Traitor

by C R MacFarlane

  Gal’s feet carried him to her side. “She’s alive,” he smiled.

  “Gal?” Hoepe questioned him.

  He took her hand in his. “Please,” he turned quickly to the doctor.

  Hoepe stared at him — Gal knew why, he hadn’t been himself for a long time, but he was now — and the doctor nodded.

  He kissed her hand.

  A chair shifted, and the doctor sat down beside him. “We don’t know what happened, Gal. She caught a high voltage beam in the chest — possibly an electric arc surge from one of the laz-cannon hits. It was inches from her heart. She’s lucky to be alive. Luckier that she was able to trigger the medical alarm and we could get to her quickly. She will make a full recovery.”

  Gal heaved a sigh of relief, unable to hide it. He dropped his head to Rayne’s hand. She looked younger, the worry gone while she slept.

  He recalled their time on Yates. A beautiful planet, too beautiful for its fate. Like Rayne, too beautiful to have ended up tangled in his mess.

  Her eyelids fluttered in the harsh light. Her frown softened as her eyes landed on him. She shifted beside him, groaning on the medical bed.

  He pulled back, afraid to hurt her. Afraid to hurt her more than he already had.

  “Gal,” she sighed happily. She lifted her right hand, pulling it from his grip, wincing as she tried to salute.

  Quickly he grabbed her hand. “At ease, Rayne.”

  “What happened?” she asked him groggily.

  His heart hammered in his chest. He licked his suddenly dry lips. He avoided her gaze, looking instead at the two doctors watching him intently. He answered, “They think it was a high voltage arc, triggered from one of the cannon blasts.”

  She nodded, grimacing again. “That’s why it hurts so much.”

  “Rayne, I’m so sorry,” he sobbed. “This is all my fault.”

  “Gal, shhh.” She slurred slightly. “I know who you are.”

  He gasped and sat up, every muscle in his body tense. “You do?”

  “You’re a protector. That’s why I’ve stayed so long. I don’t know what’s happened to you these last few years, but you look much better now.”

  He nodded, both relieved and disappointed that she didn’t really know who he was. “Yeah, I do feel better. Hoepe’s new medicine must be working.” He smiled.

  Something about it was wrong, but what other explanation was there?

  She smiled again, sloppy and sedated and radiant all at the same time. “You’ll save us, I’m sure of it.”

  Hoepe pressed in, checking her vital signs. He frowned, adjusted an auto-syringe, and injected her.

  Gal watched, a sick sense of worry building in him. She might think he was a protector, but how could he possibly save them? He closed his eyes and a demon glared back in his mind’s eye, grey and rotten.

  Cornelius.

  Gasping, he found himself back in the infirmary, demons disappeared. But they were only thinly veiled. They were stranded in space, heavily damaged. But there had been another option. A friend. A planet.

  He frowned, maybe a friend.

  The planet would not be dangerous to them. Only difficult.

  Rayne blinked blearily, the pain killers taking her. “Gal?”

  “I’m here, Rayne.”

  “I love you.”

  His heart stopped. His gasp set his thoughts back in motion again. “I promise I’ll make it right.”

  She was asleep already.

  He would keep her safe, keep everyone safe. All of them. The weight of it crushed him, far heavier than a sea of dead demons.

  * * *

  Sarrin dragged herself through the space in the walls. Weight crushed down on her, drowning her, making it hard to breathe.

  Her stomach threatened to expel all its contents again. A horrible chill passed through her, a wave destroying every hope in its path — the same feeling as the instant Gal had grabbed her arm, his skin brushing against hers.

  She pulled energy from people, and Gal’s burden was intense. The emotions that constantly boiled off of him, the ones that were heavy with regret and failure, poured in her, threatening to crush her from the inside.

  The desire to escape intensified, doubled now. Only she couldn’t bring herself to run. She had to fight for each drag of her arms as she crawled through the narrow space.

  She passed out, slumped down and lost consciousness in the walls. When she woke, there was no way to tell how long it had been.

  Long enough for her whole body to go numb, or maybe that was something else.

