Chapter Seven: Raven's Nest

Chapter Seven: Raven

            Pinnacle City

            Raven’s Nest Tavern

            Trish Ellis wasn’t much to look at, by most people’s standards. She was tall, granted, and lithe, but many a person had commented on her plain appearance. The problem with this was that they were generally drunk, and such comments often preceded them getting knocked flat. While Trish might not be eye-catching for her looks, she could certainly get your attention with her fists. The bar she ran, The Raven’s Nest, catered to a variety of clients, the vast majority being extremely unsavory. Therefore, she took it upon herself to learn a variety of martial arts in the event of violent altercation. When such things happened, she was ready, and she availed herself of every trick in her arsenal to remove threats. In other words, she doubled as the bouncer for The Raven’s Nest, and she was very good at the job. Today seemed like a slow day for business, but that was hardly unusual. The city’s criminal classes, which made up most of her patrons, did not willingly come out on Thursdays, with Sunday or even Monday being their preferred days to conduct business inside the Nest’s four walls. So, she was surprised when not one or two, but six strange people walked through the Nest’s double door and sat down at a table. Trish nodded to one of her servers, who went over and spoke briefly with the group. He came back, and what he had to say was straightforward.

            “They said five of the usual,” he said. “Nothing to drink but water.”

            “Really?” Trish surveyed the assembled people; they certainly looked like rough characters. There was the one man, whose hair looked like an electrocuted mop. And then there was the alien girl; she looked like a hoverboard racer on steroids, although she had to wonder why a racer would be here on Saturn. Mars, Canis Alpha, Castor, and several other worlds. Not Saturn. Everything about the group seemed a little off. While they looked and seemed to talk like bounty hunters (which meant psychopathic delight in and hunger for violence), she couldn’t help but noticed that she hadn’t seen them before in her life or heard of any team matching their description. Apparently, several small-time criminals at the bar were of the same persuasion, as they were making no end of trouble for the group. Trish shook her head; while they might not be a bounty hunting team proper just yet, she could plainly see that they were anything but normal.

            One of the unsavory individuals causing problems for the group was a stringy-haired man with six weeks’ worth of scruffy beard and a bad attitude. Of course, having fifteen times the legal limit of Dothranite whiskey in your system doesn’t really help your sanity or decision-making capacity, so perhaps he might be forgiven. Dani, however, wasn’t in a forgiving mood this particular day. The drunkard had approached them without any invitation and taken it upon himself to engage the team in conversation, most of which she thought crude. Her own self-respect aside, the man seemed to have no concept of human decency whatsoever, as the language he used to describe a variety of individuals could be likened to dumping sewage in a reservoir. But suddenly he changed the subject.

            “Why are you here?” He slurred. “Got some prissy business deal here?” Dani shook her head.

            “I don’t think you’ve got any right to ask,” she said evenly, doing her utmost to keep her temper in check.

            “Like I’d need to,” the man said. “You’ve all got the trappings of bounty hunters, but I’ve never seen you around here before, which means you’re new.”

            “So?” Dani challenged.

            “Well…” the man said, choosing his muddled verbiage carefully, “…you’re on Saturn. You should know how the game works. The local crime lords run the whole show, and nothing goes down without their say-so. They don’t just give permission, either. You’ve got to make it worth their while.”

            “So bribing them,” Dani finished.

            The man nodded. “Smart girl. But I bet you already knew that. I’d be willing to bet you also have the money on you because you’re for a meeting with the boss.”

            “And if you’re right?” She rejoined. “Do you really want to scare off potential clients? He’s notoriously bad-tempered about losing business.”

            “Don’t care,” the drunk answered. “I don’t work for him. And if you’re going to, I just might have to persuade you to take your business elsewhere.” And at this point, he rose from the chair, a long and dangerous-looking knife in his right hand. Before he did any more than that, however, Dani was already up and moving. She reached out, seized his wrist and jerked painfully to one side, and stepping in close to the man, pummeled his face with a series of forward and backward elbows. Each blow seemed to be more powerful than the last, and she finished by reaching her right leg behind him and flipping him head over heels onto the able behind him. The man felt the wind leave his lungs, and he sat there for a full minute, absolutely speechless.

