by S M Wright
"Are there any other angles?" Akakios asked.
"No."
During the filmed conversation, their target showed agitation. She stood, appeared to be shouting, and at one point knocked what appeared to be a glass onto the floor. Then the other woman handed her something, and they parted ways. Charis started to change cameras, but Akakios stopped her.
"Stay with the woman in the bar. I want to see if she shows her face." But the camera cut to static, and when the picture cleared, the woman was gone. "Can you clean it up?"
"No. The original quality is too poor."
"Retrace the cameras and follow our target back to Sotiris."
Returning to the station's cameras, their target ran into her male companion after leaving the bar. Akakios frowned as the man grabbed the woman and slammed her into a wall. She broke free at one point and pulled a firearm, some Preserver model, on him. The pair exchanged more heated words. She stalked off, and he followed. They both rejoined the girl and Sotiris, and a couple hours later, they boarded their transport.
"Do you have the transport?"
Charis nodded. "Transport 1A9934, bound for Jordah. They would have arrived earlier today."
"Sir," Kyrillos said. "I am picking up a lot of traffic from Jordah. Jar'rasks."
The muscles in Akakios's arms tensed while a burst of adrenaline hummed through his body. "Ambrosios, get us to that planet." They had to apprehend them before the Jar'rasks. A worse combination did not exist for Sotiris than a cold-blooded species that kept their vessels at a boil . . . and then there was their nature. Akakios tugged at his uniform's collar. They'd seen the Jar'rasks in action before, and it'd stuck with him. "Engage the FTL drive." He turned to Charis. "Go ahead and break into the planet's surveillance system."
"While we have the search area narrowed down, sir, it'll still take me days to break into the system without the proper clearance, as I've already told you," Charis bit out while rubbing her brow as if warding off a headache. "It'll trigger red flags."
Clenching his fists, Akakios shook his head. "Belay that order."
Through a portion of the viewscreen, which Ambrosios had programmed, the stars blurred together as the FTL drive sprang to life. They'd been at FTL for an hour when Kyrillos called to Akakios. "We have an incoming transmission, priority one."
"Ambrosios—"
"On it." He eased them from FTL, allowing the call's reception.
"It's for you, sir."
Akakios activated his personal communicator, to which Kyrillos transferred the call.
"This is Captain Sarris."
"Akakios." Kyros . . . why was he calling? "Where are you currently?"
"Near Jordah, we have a lead—"
"You're to stand down," Kyros said. "Sotiris has been retrieved and will be taken to Meracus Domus for immediate medical attention."
"Is he well?" Akakios paced, distancing himself from his officers, no matter how pointless the action.
"For now he's fine, but they're concerned about his general health; he's malnourished and in need of fluids. They've determined that immediate introduction to the care facility is in order. They'll be leaving Jordah momentarily and will arrive in a few weeks, then Sotiris will get the care he needs."
A lie. A bold-faced lie. Sotiris had looked healthy enough in the surveillance videos, but Akakios bit back the retort and swallowed the boiling rage. "We're extremely close to Jordah." He pressed a hand to the com device in his ear. "Can they wait until we arrive? We can pick up Sotiris and complete the trip. He shouldn't be in the care of Jar'rasks. Our biology is too different. Their ship will put too much undue stress on him."
There was a pause over the line, and Akakios caught the rustle of fabric. "I had the same thoughts, but they're already underway, and you have new orders. You're to return to Sergrey as you'd planned. There your crew will be debriefed and interviewed by Magistrate officials."
Akakios stumbled in his effort to say something. He blinked, not wanting the moisture to return. Sotiris whisked away while they'd be tied up for days with debriefing and interviews. Interviews. What would those entail? Reports were common, but this? "I want—need to see him, to actually see him . . . to hold him."
"I understand, my boy, I do"—even over the communications system, Akakios heard the catch in Kyros's voice—"but these orders, they come from Command. They expect you to change course immediately for Sergrey." Kyros cleared his throat over the line. "And that's not it." His voice diminished, almost lost to the pounding in Akakios's mind: "You need to keep your head down, Akakios. I cannot stress this enough to you. I don't know what's happening, but whatever it is, it's occurring beneath the surface. Akakios, your family has been removed from the Etai's list."
Akakios's jaw slackened, the air leaving him as if he'd been punched. For a long moment, he stood, breathing shallowly, absorbing the information. There'd be no more contracts, no more children, no hope of their branch recovering. Grinding his teeth together, Akakios pictured Kallistrate's and Amyntas's smiling faces, his chest clenching. He cleared his throat—it'd grown tight enough he felt he might suffocate. "Why?"
"I couldn't say," Kyros said. "I was absent when my fellow Agoranomi members came to this decision, and the records are sealed. Even I can't access them. Has something happened?"
So few reasons merited removal—damn it, Amyntas! The thought ripped through his head. Why hadn't they told him? His muscles relaxed, leaving only soreness and emptiness.
"No. We'll do as ordered and be underway shortly." He moistened his lips. "Kyros, thank you for everything . . . that you did for Amyntas and me. I can never thank you enough."
Kyros remained quiet, perhaps afraid of the words and tone Akakios had used; he'd known him too long to easily dismiss it. "Keep yourself well, my boy."