  Her vision crowded in. Not in the way it did when she was in danger and the trance threatened to take over. But in the way it had done on Junk, when she was in pain and her mind had needed to escape it.

  Blindly, she squeezed through the walls, barely aware of her direction until she reached a familiar space. The panel was worn from her repeatedly climbing in and out, and she pushed it. It clattered softly to the floor.

  Her body was so cold. She was so tired. Her legs shook in desperation as she stood.

  She needed something. Something warm. Something hopeful. Something to remind her she wasn’t alone.

  His warm body was curled on the floor, gently snoring, tucked into his make-shift bed so that she might take the real one. Kieran looked peaceful, happy. He looked everything she wasn’t. And she fell to her knees beside him.

  She reached out, desperate. Desperate to see him flash his grin, or hear him laugh. Desperate for him to grab her foot through the blankets and tell her everything was alright.

  She longed to touch him, but stopped herself.

  She had touched Gal, and Gal had walked away — But Gal had nothing left to lose. Kieran had everything.

  If she touched him, she would kill him. It was the monster that wanted her to do it, to save herself. But she wouldn’t.

  Her heart still pulled her down next to him. Carefully, she pulled the blankets up, keeping a thick layer of sheets between them.

  The closeness wasn’t comforting, but it was something.

  Her body shook violently now. Pain coursed through her and she grabbed the blankets, stuffing the sheets into her mouth against the screams. It crashed up and down her arms and legs, worse than anything from a laz-rifle or scalpel or bio-pulse weapon.

  It was unnamed emotional pain, pain that was not hers and pain that was hers. Pain that had no cure.

  Tears slipped across her cheeks.

  Pain consumed her until everything just stopped.

  SIXTEEN

  KIERAN GROANED, ROLLING OVER AS a screeching tone tore him from sleep. It took him several long seconds to place the sound of the door chime. Longer to realize he was on the floor of his standard-issue lieutenant’s quarters on the Ishash’tor.

  With a rush, the memories returned to him: the desperate jump away from the warship, plugging a live conduit into the gravity-drive as Thomas shouted at him not to. In hindsight, he was lucky to be alive. He must have passed out, he remembered vaguely flashes of the dark engineering bay, and someone carrying him, and laying him down on the bed.

  But he was lying on the floor. In just an undershirt and shorts.

  The door chime sounded again, impatiently.

  Everything ached, his body so heavy he wasn’t sure he could get up. Something hard and knobby pressed into his side: a lump, no, a knee. His eyes shot open, heart racing. Sarrin’s knee.

  What was she doing?

  Instinctively, his hand jerked under the pillow, where he had slept with the auto-syringe of sedative close at hand, but it was long gone. Sarrin didn’t move, her body prostrate like a corpse, the only sign of life a sudden jerking rise and fall of her chest.

  He slipped himself out from under the covers, careful not to disturb her, not to touch her. The bed was empty, the sheets pulled off and piled like a barrier between them.

  With one last curious look at Sarrin, he opened the door as the chime sounded a third and very annoying time.

  G
al leaned against the frame. He glanced in the apartment, his eyes scanning the lump on the floor and the dislodged blankets, before meeting Kieran’s gaze with a single raised eyebrow. The expression on his face was amused. Alert, even.

  Kieran immediately stood up straighter, his brain working to process. This was not the same man he had seen aimlessly wandering the halls a day ago. “Cap’n, it’s oh-three thirty,” he said.

  “I need your help,” said Gal. He turned without further explanation.

  For a minute, Kieran stared at the form retreating down the corridor, but Gal had an air about him now, one that begged to be followed. Quickly, he grabbed his boots and ran after him.

  “I know you keep track of everything,” Gal said as Kieran caught up, hopping as he put one boot on and then the other. “Can you set a course to the planet?”

  “To Junk?”

  “No, C—. The other planet.”

  Kieran tripped over his untied boot, falling into the wall. “What? Like the unmarked one?”

  “Yes,” Gal said crisply.

