Couldn’t they just put the proverbial white flag up and wave it in the air, switching allegiances from me and the rebels to just themselves? It was a very real possibility, a possibility that I wasn’t ready to confront in my mind. I didn’t want to lose Teresa. I certainly didn’t want to lose Dale or Philip. They all meant a great deal to me.
But just because I was the captain of the ship, didn’t mean that I could dictate the fate of my three amigos. Once we reached the planet, I had a feeling that it would be every man for himself. The rebel leader, Commander Korr, hadn’t exactly promised anything to us. We didn’t know what was waiting for us on that planet. And we certainly didn’t know what was waiting for us back on Earth. So some time to think was definitely valuable at a time like this.
“Take his gag out,” I said, walking up toward the President of Pilgrim Tech, who’s still tied to his chair.
Dale was standing next to him, like a brick wall, not daring to move until my command had been voiced. I watched as Dale took the President’s gag out of his mouth, and stuffed it in his own pocket. The guy was wearing an immaculate suit, and had a little brooch pinned to his lapel. I was transfixed by the brooch, and wondered how much it was worth. That, after all, was my way of thinking. I had a habit of putting a monetary value on everything. It was most likely the reason why I got into this line of work in the first place. In my field, money talked, and it also made you walk. It took you to places that many could only dream of. And from the very first day that I got this ship, I dreamt of making some serious money.
Luckily, I had succeeded. But at the same time, I was a broken man. And what use is money to a broken man? It can’t buy you happiness. And it certainly can’t buy you your freedom, I know that all too well. So what could money buy you in this day and age of space travel? Not a lot by the looks of it. Just ask the President of Pilgrim Tech, a man that has plenty of money, and now finds himself tied up to a chair onboard a mercenary ship about to sell him off to the enemy.
I wasn’t stupid. There was a reason I was aligning myself with the rebels. And that reason was cash. I wanted plenty of it. Plenty of it to start a new life. A new life for me and Teresa. The Pilgrim Tech President was my ticket, my golden ticket to freedom. And I was about to announce my true intentions to the man himself.
“I guess you’re wondering why you find yourself onboard the Alpha Ship One?” I said, staring intently into the President’s eyes.
The guy that had brought him onto the ship was sat behind him, his head tilted toward the floor, minding his own business. I didn’t know what to make of that guy. Part of me was frightened of him. The other part of me felt at ease around him. He seemed like the sort of man that only focused on his mission, and it was obvious that his mission was to get the President to the rebel planet. So if I stayed out of his way, I was pretty sure that he would stay out of ours.
“To be honest civilian, I don’t really care,” the President said, puckering his lips up into a grin.
“I don’t care what your reasons for kidnapping me are. I don’t care about your sorrowful story you are about to tell me. And I certainly don’t care about the integrity of your men. The only thing I care about is the consequences that will be bestowed upon you once Earth finds out that you have everything to do with my kidnapping. And once they do find out, they too won’t care about your reasoning behind what you did. All they will care about is spilling your blood and making you pay dearly. There is no getting out of this, Captain whoever you are. This is now very much your life. So get used to it. And please, don’t bother wasting your time trying to explain yourself to me. It won’t get you anywhere,” the President said, still puckering his lips, still looking like a smartarse.
I stood there for a few seconds staring at the man. At first, I didn’t quite know how to reply to his rhetoric. Although I was impressed with how cool, calm and collected he seemed, I wasn’t impressed with his tone. And I thought that he needed to be brought back down to Earth, so to speak.
So I got as close to him as possible, and slapped him in the face. My crew weren’t surprised by my tactics. They’d seen it before with the prisoner, the one sitting next to him. And the guy that brought the President in was still looking at the ground, uninterested in what I had to say. The Alpha Ship One continued to warp, and I continued to seethe, bending down, and going face-to-face with the President as he reeled in anger. It was obvious that he hadn’t been physically touched in many years. Maybe he’d never been touched before. Maybe this was the first time that anybody had summoned the will and bravery to smack some sense into this son of a bitch.
