Hornet's Nest

Resource Management

"D!!"

Daigo thought back to the ship again. To the meal he had shared with the whole crew just a while ago. He was about to get them all killed. They should’ve spaced the clone, he shouldn’t have picked up the spook.

Hell, maybe Daigo should have never played Kiyin’s father that game of cards. He had ruined her life, and now he was about to doom the galaxy, and it had all started when he won the ship on that blasted game of cards.

His mind flashed him a three-second movie of his whole life with Kiyin. All those long years. A slideshow of Kiyin’s face and look changing with time. And although that had little effect on his body, his mind came back to full function.

Daigo felt the panic subsiding, washed away by the visage of his co-pilot and wife.

“What if we set it on fire?” Daigo asked.

Wichmond looked up at Daigo in realization, following his trail of thought. “Or blow it up? What happens then?”

“A reactionary explosion, but nothing of the likes it can be caused by using a star, which provides an untold number of instantaneous nuclear explosions. It would be enough… Certainly to level my fortress. It might crater the moon, but it will not change its… Mass in any significant way. It will not affect its orbit.”

Daigo glared as all his thoughts and emotions banded together in agreement. And there’s my angle, he thought.

“No!” Hannes yelled, and shot the clone dead point-blank.

Kyle winced as he fall back into a sit, and for a second, Daigo expected that pistol to be aimed at him. Hannes, though, simply paced toward him with just as much aggression. If not more.

“Hannes...” Daigo said, carefully. One wrong word and they were screwed. Neither of the three could fight off Hannes if he decided to kill them.

“No, D, this isn’t just about the money, damn you!” He was yet to holster the pistol, but he was still aiming it down. “Didn’t ya hear ‘im?! Everyone’s comin’ fer this thing. Everyone. Ya think they’ll just let us go? We need it fer leverage, D. If ya really want to destroy it, we can, but later!”

“Trust me,” Daigo asked, hoping his pleading would work. “I can’t waste time explaining, but I know what I’m doing.”

“Bull,” Hannes said, leaning in to call Daigo’s bluff. “Yer scared outta yer mind to play with this thing, is what it is!”

“I got an angle, is what it is!” Daigo yelled. “Give me a charge,” Daigo demanded, holding out his hand, which he immediately realized was a mistake. His hand was trembling like crazy.

Hannes glared down at it. “Look at that,” Hannes pointed out, slapping his hand away, “yer not right, D. Yer nerves’re shot. I’m not letting ya do this.”

Daigo’s temper flared, and he let it. He had only one idea left on how to deal with Hannes, and it involved going a bit ballistic.

“YES, OKAY!” Daigo bellowed, letting his breathing get heavy and uneven. “I’m afraid! I am certifiably terrified of this damn weapon that every government in the galaxy wants which can destroy entire damn systems and literally blow up suns! I’m scared! Kyle is scared! The damn creator of the thing is scared! The only people who aren’t scared are the ones who want to use it! And you!! So you tell me, damn you!” Daigo stepped into Hannes’s personal space, ignoring the tight, nervous grip that Hannes was holding his pistol with, and shoved his stare right up at the old grizzled eyes. “You tell me which one of us is sane enough to make this decision! Your lack of fear is not an advantage, Hannes, you’re a brainwashed war-junkie and you know it!”

Hannes looked furious, but his eyes shifted at his final statement in a way that betrayed to Daigo that he had him. Taking advantage of the heat of the moment, Daigo didn’t look away with his teary prosthetic eyes as he pulled back a step so that he could shove his trembling hand on Hannes’s chest.

“Hand me a charge,” Daigo demanded again.

Hannes' face darkened, folding into a huge frown.

“Hannes, please,” Kyle pleaded from the side, tearfully. He wasn’t as emotionally debilitated as he should be, but that was probably because he wasn’t aware of the danger they were in. Facing off Hannes like that. Still, he was helping. “Please trust him. He’s our captain.”

Hannes snarled in response. Holding a heavy frown, revealing his teeth through the scar on his cheek, he slapped an explosive charge into Daigo’s hand. It was probably taking a huge amount of mental effort for Hannes to keep himself in check, so he didn’t say anything. He just stared, passing the responsibility of everything that was coming next along with the bomb.

Daigo coughed, clearing his throat and shivering away some of the tension. Then, he turned around to Wichmond. He had a lump on his throat, but he couldn’t let that stop him.

“I’ll set this to explode, and you’ll lead us back to our ship safely from here.”

“What? No,” Wichmond shook his head, quite apologetically. “I can’t just stay here and die.”

“But you --”

“I told you,” Kyle said from the side, his voice hoarse, “it’s like when you want to run, but your legs won’t move. He wants it to happen but he can’t actually--”

Daigo groaned in frustration and drew his pistol and shot Wichmond in the belly. Kyle yelped again as Wichmond flinched in shock. He looked down at the wound, dumbfounded, and slowly keeled over.