            “I wouldn’t threaten people you don’t know,” she admonished. “Not unless you want me to break your clavicle.” The man sputtered something, but not coherently enough for her to either understand what he was saying or for her to care. She rolled him off the table, and the man hit the ground with a sharp crack. All around her, she could see men rising from their tables. As the majority of them had weapons in their hands, she gathered that they weren’t interested in congratulating her on her performance. Behind her, Dani heard several of her teammates get to their feet. The hum of an energy generator told her that Stefan’s knife was ready, and she heard the metallic clank as Ali readied her assault rifle.

            “That was a mistake,” one of the sober men spat.

            “You’re right,” Kane quipped, his baton extending at his side. “This is your second.” Then, he popped his neck. “So, who wants to die first?”

            The fight was brief and to the point: Stefan went after four 9of the men, pummeling them with a lightning combination of knee, palm, elbow, and foot strikes. Dani took two of them at once, catching one’s knife and driving it into the other’s side. His partner gasped in shock, and Dani took the chance to slam her elbow into the man’s chin as his attention was diverted. Ali didn’t fire her assault rifle, given the weapon’s innate inaccuracy, instead choosing to use the shock gauntlets she was wearing to lethal effect in combat with a large man wearing a muscleshirt. Kane’s baton cracked another upside the head, and he went down, blood pouring out of the side of his head. That particular sight seemed to do it for the rest of the men still standing. While Stefan had reduced two of them to quivering heaps of blood and broken bones, the other two were still conscious enough to turn around and run. Similarly, the man Dani had knocked down turned around and ran. The others, however, stayed where they were, as their injuries were too severe for them to do much more than groan. The bartender was out from behind her bar now, and she looked far from happy.

            “What’s this?” She asked. “You just…”

            “Sorry,” Dani said plaintively. “We’ll clean up the mess.” Trish shook her head.

            “That won’t be necessary,” she replied. “These guys are rival gangsters. They know better than to come here, and you basically did my job for me.” She gestured to a few men in alien garb who’d suddenly materialized behind the bar counter. They had strange-looking items in their hands that Stefan was willing to bet were medical examination-grade organic tissue disintegrators. He’d seen the weapons before in his time as a mobster minion; although technically illegal for nonscientific use, the devices were common among criminals a sa convenient way to dispose of unwanted corpses.

            “Are you…” he started. Trish nodded.

            “It’s the easiest way to stop them from figuring out,” she answered. “They’re low-level scabs, and most of them are just this side of bags anyway.” ‘Bags’ was common criminal parlance for death by rival organization, as the gangsters were often relegated to unattractive green tarp bags. ‘Scabs’, on the other hand, referred to grunts, as they were often constrained to beat other thugs until their knuckles bled.

            Dani shrugged. “What do we care?” She said dismissively. Turning to Trish she said, “My name’s Dani Watkins, and this is my crew. We’re new to bounty hunting, and we were told that your boss might have a job for us.”

            Trish looked down at the bodies and gestured to the men armed with the disintegrators. “Take care of them,” she said brusquely. Then, she faced Dani again. “All right then. If you want to talk to Raven and Crow, I can take you up. But you aren’t going to thank me for that later. They’re in a bad mood. I think Raven’s drunk.” The young blond woman shrugged.

            “Raven’s never drunk,” she answered. “Just angry. And she’s that way all the time.”

Top Room

Raven’s Nest

Raven Stark and Crow Jackson were polar opposites, and you could tell just by looking at them. Raven was a young and rather hotheaded woman, with long black hair and eyes to match. She was quite obviously one of the Chinese immigrants who’d come to Saturn after the faulty Gaeatron had laid waste to the Eurasian supercontinent. Everything about her was the height of fashion; red holographic-thread dress, double stiletto heels, and elegantly braided hair.