  Exhaustion or confusion taking over, Kieran found himself frozen in place, staring at Gal. He was completely unlike any version of the captain he had ever seen, drunk or sober. Gone were the worry lines and grey skin. His eyes were filled with an intense cunning. Gal looked alive for the first time.

  “Kieran,” Gal prompted him.

  “Uh, yeah. I think so.” He jogged to catch up again. “Why?”

  “Good,” nodded Gal curtly. “We need to go there.”

  “I thought you said it wasn’t safe. That we couldn’t go there.”

  Gal sighed, his head drooping. “We don’t have many options at this point. It has been explored, but never catalogued. The planet is not unsafe. As long as we keep our wits about us.”

  They paused in front of the Engineering doors. A shiver danced across Kieran’s skin, exposed as he was in his boxers and undershirt.

  Gal lifted his head and looked at Kieran from the corner of his eyes. “I haven’t been myself for a very long time. But we are in too much danger for me to ignore it any longer. I know I said it was dangerous, but it will be okay.”

  Kieran nodded once, slowly, trying to understand.

  “I’m sorry I left you. I’m sorry I tried so hard to go away and forget.”

  Before Kieran could form a response in his suddenly too-dry mouth, Gal stepped forward, triggering the doors to open and bringing them into the engineering bay. The bay was dark, bathed in the eerie red of emergency lighting. A few Augments worked at the far end, inspecting what he realized was the conduit he had jammed into the overloaded shield relays to fuel the jump drive, and another shiver passed through him for how close he had come.

  Gal led them to the central console. “Can you set a course?”

  Truthfully, Kieran wasn’t even sure where their emergency FTL had taken them. The sensors were luckily still operational, and he ran a quick sweep — just enough to orient himself. He had been tracking the planet, just as Gal said, watching its orbital path bring it closer and closer to Junk, so he had a good idea of where it was, he just needed to figure out where they were.

  Gal seemed to be watching the display expectantly, and Kieran feared he would need to explain jump-drive mechanics to the captain again. “The jump drive is wrecked, it’s gonna take a few days at least to get it together.”

  “It’s okay. Just aim us there with the thrusters.”

  Kieran clicked his tongue. “Thrusters are all but toast, Cap’n. It’ll take a hundred years to get back to Junk that way.”

  “I’m going to presume by ‘toast’ you mean they’re barely functional.” Gal caught him with a single raised eyebrow, and a curious smirk that made Kieran nearly jump out of his skin. “It’s okay, it doesn’t matter. Do the best you can.”

  “Are you sure? Just before you seemed pretty opposed.”

  Gal smiled sadly to him. “I don’t know what I said before, Kieran, but I am sure now. Take us there, it’s the only place the UECs will never find us. We need somewhere to hide, to make repairs. This poor old ship won’t hold together much longer — actually I’m impressed any of it is still working.”

  “She’s a good ship, Cap’n.”

  Gal put a hand on his shoulder. “Said like a true engineer.” The hand filled Kieran with warmth. It reminded him of his dad, and by association, his sister. But the best parts. He couldn’t help but smile. Too soon the hand retracted along with its reassurance, and Kieran found himself more confused than ever. Gal shrugged. “It will be okay, find the planet and set the thrusters toward it. Trust me, it’ll work out if we need it to.”

  Kieran frowned, but he still forced a cheery, “Sure, Cap’n.” Something else crossed his mind. “I hate to tell you this, but even if we get to the planet, we can’t enter the atmosphere — we’re missing too much hull shielding. And the engines aren’t strong enough to fight the gravity of even a small moon. I’d sure love to set down for a little while, but I don’t know how we’re going to land on a planet.”

  “Leave it to me.”

  “What’re you gonna do? The laws of friction are pretty set. Same with gravity.”

  Gal shrugged. “Not always.” Then he tapped the display, zooming in.

  Kieran blinked. An object moved quickly across the display, a green and blue orb. “What the —? The planet’s headed straight for us. It’s halfway here.”

  The corners of Gal’s eyes turned down. “Just point us there, okay.”

  Something interesting was going on. Kieran looked from Gal to the planet and back again. Licking his lips, he agreed, “Yessir.”

