SATUS ARC PART III: The Ship-maker’s Apprentice

“Boss…”

“Liu.” A familiar voice, filled with a deep anger. “Is your mission in Juhong done?”

“The rebellion is built. They’ll attack the capital in a week, I’ll have Won’s head before they can build a defensive.” The other voice was low, calm but sinister, like a growl of an unseen beast in the shadows.

“The rebels can take it. I need you back, now.” Ghrian commanded.

“You’ve never interrupted our missions like this before. What happened?”

“The Roses. They want a war and I’ll fucking give them one. I’m not going to be disrespected, not in my own territory.”

Liu was silent, taking in the information. “Five days, I’ll be at their Warp Gate by then.”

“Make it three.” Ghrian Commanded. “Oh, and your Vice Captain is gone. Little fuck thought he was so smart, soon as it went downhill he ran with his tail between his legs. I give him everything a nobody like him could need and this is how he repays me? Spits on my name, sets a prisoner free… and steals one of my Comets.”

“Ryūsei?” Liu said, remembering the boy he trained. “We knew this day would come… let me handle him.”

“You’re too late.” As he spoke, he looked up and in his view, was the void. Open space beyond the glass, beyond the peons flying the Captain’s ship, with others flying beside like dust in the wind. “When I find him, there won't be a planet in this universe that won’t see what’s left of him… and they’ll fear us, the Vagrants will bind time and space to our beck and call. And it all starts with that little shit.” The line disconnected, but mere seconds later he was connected to another. “You know what you’re doing, correct?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good, because if you fuck this up it’s your head. Sao.”

“I won’t disappoint you.”

The small ship disengaged from the group, flying to the next planet as others followed suit in different directions, to different planets. Sao’s destination… was Abara.

*-*-*

Trigger pulled and pulse ripping air into the ground.

“Way off…”

Greaves and Hoshi stood behind a large rock with rusted metal ahead of them, a sort of makeshift firing range. Astra sat on the dune behind them watching with booze in hand. The sands just next to one of the targets was scorched, shot by Hoshi who was now trying his hardest to not hit his laughing teacher.

“Y’know it’s not exactly easy with you two watching me.” Hoshi complained.

Greaves took it as a challenge, drawing his gun and firing without even looking. Hoshi was dumbfounded seeing a hole in each of the targets, his competitive streak firing up. “Easy enough hitting a stationary target.”

“Are you volunteering to be the next dummy?”

“How were you a Vagrant with aim like that anyway?” Astra mocked him, her face a little red from the booze.

He examined the gun in his hand, remembering his own he had been given once he was deemed worthy by Liu. Those same bullets remained until he escaped with Astra. “Its not like I got much practice. I just… got by without it.”

A dampener on the mood it was, the thought of what these tools were really used for, and having to use them…

“This is stupid. Why am I even participating? There’ll be Vagrants competing and watching, as soon as they see my face we’ll be swarmed by them.”

“I mean, you don’t have to join in.” Greaves said. “I’m pretty sure I can win this thing either way.”

“Confident are we?” Astra joked.

“Of course. I’ve been a sharpshooter since I could talk. There ain’t a better gunner in this system!” His declaration was closely followed by an overconfident laugh that did not convince the two.

“So… why haven’t you won yet?” Immediately quieting the moron who just stared at Astra like he was asking her how she could say something so cruel. “I mean, Yuri told us you’ve entered it six times, you went out early in your first five tries, but last year you got to the final two.” She explained.

It was a tough reminder of failure for him. Blood and sweat were shed in the wilds, metal and monster all fell eventually… but victory never came his way. “When I hold my gun, I see targets in front of me, and its like a game, its easy. I can get through the first few rounds without breaking a sweat.” His voice was strained, the words hurting as they came out. He was so quiet now in comparison to before, the confidence stripped from him as he played with his fingers. “Did Yuri tell you how we met?”

Both looked at each other, surprised by the sudden change of topic. “No, not really” Hoshi replied.

A second to prepare himself, knowing the story frightened him so. “We were final generations, part of the rich and powerful that the Empire sent to Chrysos after stopping at Prota. Father had a business trip here, but we were shot down and landed in the wilds.” The sands of old returned to his vision, as did the Sand Drake that haunted his memory. “We were stranded in the dark with that thing following us…”

“Shoot it!” His mother screamed. His father held a revolver, firing on the beast. But the shots he did take just caught in its skin or bounced off… soon he would coat the sands in blood, the gun flying back and landing beside his young son. “I can still hear her…” He told the duo, remembering his mother as the monster raced after her. The young boy raised his fallen father’s gun, tears blocking his vision.

“Austin!” She called, like slow motion as its claw drew close. Gun in hand and aimed high at its head…

The shot fired, right over the monster’s head.

Alone against the beast that took his parents he was frozen solid. Fear, pain, sorrow but most of all, guilt ripping into his heart and keeping him tethered to the spot. Blood poured from its jaws, ripped skin between its sword sized teeth.