Crow was the antithesis of Raven’s stylish appearance; his head was shaved to a quarter inch of red hair, and his face was similarly groomed, although his beard was usually cut shorter. He wore a simple gray suit, and he had a large gun in a shoulder holster on his right side. He epitomized efficient, streamlined grooming, and his combat techniques bore that out. While Raven’s extravagant kickboxing styles used wide, flourishing attacks to dazzle enemies with her sheer speed and artistic capacity, Crow’s approach was far more straightforward. His attacks didn’t seek to simply confuse an enemy into submission, rather striking a usually fatal preemptive blow. Currently, Raven was sitting across from Crow, her eyes narrowed to slits at this latest delivery of bad news.

“It’s never good to turn down a client,” she murmured, keeping her voice even despite the anger she felt. One her worst flaws, she knew, was her general inability to keep her fiery temper in check. “Are you sure that he said the deal’s off?”

Crow nodded. “I tried to…convince him to remain with us, but he wouldn’t take the deal.”

“So you killed him?” she asked.

“Wouldn’t do,” Crow said. “That’s not how the Ravens operate. Blood Vipers, maybe, but since he came to us first, I thought it smart to prove that we’re different and why.”

“And if he goes to them because they’ve got greater firepower?” she asked. “What are we going to do then? Getting Braxton as a patron would give us access to a world of connections beyond the Core. Can we allow that?”

Crow’s eyes narrowed. “And is the alternative better? If he joins us out of fear, what kind of respect will people have for us?”

“And where does not getting him leave us?” Raven challenged.

“It leaves us the way we are in relation to them,” Crow told her. “Weaker in force, perhaps. But stronger in principle.”

“Strength of principle doesn’t win battles.”

“No,” Crow said. “But strength of will does. “The greatest expression of power is self-control. I’m not overly thrilled about the prospect of losing him, but I will not have us become just like them. And the power to control yourself in low-stress environments increases the likelihood of self-control in high-stress ones.”

There was a knock at the door just hen, and Raven rounded on it. “What do you want?” She snapped. “We’re busy.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” came Trish’s voice, “but there’s a team of bounty hunters here to see you. They were wondering if you might have work for them.”

“How do they look?” Crow asked.

“Nasty,” the bartender/bouncer answered “They kicked nine Vipers out of the bar. One of them took on four at once. And the rest look just as mean.”

Raven started at that. Then, she turned to face her partner in business. “New firepower could be helpful. Send them in.”

The hunters might not be impressive, but they had an aura of rugged determination that impressed Raven. It was obvious from the way everyone else deferred to her that the blond girl at the center was the team leader. Even so, she noticed a degree of respect for two others, including a man who looked like a drifter, and the alien girl dressed like a hoverboard racer. Anyone with the reflexes and guts to do something like that earned respect in her book.

“All right,” Raven said, beginning the conversation. “Who’s in charge?”
            “That’d be me,” the blond girl answered. “Dani Watkins, at your service.”

“Name’s Raven Stark,” she answered. “And what’s this I hear about you wanting a job?”

“That might be laying it on a bit strong,” Dani said, demurring a little. Raven seemed a

little…what was the word? Intense. Yes, that was it. Intense for her liking. “We would like work, but we know that employment is scarce, especially now.”

            Crow nodded. “Did you have no thought of our former relationship when you hatched this harebrained plan?”

            Dani looked uncomfortable. “And if I did, what’s it to you?” She growled. “You and I are both fully aware of the fact that friendship doesn’t count as much in your organization as personal merit. And on that score alone I more than qualified.”

            “Then why’d you walk away?” Crow asked.

            “Because I do everything I do out of necessity, not venality,” she told him. “You asked me to go from debt collector to mercenary simply for a raise. That’s why I told you no.”

            “And why you left?” Raven asked. Dani shook her head.

            “I left because I was afraid you might take…unkindly to my rejection,” she answered. “I knew well that you aren’t the most understanding of individuals.”

            “You fears were unfounded,” Crow responded. “I handle the employment arm of us, not her. So what changed?”

            “The world,” Dani replied hotly. “The world’s changing. The government’s changing, and you can see it. Where do we turn to fight? Where can the people turn for justice?”

            “We aren’t in the business of delivering justice,” Raven said coolly. “We’re criminals, and you know that.”

            “Yes, but your brand of crime is far closer to the law than their brand of justice,” Dani replied. “And meting out your honor code to them would give me the sense of purpose I don’t have any more.”