And me being the first to do so brought a smile to my face. A smile that rivaled his previous grin.
“Well, President, you should care about the reason why you find yourself here onboard my ship. It boggles my mind that you cannot even remember who I am. Who we are. If you had any inkling as to who we were, you wouldn’t be acting so smart right now would you? You’d be afraid of what I had in store for you. You’d be afraid of the consequences of your actions. Actions that cost a planet its species. And for what? To prove that you are the dominant one? Well, Mr. President, I hate to break it to you, but there’s nothing dominant about you. What you do, and what you define as dominance, others see for what it truly is; and that’s shooting fish in a fucking barrel. There is no skill or honor in what you do Mr. President. You are a dishonorable man. And dishonorable men need to be dealt with accordingly. We will deal with you, Mr. President. We will deal with you just fine, don’t you doubt that. We have a plan for you. And ain’t that plan glorious? Oh it is … it is glorious.
“I cannot wait to see your face when we touch down on the rebel planet, and I hand you over personally to a battalion of men that have a bone to pick with you. Because the Alpha Ship One isn’t the only ship full of people you pissed off Mr. President. There’s an army out there wanting your head on a pike, and I cannot wait to see them lop your head right off your damn shoulders. So continue to sit there with that stupid smile on your stupid face, thinking that the world cannot touch you because you come from money. That just because you have a few extra fucking zeros on your credit balance makes you untouchable… Don’t you fucking dare think that you are getting out of this alive. You will pay for what you did. And your pals back home will also pay.
I took a deep breath and then started to laugh. The President squirmed in his seat as I chortled.
“You know what the best thing about this is? I’ll get paid as well,” I said, still standing face-to-face, pressing my cheek against his, foaming at the mouth as I spoke.
He looked at me with confusion in his eyes. It was as if he was trying to place my face. And then the penny dropped. He remembered. He remembered the day that he handed me and my crew a million credits each for our part in their forced war. He remembered the fact that I lost the majority of my original crew because of his heinous act. He also remembered what I said to him when I walked out of that room. That my lips were sealed. That this was all forgotten about.
But how wrong he was…
“This is what this is all about? Those damn Ursines? You are seriously risking the livelihood of your people, your crew, for fucking space bears? Are you kidding me? Do you seriously expect me to believe that you are doing this as a form of revenge? Don’t kid yourself Capt. Flynn, I know who you are and who your damn crew of misfits are. And I know that the only thing you care about is cold hard cash. So don’t kid yourself, you aren’t doing this because you are the better man, you are doing this because you are the greedier man,” the President said, saliva dripping down his chin as he gnashed his teeth while he spoke.
His face had gone completely red. And he was seeing red at that. I had gotten to him. I had accomplished my goal. He was scared. And he remembered. Remembered who the hell he was talking to. No matter what he said, I knew that deep down, he knew he was in the wrong. And he also knew that he would pay dearly for what he did to me, my crew, the deceased that had worked
on the ship, and the Ursines that he had double-crossed.
I didn’t need to hear any more of his excuses.
“Gag the motherfucker, I don’t need to hear another boldfaced lie,” I said, Dale immediately obeying my order and stuffing the gag back into the President’s mouth.
I turned back around, and walked toward my chair. Standing next to it was Philip. I was surprised to even see him, especially since he’d been more or less avoiding me for the past hour or so. I didn’t need to hear him speak to know that he had a lot on his mind. His facial expression said it all. But I allowed him to voice his concerns nonetheless as I sat down in my chair, and tried to smile at my friend.
“You meant all that?” Philip asked.
I nodded.