The next moments were all senses but no comprehension. The sight of colours reaching the pale monster and it exploding into red. The smell of burnt skin and the sickly scent of iron. The sound of squelching, fluids splashing against the sands and the monster’s wail so loud you’d probably hear it from the next planet. The taste of salt in the air, a portion of its blood flung into his mouth, a putrid puss with the texture of rotten fruit. The feel of the shockwave and shards of scales whipping past him. All of it just memory like a film reel with broken edges, faded parts he wishes so dearly he could see again but his memory refused.

“That’s where Yuri found me.”

Neither Astra or Hoshi had the words to speak, both had known their own loss and tragedy, knowing that sometimes silence is understanding.

“Ever since…” Greaves continued “Anytime there’s been something on the line, anytime I needed to make a shot count… I freeze.”

Astra could see the sadness in him, choosing to sit beside him and smile when he lifted his head.

“So that’s why you’ve never won. You always get to the end and…” Hoshi stopped

“I can’t shoot, no matter what happens, every time I remember how much can change with one bullet. How much is at stake if I miss… I just… Sorry, I’m just babbling on here. Didn’t mean to be such a downer.”

“Maybe this time is different.” Astra said, bringing him back to it. “And if it isn’t, if you can’t shoot that last bullet this time, I’m sure that one day you’ll find that courage again.”

It was a calm moment, the gentle breeze blowing through the tufts of grass strong enough to break through the stone and the distant sounds of the bustling city, with these three strangers living like friends…

“Marry me.”

She replied quickly with a thump to the noggin, “Shut it.”

“Remind me again what the solution to my ever so recognisable face is again?” Hoshi asked. “We’re still in the dark about that one…” Sounding more agitated after remembering his question was basically just ignored.

“Oh!” Greaves shot up with a bruise still pulsing on his head. “I got the perfect thing. Gimme a sec!”

Ten minutes later he returned. “Here” He held out his hand to Hoshi, who had wondered what his great solution was… Glasses… Sunglasses to be exact…

“Bright on planet cool?” He joked, not knowing what to say.

“Just put them on, smart ass.”

Almost an act he put them on as dramatically as possible. For a second it was as you’d expect and Hoshi was ready to call their new acquaintance a moron, but then his face was engulfed by a strange hexagonal fabric the same feel as leather. His vision was gone for a moment and instinctively he tried to rip it off, but just as he did his vision returned, and both Astra and Greaves were facing him in awe.

“...What?” He asked, concerned something had gone wrong. “What the hell is this thing, Greaves?!”

“That, is a doppelganger!”

Hoshi was a different person, his face at least. Now he looked like a man three times his age, with silver grey hair thin as paper. Sagged eyes and a long white beard to match what was left of his hair.

“What the hells a doppelganger!” Hoshi asked frantically, sweat building behind the false skin.

“It’s something celebs used to use all the time. Models itself to the user and completely changes their appearance, no one will recognize you!”

A few moments of awkwardly failing to pull the mask off later, once Greaves had shown him how, Hoshi was back to normal and dumbfounded.

“So? What do you think? Genius ain’t I?” The cowboy gleefully leant against the barrier to the shooting range, smiling like the complete opposite of what he asked.

“Looks like you don’t have an excuse to back out now, huh?” Astra joined in, punching him lightly in his shoulder… lightly for her.

“Guess not. Where’d you even get this thing?” Not often that even a Vagrant wasn’t aware of expensive luxuries in these stars. Usually those with the money to need concealing were the ones that didn’t have it long, but to his knowledge such an item was alien to him.

“Yuri made them years ago. Sold some but, I guess rich people don’t exactly make their way to Abara much.” He pondered. “Well, anyways, with this you can enter the competition. We’ve got better odds with the two of us, course I’m winning anyway but…”

From their expressions of unimpressed scorn he understood moving on was best. “When I do, Yuri’ll get you set up with that Tachyon Drive.”

“Only if you come with us. I’m pretty sure that was his condition.”

“Ah, don’t listen to him, he’ll do it regardless. He needs me here anyway” Greaves replied, thinking of the old man tinkering away in his workshop, sweat on his brow, maybe he would be like that someday. But he wasn’t sure if that was what he wanted, or if it was what he had convinced himself he wanted. “A great adventure, now that would be something…”

“What’s your dream?” Astra asked, Hoshi’s head spun so quick his neck almost snapped.

“Decided to get hitched?” He asked sarcastically which earned him another punch.

Astra was still sitting beside him, this close he could see the warmth of her eyes, the sheen of her hair and the dimples in her skin. His focus was on the red lips that seduced him, those that drew him close and more intimate. “Working in a broken down shop in the alleys… is that your dream?”

The question reminded him of the movies. When Yuri took him home the day his parents were lost, cleaning him of the blood and sitting him by the old tv with a crack in the corner. He still had business, still working as always so he put on an old favourite of his. The tale of the greatest gunslinger in the west, a gentleman that took out the bad guys and got the pretty ladies…

The ruffian that lost everything and chose to keep being himself, to devote himself to protecting the weak and eventually dying a hero. They would make a monolith for him and his name would be remembered but… it wasn’t about fame and fortune… It was about what was right. It was about taking your shot…

“No…” he said as his resolve took hold. “My dream is what it always has been.”

“I want to be a hero.”