            “You aren’t enjoying torching government buildings any more?” Crow asked.

            “It has its place, but it’s not a life I can lead,” she answered. “I enjoyed it for a while, believed in it longer, but I think I always knew that I was wrong to do it. What’s a warehouse or a weapons depot to them? They don’t care about the men that get hurt, the money they lose. In the end, they’ll always take it out of our hides. So I think it’s time I got into an organization more interested in taking it out of theirs. What’s the use of burning down a building when I-when we-can do more damage together, by killing a single man? Every life you take, every time you stick your finger in their eye, you’re doing more than I ever did.”

            Raven smiled at that. “So you want to fry them with us now?” she queried.

            “I want the ability to do damage with a purpose, and you can offer me that,” Dani told her.

            “And the others?” Crow said, his shrewd eye scanning the other hunters. “Are they similarly persuaded?” Before Dani answered, the blond man standing next to her spoke out.

            “The government’s got no claim on my loyalty,” he growled. “And Dani’s proven to me that she has more knowledge of leadership in her little toes than the entire Unified Front has in their fat heads. I’d follow her anywhere, and if this is where she says we go, it’s where we go.”

            “And who are you?” Crow asked, turning to face the rough-looking young man.

            “Stefan Bakrylov, former Warrant Officer Third Class, soldier with the Counterforce arm of the Anti-Interspecies Terrorism unit,” he replied. “Witness to five of the greatest disasters ever to strike the galaxy and participant in two. Infiltrator and killer extraordinaire to boot.”

            “The rest?” Raven challenged.

            “Like the man said,” Kane told her. “She’s our leader, and this group’s all each other has. Families are gone, homes are destroyed. This is where she’s taken us, and we’ll stay as long as she asks us to.”

            Crow gestured to Raven. “A word in private?” He said. She nodded, and an automated service robot ushered the hunters out of the room. With them gone, he turned to face her.

            “I don’t like them,” he said.

            “Why?” The red-haired crime boss shook his head.

            “Them, together,” he said. “Alone, they might not be anything special. But there’s something off about the team. And I don’t want to hire them. The guy especially. He leapt to girl’s defense far too fast.”

            “They’ll go to the Vipers,” Raven told him. “And you might not like them now, but you’ll hate that girl when she gets in. And she will get in. Dani’s always been driven, and you trying to change her has just made her even more so. She wants you to see that she can take care of herself, that she can be the best. But you don’t see it. You can’t understand that she’ll be fine by herself, without your help.”

            “You want to get them with us, then,” Crow surmised.

            “We need muscle to win Braxton’s respect,” Raven reasoned. “With a troop like that, we might be able to pull off the shipment from Kirrex for Tolsen’s fight club.” She smiled, having a deliciously wicked thought cross her mind.

            The man lowered his eyes. “And then?” Raven’s smile, already wide, grew immense. 

            “Then we test their readiness,” she said. “We run through the Petras contract.” Crow nodded. “Not a fancy plan, but it’ll get the job done.”

            “So we take them?” Crow asked.

            “We ought,” she advised. “They can definitely prove useful.”

            Outside

            “They don’t like us,” Psyn murmured.

            “That pheromone thing creeps me out,” Shepard said, staring at the door.

            “Speaking of which,” Stefan said, “I was looking at the dock-master’s records, and I saw you used the name Alison. Anders said your name’s Natalie, but you go by Ali. Why?”

            “Natalie Alison Shepard,” Ali said defensively. “Why does it matter?”

            “Because Natalie Shepard was the name of Katrynna Malcom’s daughter,” Stefan replied. “And Katrynna Malcolm was my best friend.” Ali’s eyes were half-closed as she seemingly processed that bit of information.

            “I know,” she said, her voice quiet. “Mother told me about you, often, in fact. Said you were the only person that never looked at her different in the Macon Chair.” Macon Charis were one of the curious innovations of modern science. They allowed para- and quadriplegic individuals to translate the brain signals ordinarily associated to with leg movement into wheel gyrations. Even though the technology itself was a mark of both wealth and government favor, the disabled individuals that used these chairs were often discriminated against because it clearly delineated their inability to walk or move. Some people chose to amputate limbs and attach prosthetics in lieu of using one of the more expensive chairs. Malcolm chose not to do this and rather elected to use the chair, preferring to be as she was. Stefan, in recognition of this, actually personally designed the chair for her. He customized the standard model by including a number of personalized features.

