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Sequence 1 Merge 2, Stable Alex, Human “It’s a beacon signal,” Jackal’s brother said, and Alex brought up the information, listening to the data. Three objective hours away at the speed of data. They’d be there in half that if Jackal didn’t change theirs. The planet was still nothing more than a dot on the view port, with a blueish sun a slightly larger dot behind it. “What’s it telling you?” Jackal asked. He had none of his usual casualness. This was Jackal the captain, not Jackal the sex obsessed goof-ball. Alex liked both sides of him, and wished he could be the man for Jackal, but he had someone. Maybe. “It’s telling us where the port is.” The screen changed to show a blank planet with a flashing dot. They were too far for the scanners to get details He avoided listening to Tibs’s implant. It was…strange. Alex had considered implants instead of his earpiece when he’d approached graduation. Corporations had been there weekly promoting their technology, how implants would save them important microseconds by putting the processor directly in their head, instead of having to rely on whichever computer’s speed the implant connected to. Their arguments had merit. When coercing, those microseconds would make a difference, but he’d always been uncomfortable with getting part of his brains scooped out and replaced by technology; no matter how tested the procedure were at this time. With whispered words, Alex slipped deeper into the ship’s computer. Avoiding Tibs’s programs. Their scanner array needed work. He was tempted to redo the programming, make it as efficient as the hardware let it be, but that would require him also changing the core computer’s personality, and Jackal had made him promise not to coerce his ship. And Tibs had programs running everywhere, just as odd as his implant sounded. They’d talked, coercionist to coercionist. Classically trained versus self taught. Alex had been appalled at the way the young man had been experimented on, and if he’d known anything about those who’d done it, Alex would make sure they paid. He’d also given Tibs pointers he felt worked with the young man’s…intuitive coercing was the best way he could think of it. Tibs had built a library of programs on the fly, as he dealt with figuring out what coercing was about, and doing that deaf. Alex didn’t get the point of a deaf implant. In coercing, the point of an implant was to make speaking to the computer easier. Match its speed better. But that was one aspect Tibs beat him on. With that implant, he was fast. Alex had watched him be a blur through the other computers as he made changes, inserted programs to gain control. The only reason Alex had had to intervene again that Sebastian person was that there had been knowledge of how Tibs worked in the defenses. He’d seen the traps while the young man hadn’t even known to have programs looking for those. “So, we going there?” Jackal asked. “You tell me,” Tibs replied, and Alex smiled. Their relationship was amusing. The younger brother acting like Jackal was the one in charge while making nearly all the decisions when it came to running the ship. The only time Jackal actively acted like he was in charge was when they were in trouble. He was a good pilot, and great in a fight. His crew, as eclectic as it was, was all made of good combatants. Some of which had military training. “How about we wait until we see what’s there?” Jackal offered. “Works for me,” Tibs replied. * * * * * They were an hour away when the scans showed them the little that was there. The beacon was in the center of hangars, seven of the twelve registering ships. A few kilometers away a small settlement. Around that, barely a dozen more buildings, each with a field, so part of how the community survived. “Are you sure your guy’s here?” Jackal asked. “He has to be.” He had to. Negotiating with the Barstone Law guy for the list of places he’d compiled as to where the man they’d both shared passion with—although he’d known him as Simon—was hiding had been too intense to be false. The Law guy hadn’t looked. In the process of compiling the list, he’d reached the conclusion he wasn’t worth the effort, while Alex would never give up. What they’d shared had been too intense to be a lie. It couldn’t have been a lie. He’d looked into those eyes and he’s seen the love. He had to have seen it. This was his last chance. The last place on the list. The one least like anything his Jack would live in. Finding out who Jack actually was had taken so much. Even part of who Alex had been. But that real person was much like who Jack had been. Every record of him, hidden as they were, had him in a city where sex happened, and happened with near abandon. Their encounter hadn’t been like that. Delaron wasn’t a pleasure colony, but a corporate planet. But even there, people needed to have fun, blow steam after a long week of drudgery. So, clubs and pleasure areas were common. What he saw here was the antithesis. This was a sleepy little community. How did the man he’d had sex with for weeks on end, until he simply vanished, survive here? “Well, are we respecting the beacon?” Tibs looked at Alex, and he had to pull himself out of his queries. “I’m not here doing anything illicit, so I say yes.” He studied the landing area. “If you can fit your ship in there.” Those in the hangar were a fraction of the size of this one. Four or five-people ships. Leisure things by what he saw, more than transport. “I can fit it easy.” Jackal tapped a button, did it again. On the third try, it turned green. “Okay, people, I’m taking us into a gravity well. Secure what you don’t want flying around when we get shaken.” A tap and it turned red, cutting off protests. “Can the ship take the stress?” Alex asked. He hadn’t considered it would be going in, not that there were other ways for him to get there; the ship didn’t have shuttles. Jackal grinned. “We are about to find out.” Tibs cursed and grabbed onto his board. Alex mimicked him, minus the cursing, and was glad for it. He didn’t call what happened being shaken; that was nowhere near strong enough of a word. It settled, slightly, once they were into the lower atmosphere, but the ship didn’t stop shaking until it was on the ground. “This thing is a death trap,” he muttered. “But it’s my death trap,” Jackal grinned. “Well, mine and Tibs.” “All yours,” Tibs said. “I just make sure it doesn’t kill us.” A look at the scans showed that Jackal had been true to his word. He hadn’t damaged any of the hangars. Good thing they weren’t staying, because the ship blocked access