by A B Lucian
“It’ll be close, but I think I can do it. Just buy me some time.”
“We should blow the engine before the ship’s entire complement of Enforcers comes for us,” Dupont said.
“No,” Sabina said, her eyes darting around the hall. “Blowing the hyperdrive is suicide. That Protector metal bucket we came in didn’t have enough power for a return trip. We wouldn’t be able to get far enough from the resulting blast. You might not care, but I want live. Now find me a way out, and I’ll get Olexander.”
“There is no time for that,” Dupont told Sabina. “We came here to save Mandessa. Stopping the nukes is the priority.”
“My grandfather is the priority.”
“Be quiet both of you,” Yosh yelled. His head hurt and it was difficult enough to cope with all the encryptions and traps set into the cruiser’s systems without hearing them bicker. “Just buy me the time I need. We’ll save both Mandessa and grandfather—that’s why we’re here.”
The robotic voice rang through the hall again: “Nuclear warheads will launch in five minutes. All hands to battle stations!”
Sabina glided to the left side of the doors, her two guns at the ready. She and Captain Dupont waited in silence. Low grunts and guttural whispers came from the other side of the doors, and one by one the dogs gathered, waiting for them to open onto a new feast.
“This is Commander Kagos!” a voice rang through the entire bay. “In the Emperor’s name, I command you to release the prisoners you have taken and surrender. You will be treated fairly if you surrender now. Otherwise we will be forced to vent the atmosphere in the entire engineering bay.”
◆◆◆
Yosh paused a moment from hacking into the battlecruiser’s systems to look around. “Release the prisoners,” Kagos had said, but all the crew members were on the floor, their insides splayed out and gnawed on by the dogs. He shook his head and focused on his task. “Keep Kagos talking,” he whispered to Sabina and Captain Dupont. “I’m almost finished.”
“Nuclear warheads will launch in three minutes,” the robotic voice buzzed through the air.
Sabina holstered one of her guns and peeked out from her hiding place. “I’m going through the ventilation system. I need to get grandfather. You two and the doggies can handle a few arkanian shock teams, I presume?”
Captain Dupont ignored her. His dark eyes still set on the heavy steel doors separating them from the Arkanian Enforcers outside the engineering bay. “This is Captain Alain Dupont of the merchant ship Archibald. I have taken control of your engineering bay. Back away now or I start killing prisoners!”
Sabina dislodged the metal grill covering one of the venting holes. Silent as a shadow, she slipped inside and disappeared in the blink of an eye. Yosh hoped she knew what she was doing.
“Nuclear warheads will launch in two minutes,” the voice rang again, and a surge of panic flooded through Yosh. His fingers worked at lightning speed. His hands flew over the console, but he still wasn’t past the firewalls and encryptions. It was taking too long. Do not despair, do not despair, he told himself repeatedly, remembering his grandfather’s words.
“Merchant ship?” Kagos replied. “Dupont, we’ve had our eyes on you for a long time. Smuggling weapons and explosives to rebellious factions, raiding Imperial supply ships, killing the Empire’s citizens. The Archibald is a pirate ship and I will treat you as pirates if you will not surrender now.”
“Yosh, how much longer?” Dupont whispered. “We’re running out of time.”
Yosh didn’t answer—he couldn’t. Not right now at least. He was close, very close. He just grunted and shook his head at the captain and hoped he understood.
Captain Dupont cleared his throat. “Let’s talk terms, commander. I want safe passage for me and my crew. We want to get away from Mandessa.”
“You will be judged fairly and shipped off Mandessa on our transport ships. You must forfeit the vessel you came in.”
“Nuclear warheads will launch in sixty seconds,” sang the robotic voice, as if to reinforce Kagos’s statement.
The captain grunted at Yosh. He was too focused to answer despite feeling the captain’s gaze burn into the space between his shoulder blades. He shook his head vigorously.
“How do we know we can trust you?” the captain asked. “You could kill us or keep us prisoner.”
Yosh punched the console in frustration. Another blasted set of encryptions, he thought. Is there no end to them?
