Aetheral Space

Chapter 145:6.3: What The Dark Has

"Personally," Winston said, lying back in his hospital bed. "I thought I’d done pretty well until I found out about all the internal bleeding."

Muzazi sighed at his bedside, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Officer Grace had collapsed shortly after returning to Landfall-01. Apparently, one of his broken ribs had caused bleeding, and he hadn’t realized -- as he’d forgotten to turn his sense of pain back on. If there hadn’t been anyone else around when he’d finally collapsed, he very well could have died.

He’d been taken here -- to Landfall-01’s primary medical facility, which wasn’t saying much. Most of the rooms were filled with spacers who’d suffered from industrial accidents or the effects of air contamination, but even so they were so short-staffed that medical automatics were handling the bulk of the workload. The sterile white room was infested with the sickly-sweet stink of Panacea, like rotting sugar.

Marie was standing on the other side of the bed, her own expression much less sympathetic. "Katashi Oliphant-Hidaka?" she asked curtly. "That’s definitely the name the guy told you?"

"Yeah," Winston pouted. "And after I specifically asked him not to."

She sucked in air through her teeth. "Oliphant Clan, huh? This is going to be a pain."

Muzazi couldn’t help but agree. The Oliphant family controlled the lion’s share of organized crime within the Supremacy, so dealing with them usually became very complicated very quickly. Oliphant-Hidaka wasn’t a branch he was familiar with, and it was surprising that they had a presence on such a small planet, but he still didn’t relish the prospect of dealing with them.

"It bodes ill if the Oliphant Clan have allied themselves with Darkstar," Muzazi said grimly, folding his arms. "I know it seems cowardly, but perhaps we should contact the Commission and request backup before attempting to capture Katashi? There’s no telling what pieces the combined forces of Darkstar and the Oliphant Clan could have in play."

"What?" Marie scoffed. "You think the Abyssal Knight might be waiting behind the door?"

Muzazi felt his face flush at the mockery, but he kept his composure all the same. "We should proceed as if that is a possibility, yes."

Both of them turned to look at Winston as the young man grunted in pain -- he’d moved to flip his pillow over and apparently aggravated his injuries. He waved a hand to reject help that wasn’t being offered.

"The Oliphant Clan isn’t working with Darkstar," he said dismissively, still wincing. "If they were, that idiot wouldn’t have dared to tell me the name of one of their operatives. Even if I hadn’t killed him, they would have -- and the way they’d have done it would have been a hundred times worse. I imagine that guy -- and his buddies -- used to work for this Oliphant-Hidaka, so that was the first name that popped into his head."

"And if you’re wrong?" Muzazi raised an eyebrow.

Winston smiled. "I’ve never been wrong once in my life. Don’t get me wrong -- it’s still a good idea to question this guy, find out who poached his goons -- but we don’t need to worry about Darkstar kicking our faces in." He shifted in his bed. "We can go check him out as soon as they fix me up with Panacea."

Marie stepped away, with just the slightest smirk on her face.

Winston furrowed his brow. "What?"

"About that," she put a hand on her hip. "Panacea’s really better for replacing than repairing, so they’re probably gonna put you on a regimen of stimulants and regen-gel, which is gonna take a couple of days. Lemme be honest: we’re not waiting a couple of days."

Muzazi nodded apologetically as he went to join her. "We’ll return once we’ve questioned the man. At that point, we’ll share the information we’ve learned, and you can come to a conclusion. That’s the most efficient way of handling the situation."

Winston did his best to sit up in the bed, but the twinges of pain sent him back down just as quick.

"But that’s not fair," he whined. "What if you miss a clue or something? Come on, you guys!"

Marie shrugged, but the smirk didn’t disappear from her face. "Life’s not fair, I guess," she sighed. "Get some sleep, okay? Me and Atoy will figure this thing out for you."

As the two of them left the hospital room, ignoring the protests ringing out from the bed, Muzazi couldn’t help but feel that his ears would enjoy the rest as well.