  “Thanks, Kieran. We’ll get out of this.” The hand came up to his shoulder again.

  “What are you doing here?” A gruff voice cut through the moment: Rami. The burly Augment marched towards them. Slowly, the others trailed in, forming a part-circle that surrounded Kieran and Gal and the central console.

  Kieran took a step back, suddenly very aware of how exposed he was in front of all of them and recalling the fight that Rami had started — or maybe he’d started — the last time they were in Engineering together.

  But Thomas put his arms across Rami’s chest, pushing him back.

  Rami did step back, but his eyes traced over the console between them quickly. “What are you doing?” But he answered his own question: “You’re turning the ship around — sending us back towards Junk. He’s trying to get us back to the UECs so the warship can finish us of.”

  “No, look,” said Thomas, pointing at the green-blue planet.

  Rami blinked in confusion.

  “Forget it, Rami.” A few of the Augments around the edges sighed and turned away, returning to their work. “Sarrin is our alpha, if she says we can trust him, we can. Besides, there’s no way you can say he’s working against us after what he did with the conduit to help us get away.”

  As quickly as it had swarmed, the crowd dissipated. Even Thomas shrugged and walked away, spanner in hand. Only Rami remained, staring daggers over the console. “I don’t like you,” he said.

  Kieran took a step back, but Gal slid an elbow behind him, stopping him. “That’s odd,” said Gal, his feet planted and shoulders dropped casually, “everyone else likes Kieran.”

  “There’s something strange about him.”

  Gal shrugged. “There’s something strange about all of us.”

  “Who are you?” Rami’s glare turned to Gal, scraping him up and down.

  Unfazed, Gal answered simply. “I’m the captain. And you are on my ship.”

  “The captain? You’re as cracked as the rest of them. You and Sarrin and —.”

  “You are aboard my ship by my good graces.” Rami opened his mouth to retort, but Gal stopped him again: “I have been at war nearly as long as you have been alive. And you are a fool. Lieutenant Wood’s engineering skills are unmatched, by far one of the best engineers I’ve ever known. We owe him, and the miracles he performs, our lives many times over, a
nd we may need to count on him again.”

  “He set a bomb in a shuttle, nearly killing six of us.”

  A flicker of uncertainty passed over Gal’s face.

  “I didn’t set no bombs,” said Kieran.

  Gal blinked, holding up a hand as though to tell Rami to stop. “You have no evidence.”

  “What about the one he started in the storage lockers?”

  This time, Gal truly frowned.

  “It wasn’t…” — he turned to Gal —“it wasn’t a bomb. It was something for Sarrin, to find Halud.”

  Gal’s gaze met his, and he nodded once, the hand coming up to Kieran’s shoulder again to say he understood. Then he turned back to the angry Augment on the other side of the display. “Rami, is it? I am the captain of this vessel, and I will not tolerate insolence and infighting amongst my crew. The Augments have long suffered — I more than most know the true extent of what they did to you — but this conflict you have created, you have created in yourself. Be more, now.”

  “What are you on about?”

  Gal sighed.

  It was Thomas who came up, finally, and dragged Rami back.

  “What have you gotten yourself into?” Gal asked Kieran, a smirk hiding at the corner of his mouth.

  Kieran shook his head. “I honestly don’t know.”

  “I’ve never seen an Augment act like that, despite what the UECs would have you believe.”

  Kieran’s ears twitched, and he stared at Gal, trying to read the expression on his face. There was something more to the mystery of Galiant Idim, but his exhausted, cotton-filled head couldn’t get around any of it right now.

  “Tell me honestly,” Gal started, his expression suddenly drawn and nervous, “have there been bombs?”

  “The positioning controls froze out and overloaded. That’s all.”

  “Okay.” He sucked in a deep breath. “And Sarrin — she’s okay?”

  Since when had the captain had any interest in Sarrin or the other Augments? But that could have changed in the last day too, along with everything else he thought he knew about Gal. “Yeah, she’s doin’ good.”

  “I’m glad.” A worried expression passed through Gal’s eyes. “Is the course laid in?”