“Captain, I have thirty Enforcers behind me, thirty more on their way, and over 400 arkanian military personnel aboard this vessel. I can blow this door to pieces and overrun you, or vent the atmosphere and kill you along with the prisoners.”
“Nuclear warheads will launch in thirty seconds.”
“Yosh, hurry…” the captain said through his teeth.
Yosh hurried. He tapped faster than he ever tapped in his life. He’d never been this fast, accurate, or brilliant during the years of training with Marge and Headly, but it still wasn’t enough.
Commander Kagos continued after a significant pause. “Our head of Secret Police would have had us vent the atmosphere from the beginning. He would have had us throw away the lives of our comrades and clansmen just to see you dead.”
“Nuclear warheads will launch in fifteen seconds.”
“Lord Munov has shown complete disinterest in the lives of my people, an unforgivable disregard for our honor, and disrespect for tradition,” Kagos said. “He ordered the deaths of the two guards on Mandessa. One was a clansman of mine. Lord Munov justified it by invoking the secrecy of our mission. He threw away our lives on Mandessa. He sent my Enforcers into obvious traps. He invoked our superiority in numbers and strength to explain foolish assaults against the enemy’s entrenched positions. I’ll be honest with you. I have had enough...”
“Nuclear warheads will launch in ten seconds!”
“Yosh now, now,” Captain Dupont yelled.
Yosh’s fingers were sore and every time he tapped a command the pain shot up his forearm, but he kept going. He was close, so very close.
“The genetic treatment has weakened the minds of our soldiers, but the Enforcers I brought are loyal to me. They know I am right, and they know Lord Munov will only bring our people more destruction.”
“Nuclear warheads will launch in five seconds.”
Yosh tapped the commands, growling at the pain. So close.
“Four,” the mechanical voice chimed.
“Three.”
“Launch aborted. Nuclear arsenal disarmed.”
Captain Dupont chuckled and a wide grin spread across his face. “Good job, Yosh. Good job, son.”
Yosh’s fingers froze like the legs of a spider above the console’s battered input screen. Beads of cold sweat trickled onto the wide panel of the arkanian console. What happened? What in the Great Void happened? Yosh’s heart rate settled, and he looked toward the captain. He shook his head. “I didn’t do it,” he said, his raspy voice a whisper. “It wasn’t me. I… failed. Great Void, I failed.”
It took a while for the captain to understand the meaning of Yosh’s words. His expression dulled, and he sat back against the crate he hid behind. He cradled the heavy rifle on his knees and ran a hand over his sweaty face.
“That is a demonstration of our willingness to compromise, captain. Destroying one of the Emperor’s agricultural worlds is something I will not allow Lord Munov to do,” Kagos said. “Now open the doors. We must talk.”
Yosh shuddered under the captain’s questioning gaze. Was he expecting Yosh to decide? What could they do now? The murderer Kagos had saved 800 hundred million lives when Yosh had failed. Was it a trick? How far could they trust Kagos? How would he react to seeing his dead comrades, and to the way they died? More time. They needed more time. “Commander Kagos, this is Yosh Farmer. Thank you,” Yosh forced himself to say and resumed his work on the console despite his aching fingers. “What do you want from us?”
“Yosh Farmer,” Kagos drawled. Yosh could almost hear his teeth grinding. “You’re the reason for all this madness. It’s you the madman’s after! Let me in. I’m sick of talking through a door.”
Yosh shook his head, though he knew Kagos couldn’t see him. “You must wait a few minutes longer commander. I’m afraid we haven’t been totally honest with you. We have no prisoners. They’re all dead.”
Silence. Nothing came from beyond the door. Captain Dupont’s face hardened, and he resumed his earlier position behind the crate, hidden, only the muzzle of his heavy rifle sticking out toward the door.
“I understand,” Kagos said, but then seemed to waver. “Dammit though. Was it necessary to kill all twenty-eight? Most were loyal to me… Your making this situation harder, Protector.”
Yosh’s fingers paused over the console and his stomach sank. Twenty eight? Yosh broke away from his work at the console and scanned the hall. Captain Dupont rose from his position and surveyed the upper floors with his rifle in a wide circle.