“Yeah, I did. This isn’t about joining the rebels. Not for me at least. You, Teresa and Dale can do as you please once we land on their planet. But the only thing that I want from this is retribution. I want that cocksucker to pay for what he did to us. For what he did to Raj and Jess. How he forced us to do their dirty work. How they marooned us on that godforsaken planet. They need to pay for what they did, Philip. And I’d understand if you didn’t want anything to do with me or my ship once this is all said and done. I’m not asking you to join the rebels, I’m asking you to join the Alpha Ship One. I’m asking you to be part of my crew, a crew that can do as it pleases and isn’t held back by the government, a government that has screwed me over far too many times for me to forgive them,” I said.
Philip was leaning against my command console. At first, his facial expression had been hard and un-trusting. But now, his features had softened slightly.
“If you are telling the truth, and this is actually about what happened on the Ursine planet, then I have no choice but to stand by your side. Teresa feels the same. And I know Dale is as loyal as they come. So don’t worry about us, Capt. Flynn. Don’t worry about us leaving you, and going our own separate ways. We are a team. And you are our trusted navigator. If you have a vision, a grand plan, for our ship, for our families, then who are we to stop you? I trust you - we all do. I just hope that we can trust the rebels,” Philip said, still leaning against my command console.
I nodded my head, and stood back up. I put my hand out toward Philip and he shook it. We then embraced each other in a hug.
“I can only hope that we haven’t gotten ourselves into something we cannot get out of,” I said, releasing Philip’s hand, and grabbing his shoulder. “But I can promise you Philip if the rebels aren’t being truthful about their intentions, Pilgrim Tech won’t be the only group to pay for their misdeeds.”
Chapter Thirteen
Operational leader Sam was facing his co-workers. This was a big moment for him, a moment that he had been building up to for the past hour or so. Things had changed dramatically. Everything had gone to pot. And if he wasn’t quick and decisive in his actions, then he and his fellow workers would pay dearly for his own mistakes.
The biggest mistake he had made so far was following his gut. His gut had told him to keep the developments about the Alpha Ship One under wraps, and in essence, run a separate reconnaissance mission on the vessel without the help of his office workers. If he had decided to ignore his gut feeling, then maybe the Pilgrim Tech President would still be in his office, safe and sound, and the stalemate between the rebels and Earth would continue.
But instead, hundreds of human ships had been destroyed, and thousands of rebels had died. So much blood had already been spilled, and operational leader Sam wasn’t sure how much more bloodletting could go on before society as he knew it would implode. So he had taken the decision to address the men and women in his office, and tell them about the mysterious Alpha Ship One, and how he suspected the President of Pilgrim Tech was onboard. Luckily for Sam, he had already informed the Snake Pit Fighter regiment that the Alpha Ship One was their sole priority, and ninety-five percent of Earth’s available fleet were tailing the ship, a few thousand miles behind, close enough to stay on radar, but far enough for the Alpha Ship One to not suspect a single thing.
“Can I have everybody’s attention?” Sam said, standing at the helm of his desk, staring at the men and women that were working tirelessly at their computer terminals.
As if in sync, they all stopped working, and turned to face their boss. Judging by the expressions on their faces, Sam knew that they knew something was going on. Something big, something significant.
But unfortunately, they didn’t have the luxury of knowing that their job was already done. Pilgrim Tech wouldn’t need them anymore, Sam was sure of it, but he needed them to know the full extent of what was going on, so they could at least die knowing that it wasn’t all for nothing.
Sam was pessimistic about their chances of survival, not that he would be telling them that. He was well aware that his workers knew the gravity of working for Pilgrim Tech, and he didn’t take them for fools. Once they had heard what Sam had to say, he hoped that they would make the right decision by themselves, a decision whether to abandon their posts, or continue the fight for a corporation that saw them as numbers.
Numbers that had to be subtracted after such a grand failure, the grandest failure of them all, the failure of not seeing the rebels coming, the failure of not keeping their President safe, the failure of letting the rebels slip past them, their leader onboard, most likely already dead, and there was nothing that they did to stop it.
