Sokol had fully expected his comrades to hunt him down within the next few hours. He had no hope of surviving, yet it had been exhilarating to know that for the first time in his life he was free. Helion would have his hide for it, and if he wasn’t killed outright he’d be sent to the worst prison the corporation could find after being publicly shamed. His family would suffer, either by execution or imprisonment for having failed to properly raise their child as a loyalist.
All of it had been worth these precious few moments of life as a free man.
Punishment from Helion never reached him or the girl, who he would later learn was named Morgan Tarth, as the Fatalis appeared in orbit over the planet. The Helion research vessel was not equipped to do battle against the already infamous Kochi the Deathless and his warship. While a security frigate exchanged fire with the Fatalis the research vessel withdrew the remaining experimental mechs from the planet’s surface and fled the system. The security frigate, already limping from its brief struggle with the vastly superior opponent, was soon to follow, leaving the planet for the ravagers.
Soon Sokol and Morgan found themselves being made the Fiat Lux offer of membership and life. They took it gladly, and were welcomed into the fold along with their war machines. If a person was useful they were given the Fiat Lux offer, if they were not, they were killed. The SOS from Marcross 2 ended up saving fifteen individuals out of the hundreds who populated Marcross 1 through 4.
“It’s a hard universe,” mumbled Sokol as his vision began to swim, before the rush of air finally subsided and he passed out.
Only to awaken moments later as the atmosphere stabilized in the transit hub. Sokol shook his head to clear the cobwebs of unconsciousness and made out the shapes of people moving through the hub, trying to help those who had joined Sokol and Morgan in succumbing to the rapid decline in breathable air. Sokol blinked as more oxygen reached his brain and his sense returned to their general sharpness. He realized he was wearing an e-mask.
The pilot turned his head to see one of the commune emergency response specialists, of which there was perhaps a dozen in total, removing a mask from Morgan as the young woman struggled to her feet. The specialist noticed Sokol stirring and moved to help the pilot to stand before removing his mask.
“Close one, Ogre,” said the man as Sokol drew his first breath away from the mask, noticing right away that something wasn’t right, prompting the man to nod and add, “Ox levels are thin across the Lux.”
“What happened?” asked Morgan as she jumped up and down in place for a moment to get her blood pumping and shake off the lingering fugue of asphyxiation. “Are we under attack?”
“No ma’am, there was an accident in the core,” answered the specialist as he packed up his small kit and started to make his way to some of the other commune members who were still struggling to recover, “Hull breaches and too many open hatches.”
Before he could think much on what sort of accident it might have been, Sokol’s comm began to ping with a summoning alert, as did Morgan’s. He looked down and could see the light glowing green, indicating that he was to report immediately to the Fatalis along with Morgan. They walked to the skiff that would lead them down the tunnel to the dry dock and was joined by two other men, both swarm troopers, who had the tiny green dots of light coming from their comms as well.
They rode in silence, each of them knowing that Kochi the Deathless did not summon anyone without grave cause. Discipline might be tight on board Fatalis, but when they were home, the ravagers were their own person and there was no chain of command. They might enjoy a certain revered status among the others in Fiat Lux, being the warriors and providers for the community, but there was no class system and everyone, man or woman, was equal. In theory that was how it was supposed to work, and for the most part it did, though the mech pilots were something akin to unofficial celebrities in the community. Only one person commanded with absolute authority in Fiat Lux, and that was the captain of the warship Fatalis.
Minutes later as Morgan and the swarm troopers went to report to their duty stations, Sokol entered the captain’s chamber as ordered, ushered in by two of Kochi’s five personal bodyguards.
Officially, their duty was to lay down their lives to keep Kochi functional and operating the ship if the Fatalis was boarded. Sokol knew that the guards would not hesitate to put him down if the captain demanded it. In a community where all were equal, Kochi the Deathless was still alone in his position of power, though it was much removed from the day to day lives of the people.
Sokol walked through the sliding door and instantly his nose was assaulted with the peculiar scent of the various aromatics that were positioned throughout the chamber. The thick miasma of complex scents very nearly masked the stinging odor of decay that wafted from the captain. No matter how many times Sokol came face to face with his captain, Kochi the Deathless was something nobody could get used to, and the pilot could see similar reactions from Gage and Lelani Ursa as they waited for his arrival.
Captain Kochi was the last known living accredited citizen of the now defunct Wageri Corporation, which put his name was on the Red List alongside every other human who called Fiat Lux home. The man was nearly one hundred and thirty standard years old, his lifelink with the ship and the sacrifice of his body all that kept him alive.
In the Wageri tradition, a young Kochi had been outfitted with dozens of body ports and sat in the inclined grav couch that was the pilot’s throne. He had not risen from that throne in over a century, and his body showed the signs of his age and the grueling task that had become his life’s purpose. The steady infusion of nutrients and life-sustaining chemicals had slowed the aging process down tremendously. Currents of electricity routinely contracted his muscles to keep his body from atrophying. The secrets of maintaining the Wageri technology had been lost when the company was broken and its people scattered through the universe like so much debris.
During the Wageri collapse Kochi and the crew of the Fatalis went rogue, having decided that if they were going to be Red List they might as well go into the unknown with a warship. With half their crew and their own captain slain in the mutiny to control the ship, Kochi assumed command from his pilot’s throne. Life on the Red List was brutal and short, especially for those who turned to piracy, but with the might of the Fatalis a community of the desperate and the daring began to form around the warship. Eventually, nearly half a century later, the Fiat Lux ravager commune took shape.
He might be Kochi the Deathless, thought Sokol as he looked at the captain’s withered and weary form, but the man was losing his struggle with time, even if he was the last of his original crew still clinging to life. Kochi’s body had begun to slowly rot as the chemicals that sustained him gradually fouled with time, for there was no technology to replace it or Wageri engineer to maintain it.
When the captain died, so would the Fatalis, at least in its current form. The ravagers of Fiat Lux were exceptional scavengers, and they’d be able to keep the warship alive enough to become the key battle station in the defensive debris field, but they’d have to conduct their raids without it.
Seeing the captain instantly made Sokol think of Ogre One, and the fact that when he himself died, assuming Ogre survived the pilot’s grisly end, the commune would be down a mech until they could coerce another pilot from outside the community. They could maintain the war machines, but without proper facilities and available technologies it would be impossible to create new pilots. The process by which the pilots were given bio-port implants was a complex one, and the commune did not have the capability. Always on death’s doorstep, Sokol reflected as the captain began to speak, that’s life on the list.