“Don’t move!” a shriveled voice came from the second floor. From behind a steel staircase an arkanian wearing a tattered uniform pointed a pulse rifle at Yosh. He walked over the corpses of several dogs who had bothered to follow him up the stairs and came around on the steel platform, stopping behind Yosh. He held his left hand tight against his body so he used the steel railing to support the weight of the rifle. His right hand trembled, but he held it aimed it at Yosh’s face constantly. Blood and bits of dog fur covered his face and uniform.
“Drop your rifle or I’ll blast his skull off!” the injured arkanian told Captain Dupont. He swung his weapon around to face the captain. “Or maybe I’ll just blow you to space dust.”
“Easy, take it easy,” the captain said, dropping his rifle on the floor.
Yosh took advantage of the small interlude in which he didn’t have a rifle pointed at his head to enter the final sequence of the Builder’s code on the console. He smiled to himself and sighed with relief. A superuser for himself went online, one he could use to log in to any console aboard this cruiser and access all the ship’s functions. He just had to live long enough to use it.
“What are you doing? I said don’t move!” The arkanian pointed the rifle back at Yosh. “Keep your filthy human arms in the air, understand?”
“Who is that? This is Commander Kagos! I’ve waited long enough, I’m coming in!”
The injured arkanian’s face turned from dark blue to a faded version of a color that could almost pass for gray. “No. Sir, commander, don’t! This is engineer Reelan, don’t enter. The entire Engineering bay is crawling with… with dogs, sir.”
A few of the dogs had gathered under the steel frame Reelan stood on. There were at least twenty looking up at him, a low growl emanating from their throats. Some inched toward the stairs.
“Dogs? Reelan, have you gone mad?”
“They killed them, commander,” Reelan said, his voice broken. “They poured out of the ship…” Reelan swallowed and clacked his sharp teeth. “The dogs ripped them to shreds, commander. There are hundreds in here.”
Kagos was silent for a long moment. Then a sharp yell came from the other side and the loud banging of steel on steel as Kagos unleashed his rage on the doors. “I don’t have time for this! The longer we sit here, the more likely Lord Munov will arrive.”
“If you hate him that much, why don’t you just shoot him?” Yosh replied in a harsh tone. He smiled at Ralan’s muzzle and waved his hands so it was clear they were still above his head.
Kagos hesitated. “It’s not that simple. That’s why I need you, whether I like it or not. It’s hard enough for us to ignore his orders. We’ve undergone his genetic treatment. He’s enhanced us. We’re faster, stronger, we can see better... we have re-grown the tails our proud ancestors had, but he did something to us. He—it hurts to disobey him. It’s impossible for us to point a gun at him, let alone do him harm.”
Protector genes, Yosh thought. Mikail must have almost duplicated the process. Protectors have the desire to defend Earth and Humanity above all else implanted in them. Mikail must have implanted allegiance to himself into his Enforcers. It disgusted Yosh to think how Mikail had twisted and abused the science that once meant hope.
Kagos insisted. “It has to be you. You can stop him. You can kill him!”
“Commander,” Reelan protested. “You’re talking treason!”
“Reelan, put your rifle down,” came Kagos’s reply. “Let the humans come out.”
Reelan shook his head vigorously. “No. I’m not a traitor. How… how could you?”
“Reelan, listen to me. You heard about the slaughter on Mandessa. You had a brother down there. Lord Munov sent him to certain death knowingly. How can you tolerate that? You know what he’s done to us. If he holds us prisoners with genetics, he could do the same to the Emperor. We cannot allow that, Reelan. Put your weapon down. That is an order!”
Reelan’s eyes darted across the large chamber and his face contorted. His hands shook and his heavy rifle rattled along with them. Yosh’s cheek twitched every time the muzzle trembled. Ralan’s unsteady hand made him extremely nervous, but he didn’t dare jump out of the rifle’s sights. There were no good hiding spots nearby. Kagos was Ralan’s direct commander. He had to obey him didn’t he?