Muzazi tapped his foot against the cold metal floor, doing his best to stay steady in his seat even as the bulky vehicle shook and rumbled. The automatic truck floated a few meters over the ground, but everytime it struck an exceptionally thick pile of snow the occupants felt it.

He checked his script, a holographic representation of the automatic truck blinking along a segmented blue line. Judging just from a general look, they were about an hour into the two-hour trip.

A sigh escaped his lips as he leaned backwards, the back of his head cold against the metal wall.

Landfall-01 was a small settlement, but even so it apparently had two or three other communities that relied on it. The main settlement was an official outpost of the Supremacy, whereas these small outlying communities weren’t strictly legal: they’d sprung up as people were left behind by transport ships or lost the jobs that had brought them to Landfall-01 in the first place.

When they’d arrived, Regan had mentioned what little crime Nocturnus had consisted of a small smuggling operation -- Muzazi had no doubt the place they were going to, Heap, was the source of it.

And it was where they’d find Katashi Oliphant-Hidaka.

Across from Muzazi, on the opposite bench, Marie was cracking her knuckles. Right now, that was the only sound in this small, enclosed space. Muzazi cleared his throat to fill that void.

"It was good of Governor Regan to lend us this transport," he said. "It’ll greatly increase the speed of our journey -- and lessen the hazard, as well. Using bikes would have made the cold quite a risk."

Marie raised an eyebrow. "Tense?"

"How so?"

"You don’t usually talk this much."

Muzazi frowned. "I speak a reasonable amount, I should think."

"Yes," Marie admitted. "But not usually about nothing. Usually you say things that are useful, or hold some sort of significance, but you just started telling me how useful this truck is apropos of nothing. Hence, you’re tense."

"Hence…" Muzazi found himself smirking. "You’re beginning to sound like Officer Grace yourself."

"Don’t be a dick," Marie laughed. She leaned back on the bench, crossing her legs as she stared up at the corner of the room -- this vehicle had no windows to occupy the eyes. "You are tense, though."

Muzazi mirrored his partner, sighing as he leaned back and crossed his arms. He had to admit she was right. There was no logical reason for him to feel so unsettled -- he’d experienced nothing but victories since coming here -- but this planet simply did not agree with him.

"It’s the dark, I should think," he muttered, looking down at the floor. "And the cold, and the isolation. It feels as if we’re in a place that does not exist. I’m… unused to such conditions."

"What?" Marie cocked her head. "So you’re scared of the dark?"

Slowly, Muzazi shook his head. "No -- well, perhaps. But I’m not sure if that’s the way to describe it. Usually, a fear of the dark is because you dread what might be within it. Am I right in saying that?"

Marie nodded.

Muzazi’s arm loosened, and without quite realizing he found himself looking down at his hands. "What I fear is that the dark might be empty. That what we can see is all there is, and there’s no point

Regardless of whether he’d seen the action clearly, the results went unchanged. Muzazi and Katashi -- and something else -- went flying out of the front door, not one of them untouched by the fire that burst freely from the explosive.

It licked at Muzazi’s right arm, igniting it for a split second before he fell into the snow, smothering the flame before it could get started. Katashi’s head and body were scorched, the man screaming as he thrashed on the ground, clutching his burnt face. And the third thing…

The third thing…

The top half of Marie Hazzard’s body was limp, arms splayed around it in the snow. Her eyes had rolled up into her head, revealing red veins, and her tongue lolled vacantly out of her mouth. The snow around her was quickly turning red.

Atoy Muzazi’s eyes feared what they would see -- but they still looked down.

There was nothing below Marie Hazzard’s torso, just the charred and terminated trails of what had once been organs. A strange, strangled noise trickled from Muzazi’s throat, and he put a hand to his mouth to stifle it. Even with that half-measure, however, he couldn’t deny what he was seeing.

He couldn’t deny that he was looking at a corpse.

His hand didn’t hold his voice back for long. Atoy Muzazi’s scream was swallowed by the dark.