vash!

Corey pulled the blade back and severed another root. There was no more hesitation.

“I know what she wanted to say,” Corey shouted, more to himself than Morrakesh. “I didn’t want to hear it!”

The flaring blade sliced an entire chunk of Morrakesh’s plantlike body out of the walls, severing it from the circuitry and mechanisms in the ship. Inside the burning cauldron of rage in his mind, Corey focused on what his mother had wanted. What she’d always wanted: for Corey to live. Safe, happy, and free of bastards like his father. Like Morrakesh.

Corey made another cut, and Morrakesh let out a shriek of pain.

“Fine then,” Morrakesh screamed. “Flail with your stolen sword, cut a few feet of limbs, and think you’ve accomplished anything! A single root, a single branch, is all I need to regrow. Even that blade cannot reach a heart that does not exist.”

Corey deactivated the blade and stumbled through the door. The pain in his hand was starting to catch up to him, make him light-headed.

“You cannot kill me in any way that matters,” Morrakesh taunted.

“Well that sounds dramatic,” Kamak said. “Picked the right time for the sound to come back on.”

Corey looked around, and found the source of the voice at his waist. He had left his communicator on, hoping for a response, and apparently the comms had just kicked back on.

“Kamak, hey,” Corey said. “I’ve been a little busy.”

“I think we all have,” Kamak said. “We’ll talk about it over drinks. I think we cut Morrakesh out of the comms system, we might be on track.”

“Looks like it,” Tooley said. “Dummy plug is online and not registering any resistance.”

“Dummy plug?”

Wracked with pain, even Morrakesh did not grasp the ominous meaning. At first.

“No.”

“That’s right, you leafy bitch,” Corey said. “All this shooting and slicing isn’t us trying to kill you.”

“Only cut your nervous system out of the ship’s controls,” Farsus added. “Leaving it free to be piloted remotely by our esteemed Tooley Keeber Obertas.”

“Best pilot in the universe,” Tooley boasted. “Not that I’ll need all those skills to crash your pretty purple ship right into that Bang Gate at faster-than-light speeds.”

“And no bluffs this time,” Doprel added.

“That’s right,” Corey concluded. “What do you think, Morrakesh? Does obliterating you on an atomic level count as ‘killing you in a way that matters’?”

Morrakesh was silent for two seconds. Then the ship erupted into a shrieking, overpowering noise. Morrakesh’s first, and last, scream of terror.

“God damn that’s a lot of bodies,” Kamak said. He actually had to shove the pile of Horuk corpses aside so he and Corey could get up the boarding ramp.

“I have been very busy,” To Vo La Su said. Kamak gave her a pat on the shoulder and headed for the cockpit.

“Khem’s already clear and there’s no one else alive aboard,” Kamak said. He felt a moment of bitter regret for Ghul, and moved past it. “Let’s go.”

“Already spread the word to our allies,” Doprel said. “They’re in full retreat, and Horuk are closing ranks around the Bang Gate.”

“Then let’s do this,” Tooley said. Farsus disengaged the boarding ramp as she pulled away. Her first priority was making a short range jump away, putting them into light speed for a few ticks to get to a safe distance. For some of them, it was the first moment of even partial safety in a long time. The reprieve gave them a moment to reflect on their current status -which was not all positive.

“Ow,” Corey said. The nerve damage on his hand was starting to wear off, letting him feel the pain all over again.

“Oh, fuck,” Tooley said. She’d taken a second to glance at Corey and immediately saw his burnt-black hand and missing fingers. “Are you okay?”

“Relatively! Lost a few fingers I’m not getting back, but I got this cool sword,” Corey said. He ignited his stolen lightsaber, and everyone in the cockpit immediately recoiled from the heat.

“Kickass,” Tooley said. “And speaking of kickass things…”

She pulled the ship out of FTL and parked it in the void. From this distance, the Bang Gate wasn’t visible even as a speck in the distance. Tooley started to fiddle with a remote while Kamak grabbed the bottle of fancy liquor and poured another round of drinks for everyone. Doprel tended to their allies, and gave a thumbs up once he’d confirmed everyone had reached the minimum safe distance -and their enemies hadn’t.

“Just say the word, Tooley,” Kamak said.

“Which word?”

“Whichever one you want,” Kamak sighed.

“Fucker.”

Tooley slammed her hand down on a big red button. Everyone aboard took a sip of their drinks.

And waited.

“Taking a bit, isn’t it?”

“We’re pretty far away, even at the speed of light there’ll be a slight-”

The wave of blinding light washed over them, and a subspace pulse rocked the entire ship with such fury that Corey dropped his drink.

The initial shockwave passed, and the blinding light faded, leaving behind a blossom of celestial fire that slowly expanded in every direction. Waves of starlight flared and vanished into the abyss. Corey sat back and ignored his wounded hand, and the broken glass around his feet, and enjoyed the show.

“Best fireworks in the universe,” Corey said.

“Best view in the universe,” Tooley said, as she glanced at Corey’s smile.

Kamak took another sip of his bitter drink, and stared at the cosmic fireball as it started to collapse on itself.

“We better get paid for this.”