An intense blue crept into Reelan’s cheeks and he snarled. “No. You’re a traitor. Lord Munov is one of us now!” Reelan leaned against the railing and rested the butt of the rifle against his stomach just long enough to pull a communicator out of his pocket. He flipped the switch and raised it to his mouth. “Lord Munov! Lord Munov, intruders in the Engineering bay. Commander Kagos is a trai—”
A blast from Captain Dupont’s heavy rifle took Reelan in the teeth. His head flew back, and the arkanian flopped against the wall behind him, then slid to the floor. His communicator fell from his hand, rolled past the railing, dropped two storeys, rattled against the steel floor, and finally wobbled to a stop near Yosh’s boot.
A voice crackled through. “This is Munov. I’m on my way.”
Chapter Nineteen
Sabina dropped out of the ventilation shaft somewhere in the center of the heavy cruiser’s main deck. She only had a vague idea of where her grandfather might be imprisoned. While Yosh was busy herding his dogs, back on the Black Silence, Sabina studied a deck-by-deck map of arkanian heavy cruisers—among other things. She admired Yosh for his ingenuity, but for all his supposed innocence and idealistic nature, he thought up incredibly gruesome ways to dispose of his enemies. Yosh’s expression at the moment he saw the results of his plan was something Sabina would never forget. Disbelief and self-disgust had flashed across his boyish features. Sabina felt sorry for him in that moment, but when Yosh’s sights locked on to the console he needed all emotions drained from his face just like that. It still sent shivers down her spine.
It reminded her of a similar moment: her first kill, before she became Sabina the Slasher. She shook her head as she plunged down a long corridor. No, it wasn’t before she became Sabina the Slasher; It was the exact moment she became Sabina the Slasher. She remembered every detail of the obscenely fat man’s death. Sabina had clasped her hand around his greasy neck, his double chins sagging over her skin, and she felt his sweat. The pig was naked and sprawled on his soft bed, in his highrise apartment overlooking the lunar landscape. She was naked too, standing over him. She savored the irritation and anger in his eyes as she denied him her body and instead squeezed his Adam’s apple harder. The slob didn’t even have the spirit to hit or push her away. No, he only hit defenseless women, like her mother had been, and Sabina was anything but defenseless. The pig flailed his pudgy arms and legs as she squeezed and squeezed and listened to his croaks and squeals. It was easier than she ever imagined. She surprised herself when she tore his throat out and left him to drown in his own blood, but it was less painful and faster than what he deserved.
Sabina the Slasher they called her afterwar
d. It wasn’t a name she liked very much, but she enjoyed seeing men—men of power in Luna’s underworld, bad men, not innocents, never innocents—cower away from her as they realized who she was. The name had helped her over the years, but it didn’t bring her mother back, just like killing Mikail wouldn’t bring her father back. But she’d do it anyway, just to feel him choke under her grasp and see him drown in his own blood.
She drove away those thoughts as she turned the corner and came face to face with two arkanian crew members. They wore jumpsuits instead of uniforms or assault suits. They halted, startled to see her, a human, in the very guts of the ship. The pulse pistols on their hips shone in the diffused light of the corridor. The two arkanians didn’t reach for them. Instead, they backed away from Sabina with their arms raised over their faces, as if that could protect them. She didn’t even consider letting them go. Her gun sprang from its holster. She shot the closest in the face through his upraised hands. The other one squealed, forgetting the pistol at his side, and turned to run. Sabina put two slugs through his back and another through his head after he collapsed.
Sabina considered what Yosh would think if he saw her executing the crew. To hell with what Yosh thinks, she thought. At least I didn’t make dogs eat them alive! He had no right to judge her. Besides, why did she even care what he thought? She reached the open door to a large room filled with research equipment. Something in her memory jarred loose; she remembered a laboratory about this size from the ship schematics—the special projects section. Her grandfather was special enough, so it didn’t hurt to try. Sabina replaced the almost empty clip in her gun. Twelve shots, she thought, unsheathing her kohiri sword. She breathed in deep and stormed through the door, gun forward and sword ready to strike.
It was almost empty. Equipment the likes of which she had never seen greeted her. Dark metallic instruments, hollow tubes, blank consoles that blipped now and then, and the face of a shriveled old arkanian in a light blue lab coat.
“W-what are you doing here?” he babbled through invisible lips. “Get out! You’re not supposed to be here.”