Hannes was already walking back to the entrance.

“You’re going to bleed out in a few minutes,” Daigo told him while he set up the charge on the weapon container. He didn’t hide how upset he was. “You’ll pass out beforehand. My point is that you can’t be saved. We’re locking you in here and you can’t defuse this satchel without it blowing up on you.”

Wichmond looked up at Daigo with an expression that was impossible to decipher. Daigo had never seen anything like it.

He chose to believe it was some type of relief.

Yeah, Daigo through to himself, bitterly. This is why he had me shoot the spy. He wanted to know I’d be willing to kill him even if he wanted to survive.

He was a terrible human being… Yet, Wichmond was not a fool.

“I’m hoping you’ll want to do one good thing with your damn life, Wichmond, and help us get back to our ship.”

Wichmond kind of stuttered a nod. He chuckled and coughed out blood. “This… doesn’t count?” The doctor asked, gesturing at both his wound and the bomb.

“I did that,” Daigo said, cleaning sweat off his forehead. “So no.” He stood up.

Looking at it all, he felt immediately relieved. For good or for ill, it was set and done. Daigo felt his body returning back to normal now that the weapon, and all ways to make it, was guaranteed to be destroyed.

“This is insane…” Kyle said, with effort. “But you’re doing the right thing, captain.”

“Shut up, kid,” Daigo complained, not the least bit thankful for those words. “Come on.”

They ran back to the entrance, past the hundreds of blueprints and half projects that were about to be obliterated. There, Hannes was waiting.

“Set up the charge?” Daigo asked

Hannes didn’t reply out loud, he just nodded. This was his silent treatment, which was how he behaved when they were doing something completely against his wishes. He had only behaved like that once before, but it gave Daigo some assurance. He would have acted by now if he wasn’t with them to the end.

Not that the mercenary had any better option when it came to avoiding an end.

They gained some distance before blowing up the secret entrance so that it was impossible for anyone to make it to the doctor, and weapon, in time to save them.

That’s when the dying voice of the magnate inventor came in through the earpiece.

“I…I see you. Proceed… north. Tur -- third right.”

The dying inventor magnate guided the three back to the docking bay without issues. Well, he guided them until they were a corridor away.

“They… There is only one way back to the docking… to your ship. That hallway -- they are there… They have boarded your ship.”

“Wichmond,” Daigo took out the earpiece and looked at it like he was looking at the man.

He felt great disdain for being in the situation that they were in, and blaming Wichmond was the only way he had not to blame himself.

But still. “Thank you for helping us.”

“There are definitely… worse things I could… That I could be doing. Thank you also for… Your courage. Smuggler.”

Crazy to consider, but Wichmond didn’t even know their names.

Daigo threw the earpiece on the ground and crushed it underfoot. He looked up at Kyle and caught him looking at him with some manner of pride. He ignored it and looked at Hannes, motioning him to lead on. The man drew his pistol and walked out of cover. Daigo and Kyle followed.

“Kyle, I need to talk to you,” Daigo said, purposefully dramatically.

“Yeah-yes? Yes, Captain?”

“Look, things are pretty bad,” Daigo stated.

“I’m sure they’re safe, captain,” Kyle said, sounding concerned anyway. “It’s our nest, after all, they’re for sure--”

“Just shut up, kid, I know they’re okay right now.” He saw Hannes turning a corner and immediately opening fire. But the mercenary spun back into cover at once. Daigo stood behind him, drawing his own pistol. “I’m saying after we leave this moon, things are--”

“Three o’ them,” Hannes finally said, begrudgingly. “Cover me, D.”

“I got you.”

Daigo switched places with Hannes and pushed his g*n out, blindly shooting into the corridor ahead, which allowed Hannes to lean around and toss a grenade.

A big flash exploded with a piercing, deafening sound, and Hannes ran in like a killer.

“I’ll need Sára to be the best she’s been,” Daigo yelled back. “She hesitates for one second, and it might mean all our deaths.”

Kyle opened his eyes and both of them ignored the grunts of pain and death that Hannes was producing on the unsuspecting enemy. Kyle was stunned.

“Listen, this isn’t the time to be a kid,” Daigo glared at Kyle, “your sister has some bad mental issues, but luck has it that they are tied to you. She’s the greatest genius I have ever met. So I want you to stay by her side at all times, and I want you to encourage her, and talk to her, and every time I ask something impossible, you tell her she can do it. You do not let her consider death, failure, or hesitation. Nothing. You keep her on point or we’re all dead.”

 “Geez, Captain, why do you always… You really make me feel like the only reason I’m on the ship is because of her,” Kyle said, pleadingly.   

“It is,” Daigo said, without hesitation. He watched Kyle’s shoulders fall like he had never seen.

“It’s clear!” Hannes yelled back.

“It absolutely is,” Daigo added, ripping into Kyle with the rash truth. “You make sure she knows that.”