            “What makes a person different is the inside,” Stefan answered. “Losing the ability to move your legs, or the ability to move an arm, for that matter, makes you now better or worse than someone else.”

            “Did people treat you that way?” Psyn asked. “When you lost the arm?”

            Stefan nodded. “They were scared. Someone with hydraulic hands can break concrete blocks into rubble. And I could. But they never saw anything beyond the machine, the strength. The cold. But it doesn’t matter.”

            “Why?” Kane asked.

            “They won’t take us,” the Russian said. “I saw the looks on their faces.”

            “What does that tell you?” the blue-haired fighter pressed. “Faces are faces.”

            “Their microexpressions indicated a mix of distaste and surprise,” Shepard told Ty.

            “Microexpressions?” Kane echoed. “What are those?”

            “Small movements of facial muscles indicating initial emotional responses,” Psyn answered. “My people are taught to recognize deception from birth, and it’s now common practice among many intelligence organizations. I noticed the same thing. They won’t take us, I don’t think. They might keep us occupied, but in the end, they’ll say no.” Suddenly, the door to Crow and Raven’s private office swung open with a bang. The robot was there again, his metal face monolithic and impassive.

            “The masters will see you now,” he informed them, in his typical flat monotone. “They have important news for you.”

            Inside the Office

            “What?” Dani couldn’t quite believe what she’d just heard. “You want to offer us a job?”

            “No,” Crow replied. “I want to give you a chance at permanent employment. Raven has suggested that we provide you with a test of your skills.”

            “After we beat…” Kane began.

            “You thrashed nine half-drunk gangsters in a bar,” Raven finished. “Hardly an accomplishment worthy of any notice from a serious employer. If you expect us to hold you in any regard whatsoever, you’d best demonstrate considerably more skill.”

            “So you’re proposing a test? What kind?” Dani asked, ignoring this exchange. Any insight they could get in relation to their new assignment could tell them how close they’d let the team get to the government, and how much time they’d have for side jobs.

            “The Kirrexen run,” Crow told her. “There’s a shipment of Kirrex warhounds due for Irak Tolsen’s Gut-wrench Arena that we’ve been trying to send out of the solar system for a week. But we’ve encountered problems with several recent shipments.”

            “What kind of problems?” Psyn asked.

            “Problems involving a skull and crossbones,” the red-haired boss answered. “The gangs of Saturn are one thing, but asteroid pirates are another.” As their name implies, asteroid pirates often used the large space-rocks as cover for their illegal vessel seizures and brutal commandeering of vessels. Given that the Ravens and Blood Vipers both used the asteroid fields outside Earth’s solar system to cover their shipments from the watchful eyes of customs agents. The pirates natural exploited the criminal gangs, as it seemed more intelligent to them to attack people who couldn’t very well bring their concerns to the attention of the law.

            “All right,” Dani said, trying to fight her hesitation. “What’s the route, and how soon do you intend for us to leave?”

            Crow went over to the oak desk in one corner of the room and pulled something out of a drawer at the base. That done, he calmly walked back over to the assembled group and handed something to Dani. It was an identification card used to enter a variety of locks and systems, including several types of apartment complexes and work clocks.

            “There’s a hotel across the street, and the owner knows me,” he said. “The penthouse suite’s available, and he won’t ask questions. It’s called Heaven’s Gate. You can’t miss it. Big glass building inside an even glassier dome.”

            “So you’ll take us?” Dani asked.

            “We will,” Raven told her, “but the shipment will take a few days to get ready. In the meantime, we can let you stay there. We’ll send a courier tomorrow with all the information, and you’ll be expected to do the reading and conduct business yourself. Any questions? None? Then you’re dismissed.”