“Okay, I’d like everybody to stop what they’re doing, and just listen to what I have to say. Unfortunately, it has come to my attention that the kidnappers that took the President have been on our radar for the past fifteen hours. The suspected ship that took the President has been identified as the Alpha Ship One. For some reason, it caught my eye yesterday evening, and I decided to put a tracker on it, not knowing the full extent of what the ship had planned, or that it was about to see its plan through. I decided to keep that information to myself, and only a few of my closest allies in this office knew about the Alpha Ship One, but no one but me knew of its significance. Granted, the only thing I had to go on by was a gut feeling, a gut feeling telling me that the Alpha Ship One was up to something.
“As many of you know, gut feelings aren’t concrete. So, I suppose it is understandable that I didn’t feel it necessary to burden you with the knowledge that I held. But I’m afraid that decision has come back to haunt me. I am now a hundred percent certain that the Alpha Ship One is not only an undercover rebel ship, but it is the vessel responsible for the kidnap of our President. When news breaks out that this office had a tracker on the ship, and suspected it of ill will, the people above will blame us for this mishap. I just hope that the majority of you understand why I did what I did, because just in the same light as suspecting the ship of having rebel ties, and it being true, suspecting the ship of misdeeds and it not being true would be just as harsh for us, consequences wise.
“They would blame me and you for wasting resources on a ship that had nothing to do with the kidnapping. That is why I kept quiet on the matter. But I cannot keep quiet anymore, and all of you should know the true extent of what is going on. These rebels seem to be serious about their endeavor. They are well equipped, and could quite possibly overtake Earth’s defenses. It seems as if they have a rebel planet somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy, and right now, the Alpha Ship One is making its way toward that planet. When I started to piece things together, I also decided to inform Pilgrim Tech of my mistake. I assured them that you guys had nothing to do with my blunder. But they were not interested in excuses, and only want results. So I told them that I had instructed every available ship in our fleet to tail the Alpha Ship One, until it reaches its destination.
“When the Alpha Ship One reaches the planet, our ships will reveal themselves, and hopefully catch the rebels by surprise. I’ve sanctioned a shoot to kill mission on the planet, meaning that every rebel that our fleet comes across will be blown to pieces. If everything goes to plan, the rebel contingent will
be destroyed. And if that does indeed happen, then my blunder would have also saved Earth from certain annihilation. So, I hope with all my heart that I have done enough to secure both our jobs and our lives. And I also hope that all of you can forgive me for my mistake, but I’m still holding out hope that the mistake I made will actually result in the biggest victory of our existence,” operational leader Sam said, still standing over his desk, still staring at his fellow co-workers.
Nobody said anything for a good solid minute. Everybody was taken back by the new information they found themselves privy to. Nobody in the office saw Sam as a bad person, but it was safe to say that some of them now had mixed feelings toward their leader. Everybody in that room knew how ruthless Pilgrim Tech was. And knowing that, they also knew how unforgiving they were.
“What if the rebels win? What if this is a trap? What do we do then?” Maddie said, from her desk not daring to look at her boss, feeling guilty about challenging his view on their current situation.
Sam didn’t answer straight away. He just stared down at his computer screen, and followed the Alpha Ship One on the schematic map. It was nearing what he assumed to be its final destination. Some of the geeks in the back room had estimated the ship’s bearing, and with that information, operational leader Sam knew that things were about to come to a head. The only thing that operational leader Sam didn’t know, was how to answer his friend, his colleague, Maddie.
But he had to answer her, or risk looking weak in front of the others. At a time like this, answers were needed, and he would have to be the man to provide those answers.
“If the rebels win, then we win. I am fully aware of who we work for, but let’s not beat around the bush here people, if Pilgrim Tech beat the rebels, then we will suffer. It was, after all, us that allowed such a travesty to happen. At least, that is how they will see things. So, maybe we have to ask ourselves something here; would it be that bad for the rebels to be our masters? Is freedom such a bad thing?”
Destroyer of Worlds (Alpha Ship One Book 2) Page 16