to a number of them. The scans also showed someone approaching the…well, there was a buoy, so this was a port. “Thanks for the lift, Jackal, Tibs. I’ve—” “What do you mean, thanks for the lift?” “I mean, you did what we agreed to. You got me here.” Jackal stared at him. “And what are you going to do when—if he isn’t here?” Alex shrugged. He hadn’t planned for that, but his old friend didn’t need to know that. “I’m sure someone here can give me a lift to where ever the closest station is.” “Nope.” “Jackal,” Tibs said. “No. I’m not leaving a client to the mercy of some unknown. We’re staying here until—no, I’m going with you to make sure no one gives you trouble.” “I can take care of myself, Jackal.” “Don’t care. Remember what therapy taught us? Accepting help isn’t a show of weakness.” Alex sighed. That was not how it had been meant. But he’d come to realize there was only one way to keep Jackal from doing something. He looked at Tibs, who was studying his brother. Finally, he shook his head. So, there was no stopping him. Alex headed for the hatch, Jackal and Tibs on his heel. “We’ll be back in a bit,” Jackal told their astrogator, or at least that what Alex thought the man did. He, too, had an implant, but it only leaked signal; it didn’t communicate with anything. “Tell everyone to just relax until then.” The man didn’t ask questions, so Alex had the sense Jackal going off like this wasn’t unusual. Outside, the air was dry; the blue of the sun didn’t affect his vision in any noticeable way. The man approaching gave him the sense of someone used to fighting, either with his fist or the old-looking gun at his hip. Alex’s weapon was in his pack. “Don’t reach for your gun,” he told Jackal. “I’m not,” he replied, moving his hand away. Tibs rolled his eyes. “Howdy, Folks,” the man said, and Alex now had the sense that he was out of those movies Will and his friends on the Golly had enjoyed watching about lawmen who landed on a planet and kept order there. “Not every day a ship this big comes to our part of the universe. What brings you here?” “I’m looking for someone.” “All the way here?” The man chuckled. “She leave with your valuables or something?” Jackal snorted, while Alex worked out how to word it. “He left with something more precious to me.” The man’s expression grew serious. “You here to cause trouble?” The man’s hand didn’t go for the gun, but the arm tensed. “Just here to talk, if his here. Samalian, taller than me. Black fur with white speckling.” The man’s narrowing eyes loosened Alex’s shoulders. He knew who he meant. So he was here. He considered the empty hangars. Please be here. “You willing to leave those in your ship?” he nodded to Jackal and Tibs’s guns. “Yes,” Tibs said, while Jackal snorted defiantly. He looked at his brother. “What do you mean, yes? We don’t know anything about these people.” Tibs rolled his eyes. “I mean, yes. Your friend said he isn’t here to start nothing—” “Anything,” Jackal corrected. “It’s he isn’t here to start anything.” “Nothing,” Tibs insisted, sounding annoyed. “So we don’t need to be armed.” “Tibs, you know I love you like the brother that you are, but—” “They going to stop that anytime soon?” the man asked. Alex chuckled. “I don’t think so. Might be easier for me to just start walking.” “You leaving your gun behind?” “It’s in my pack. I can't reach it easily.” He wasn’t surprised the man had recognized that he too was from the life. You didn’t survive it by going anywhere unarmed. “Why does he get to keep his gun?” Jackal asked when the man didn’t say anything. “Because him, I trust. I don’t know either of you.” “You don’t know him either,” Tibs pointed out. “But I know what he’s lived through. I don’t know the kind of men you are.” Tibs put a hand on Jackal’s arm and shook his head, then handed him his weapon and the man reluctantly returned to the ship. “The crew might want to take in the sun,” Tibs said. “Is that going to be a problem?” “So long as they don’t touch the hangars. They’re protected.” “We aren’t pirates.” “Then I guess they don’t have anything to worry, do they?” Jackal returned, no happier. “How about we go? So we can get off this planet?” “Just follow the road. When you reach the fountain, look for Diny’s. Unless you can’t take the gravity, he’ll still be eating by the time you get there.” “You’re not coming?” Alex asked. “Since I’m here, I need to check on the buoy. You kids head off. There’s nothing for you to break between here and there.” He walked off while Alex considered his reply. He didn’t intend to yell it, so he headed away from the ship, Jackal and his brother at his side. * * * * * Even having seen the scan of the town, Alex was surprised by how empty it was. Having grown up and worked on a corporate world, he was used to building close enough they were only far enough apart to let traffic pass. When that traffic were pedestrians, a few paces could take you from one building to the other. Here, he could fit entire blocks between buildings. That narrowed slightly as they moved deeper, but even when they reached the fountain, the space was large enough he’d think it a part, instead of being the center of town, with buildings at the periphery. Diny was easy to find with the sign drifting in the breeze. Wooden, with the name on top, and a busty woman carrying trays. Inside, Alex took in the sounds and then didn’t have to search for his quarry. The black furred Samalian stood out among an entirely human customers, sitting along. Alex couldn’t tell if it was because the others didn’t want him there, or because he didn’t want them to get close to him. The man he thought he knew would have men filling every seat, probably also on his lap. Well, this suited him fine. He drew looks as he headed for the table, then pulled a chair to plop himself down facing the Samalian, who put the tablet he’d been reading face down. “Hello Jack,” Alex spit out. “Or do you prefer Tristan?” Alex was pleased the man only glance at Jackal and his brother as they sat on their right and left, dismissing them to focus on him. He frowned, then recognition sank he and the world shook. Alex had hoped this moment would hit him, although he hadn’t expected to feel like this. Then, someone outside screamed in terror, and Tristan was out of his chair. Alex was a few seconds behind, not willing to let him escape, although now, he realized the world actually shook. People looked up, and Alex did the same as Tristan, and had trouble understanding what he was seeing. “What the fuck?” Jackal said, and Alex thought the sentiment was justified when the sky split apart to reveal utter darkness.