            Heaven’s Gate

            Penthouse

            Stefan looked out the massive rectangular pane of glass in front of him, staring down into Pinnacle city. He’d been sitting on the window sill for hours, but he hadn’t said a thing. Not when Dani went to get dinner, not when Brooks had given him some, and not when they’d started going to bed. Soon, he was alone, staring into the night. His thoughts were with the nightmare he’d had days earlier. Although he’d had similar dreams before, this one felt…different somehow. The feelings had been so real, so colorful, that he had thought for a moment that he might have actually been experiencing something afresh.

            “Trouble sleeping?” Stefan looked up. To his surprise, it was Shepard. She was dressed in a white nightgown that stretched to her ankles, and her red-brown hair fell freely midway down her back. Without her weapons, she looked different. A little more fragile, he thought. Never mind that she was a hacker gifted in forensic investigation and someone trained in several martial arts.

            “Not really,” he replied. “Just a bit of a night owl.” She nodded, taking a seat beside him and pulling out a small Linknet connector. “What are you still doing awake?” He asked.

            “Working,” she replied.

            “On what?” Stefan asked.

            “I’ve been running over the government files on the deaths of the ICRF leaders for about three days,” she told him. “There’s something that isn’t adding up right here.”

            “What do you mean?” He asked.

            “In all the cases, there’s no common thread other than the targets,” she replied. “There are snipers in the one case, gangs in the second, and arsonists in the third. And they have no apparent connection that I can find. In each case, the killers were apprehended. Or they say they were…” her voice trailed off as her fingers flew over the hard-light keys in a torrent of clicks and beeps.

            “Then don’t look at government files,” Stefan said. “Try looking at ICRF files in conjunction. Compare theories and forensics.”

            “I’ve been working on that,” she said. “And what I’m seeing doesn’t make sense.”

            “What are you seeing?” The Russian asked.

            “Some kind of explosive,” she answered. “But not one that matches human types.”

            “Search alien ones,” he suggested. “There might be some in that direction.” Alison nodded, typing as she talked.

            “Let’s see…no…not that one…oh, definitely no…maybe, but probably not…no,” she said finally. “I found a sixty percent match, but it’s not exact. This compound’s all new, and I’m not liking how it looks. Really powerful, almost untraceable. It’s a miracle the forensics team found these bits at all.”

            “Cross-reference the match with chemical companies,” Stefan told her.

            “Then narrow it by looking for companies with military contracts, and narrow further by those that actually are known for producing explosives.”

            “So we’ve found our angle?” Stefan asked.

            “We have,” Ali replied. “Corporate espionage. I’m going to stay awake for a little longer, but you need some sleep. You only got four hours last night.” Stefan nodded reluctantly.

            “All right, mother. I’ll go to bed.” Ali smiled at that.

            “Hey,” she said. “I’m just looking out for you. It’s what friends do.”
            “I know,” he murmured. “And thanks.” With that, he went into the room that Dani had told him to take in the penthouse, and promptly fell asleep. Alison waited until she heard him snoring, and then she accessed the database she’d really been looking at all along. The forensics evidence she had found was not ICRF or even government work. It had instead come directly from her current employer. Her real employer. And he was becoming increasingly impatient with her progress.

How are things? His latest message read. Scans indicate unrest.

Fine, she typed back. Working on establishing emotional ties.

Hurry, his next communique read. Insurrection being hunted, methodically so. Martyr’s existence secret for now, but time is running out. Fast.

I can’t trigger it yet, she responded. If I do, we risk brain damage.

Don’t move now, he advised. But do it soon. If he’s not back in play by the end of this year, we won’t have an Insurrection left to save.

Are we sure we want to do this? Ali typed back. He was pretty clear he wanted this...

He was also clear that he would rescind that if we were in jeopardy, He replied. And I think this qualifies. Radcliffe’s dead.

Dead? How? She was confused. Radcliffe couldn’t be gone. He wasn’t anywhere close to being discovered by the circle.

The cryptic response chilled her to the bone, but not because she didn’t understand it. The message was all too clear. Ruin.

Author's Note

Please note grammar and spelling errors. Also, plot holes ought to be noted. Positive feedback would be nice, but be brutal when or if necessary.