"Always." Akakios clicked off his com. After straightening his uniform, he squared his posture. "We've been recalled to Sergrey for debriefing . . . and to undergo interviews."
Ambrosios blinked. "Interviews? What'll these interviews entail?"
"Kyros didn't say, and I doubt he's been told." All three exchanged glances. There was no way around this, at least not if Akakios wanted to achieve some modicum of truth.
"Ambrosios, set our course." Then Akakios employed his people's greatest advantage, no longer trusting their ship.
Akakios shrugged, and they waited for the rest of the crew to file into the bridge. The majority, upon arrival, searched the room and their officers' faces in vain attempts to piece together what was transpiring. Elpis, however, wrung her hands and scrutinized Akakios with her cold eyes—one would have thought she'd been ordered to walk out the airlock. But then again, what he planned to propose wasn't all that much better, or less insane. Chrysanthos arrived last, having had the greater distance to travel from the engine room. Akakios gestured for them to stand in front of him.
His lips tightened, along with his throat.
Pelagius gawked, his mouth quite wide, almost as if he had meant to say something. He only regained himself when his twin elbowed him.
Akakios faced Charis.
Akakios paced, his hands aching as they clasped each other.
No one offered a hypothesis. Akakios launched several of the compiled files from the destruction of the Aletheia on the viewscreen: reports, figures, and images of the destruction. It'd been a minor component to their mission; they'd never studied the files, not as a unit. As he started to flip to another, Ambrosios stopped him.
Akakios examined the star map, at the last stars his family had seen.
A certain gravity settled across the bridge, the potential order sinking in along with all its connotations and fallouts. Elpis's face, in particular, was pinched and blanched; her clasped hands quivered against her abdomen. Next to her, Chrysanthos focused only on Ambrosios, and Akakios didn't doubt that a private conversation was occurring between the pair; it was only to be expected. Charis, Pelagia, and Pelagius remained at attention, their training as soldiers falling into default, while Kyrillos monitored transmissions, detached from the crazy scheme his commanding officer was hatching.
What makes a crew go rogue? The question lingered in Akakios's mind, no longer in regards to the Aletheia. Here they stood at the precipice. And what did they hope to achieve by crossing it? They had more to lose than gain, all for his own selfish reasons. Because he had to know why. What had caused them to . . . His mind flickered to the last transmission between him and Amyntas, a few weeks before the end. His brother had to have known then what they had planned to do. Why hadn't he said anything, hinted even? Akakios swallowed hard, his hands clenched harder behind his back.
he sent through their connections, breaking the silence that hung over the bridge like a black crepe.
Ambrosios sent, allowing Akakios time to compose himself.
Akakios ignored him and eyed the rest of his crew, one at a time.
Without another word, Elpis left, the door closing behind her.
The FTL shot to life, accelerating them through space. And as it did, they laid the groundwork for their next steps.
Antiseptics assaulted Katya's nose, stinging. It, in addition to the sweat that crawled down her face and the tightness around her wrists and ankles, heightened her discomfort. Hisses and other guttural animalistic sounds emitted somewhere beyond her. Awareness seeped into her. Jar'rasks. The angry-sounding noises drove figurative spikes into her head. Elevated. She was definitely elevated. The tightness that cut into her wrists and ankles was brought on by metal, which secured her to a flat examination table of sorts. The room was sweltering. Cracking open her eyes, she witnessed one Jar'rask bite at another. More grating hisses. Her head spun, and she found it hard to focus. Drugs? Now they flashed their teeth at each other, grunts rattling deep in their throats. Neither bore the embedded communicator device.
A third came into her limited view. This one had a communicator implanted into its throat; it gleamed against the black scale
s. Despite having the device, it hissed up a storm, along with its brethren. The officer, or at least Katya assumed he was one since he had the implant, swiped at the two bickering Jar'rasks with his tail, hitting them with it. They balked but bowed and slinked away from each other.
"Our guest is waking," he said, allowing the implant to takeover.
Katya winced and jerked her head away as the Jar'rask ran a clawed finger against her face. Unperturbed, he followed through with the motion, digging in his claw's tip upon reaching her chin, cutting into her skin. "Ah, my sweets, don't bother resisting."
Katya swallowed. "Where are my companions?"
"The boy's fine, wide awake and no longer a danger." He wheeled something over but kept it out of her line of sight. "The girl? Well, she won't be so fine. Neither will you, really."
Katya flayed against the metal table when an electric current coursed through her body. It stopped after a while but almost instantly resumed. Unable to stop herself, Katya screamed, every fiber of her body echoing agony, except for her feet, which were numb. No questions were asked, the only constant a barrage of pain. Drool escaped the corners of her mouth, mingling and pooling with the sweat.
The current ceased, leaving her to pant and swallow the excess spit. Moments passed, and nothing. The Jar'rask moved from the controls.
"What do you want?" Katya choked out between breaths.
"Want?" He swiped his long tongue against her face; it left a mild tingling sensation that disappeared shortly after. Did their saliva have something in it? "We want nothing; we're merely passing time in an enjoyable fashion. No different than humanoid adolescents removing the limbs and wings from lesser life-forms. No different at all. You've outlived any other form of usefulness than to appease us." His tongue flickered against his snout. "We have needs . . . knowing this, the Magistrate throws us a bone every now and again."