by J. N. Chaney
“Hands up,” I told him. “If they drop a centimeter, I drop you.”
His hands shot up, and they were shaking.
“Move to the far wall.”
The ensign did as I told him, maintaining a cautiously slow pace. He didn’t seem the sort to have a death wish, nor the arrogant kind to think himself a hero, which meant he stood a chance at surviving.
“Now, I’m going to ask you some questions. You answer me honestly and maybe you’ll live through the day.” He whimpered at that, but I ignored it. “If I think you’re lying, I’ll start shooting you in very sensitive places. Got it?”
He bobbed his head up and down.
“Good. Now, tell me exactly how many people are on this ship.”
“E-eleven,” he managed to say. “Including the commander.”
That was bad news. So much for the six I’d been hoping for. Five more to take down before the ship was ours.
“What’s the destination?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” he said, simply.
I pointed the gun at his knees and cocked my brow.
“I-I’m telling the truth. The commander doesn’t share details with us, I swear! All I know is that we’re going to a rendezvous point to take her to the Union.” He looked at Lex.
I flicked my gun to get his attention back on me. “Are there any more prisoners on board?”
“No,” he said, emphatically shaking his head from side to side. “Just the Eternal. We thought it was just the girl. We didn’t realize you made it onto the ship.”
Finally, a piece of good news. If Lex was the only hostage, at least I wouldn’t have to worry about saving anyone else.
The pain in my side was getting worse with each passing minute. My gun hand faltered and dropped just a little, and it shook as I struggled to keep it level.
The ensign must have seen his chance and lunged for Lex. He grabbed at her, maybe hoping to use her as a human shield, but the girl bit down hard on his wrist. He yelped and retracted but readied himself to try again.
We caught eyes, and he looked at me, face pale with hands raised. “P-please. I wasn’t going to—”
I pulled the trigger, cutting him off. The bullet tore through his forehead, and his body fell limp on the floor.
Lex stared at the corpse. “Thanks, Mr. Hughes,” she said, a little too calm for someone who had just been interrogated and was about to be tortured. She had rarely cried, so I didn’t know why I expected this to be any different. She had always just rolled with it, never one to let fear take over the way it did for other people. I still wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.
“No problem, kid.” The wound was catching up to me, and I could feel myself fading fast. A quick glance told me it was bleeding again.
“Mr. Hughes, are you okay?” asked Lex. “You don’t look so good.” She eased over to me, but I held out a hand to stop her.
“I’m fine,” I said, then promptly slid to the floor. I was spent. “Ah, godsdammit. Sorry, kid, I just need a minute.” There was a loud pounding in my head and I just wanted it to stop.
No, not my head. It was something else. I must have blacked out for a second. There was someone at the door.
Lex crouched next to me, tugging at my sleeve. “Mr. Hughes, please wake up. Someone’s trying to get in,” she whispered. She glanced back at the door.
I groaned but sat up. The bullet wound was like a hot poker in my side, but I managed to stand, picking up my gun up from the floor on the way over to the door.
“Ensign-Cardona!” the voice yelled through the door. “The commander wants a progress report from you right away. Is your comm up? Mikhal? Did you hear me?”
“One second!” I shouted back.
I met Lex’s eyes and pointed to the chair. She nodded, understanding, and sat back where I’d found her earlier.
I positioned myself in front of the dead ensign’s body and opened the door. It slid open, and a crewman dressed in a bridge officer’s uniform appeared on the other side, fist raised mid-knock.
“Hey, you’re not—”
“Nope,” I said, “I’m not.” I pulled the soldier inside with us and shut the door behind him, while holding him by the throat. He struggled but calmed down when he felt the barrel of my weapon on his neck.
I pushed him to the floor beside his dead friend, dropping him to his knees and placing the gun to his skull. “Tell me where the nearest medkit is,” I ordered.
“Go to Hell,” he muttered.
I cocked the gun. “I won’t ask you again, pal.”
He swallowed.
Lex watched him from the side. “There,” she exclaimed, pointing to his hip.
“What?” I asked her.
“He looked at that spot when you asked him,” she said.
I pressed the barrel deeper into his hair. “Is she right?”
He fidgeted at the question but said nothing.
“Good enough,” I replied. “Open your pockets.”
He hesitated but looked over his shoulder to me. At that moment, I felt my legs weaken, and my head went foggy all at once. My hand dipped, bringing the gun away from his scalp for only a second, but it was all he needed to act. He took hold of my wrist with one hand while grabbing the barrel with the other. I fired into the far wall, missing him.
He flinched at the sound of it, but not so much that he loosened his grip.
I placed my foot between his shoulders, using the leverage to wrestle my weapon away. He twisted around, grabbing both my arms and pulling me forward. As I fell to the floor, he hurried for my gun, nearly stealing it from my grasp. I felt his fingernails dig into my wrist, drawing blood with a hard sting.
Another flush ran through my chest, and a loss of strength in my arms followed.
He grasped my weapon with both hands, but I curled up, ignoring the pain in my abdomen, and kicked the man in the jaw. He flew back, along with teeth and my own gun.
Taking a moment to recover, I found it was difficult to breathe. The kick had strained me more than expected. At the same time, the crewman moaned and righted himself, trying to stand.
We both looked at one another, hardly a pause to breathe, and then lunged together for the gun. I dogpiled onto him as his hand drew within a meter of the weapon, stopping him on the floor, then twisted on his back, wrapping my feet and arms around him.
I pulled my arm around his neck in a rear naked choke, gripping his throat and pulling. He gagged, and I only tightened my grip.
His back pressed into my wound, and it burned.
But I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t let him touch Lex.
He bashed his fist into my arm repeatedly, desperately kicking beneath us to get free. His hits grew softer, each one a sign of his fading strength. We were done.
He went limp soon and I dropped him beside his comrade.
Lex stared at him with wide eyes, resting on the balls of her feet.
“He’s not dead,” I told her. “Just asleep.”
It wasn’t a lie. He was still breathing, the lucky bastard. If I’d held onto him for much longer, that wouldn’t have been the case.
The girl said nothing of it. Instead, she motioned at my wound. “You’re bleeding more than before.”
The fight had pulled at the hole in my chest, and I grimaced, angling my view to inspect the damage. It was bleeding worse now, so I covered it with one hand.
I heard the chair scrape the floor. Lex stared at my wound intently, but not with fear or disgust. It was more like curiosity, as though she were studying it, trying to understand.
I touched her white hair with my palm—the one with the least amount of blood on it.
“Mr. Hughes,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “You need to take care of that.”
Despite her concern, I decided to shift my focus elsewhere. I turned to the guard I’d knocked out. “Hold on a sec.”
I grabbed the comm out of his ear.
“What are you doing?” asked Lex.
<
br /> I pressed my finger to my lips, and she nodded.
“Commander-Weir,” I said, speaking into the comm and doing my best to disguise my voice. I rubbed the mic on my shirtsleeve as I talked, trying to distort the sound. “Cardona . . . down. Eternal escaped . . . headed toward airlock.”
“Don’t let it get away!” he bellowed.
I sighed in relief. At least he seemed to buy my act, which would grant us a little more time. Maybe not much, but I’d take what I could get.
There wasn’t enough strength in me to deal with moving the guard or restraining him.
I suddenly remembered the collar. Examining it now, it was cruder than expected. The mechanisms appeared simple and exactly like you’d expect from a dog collar. Rifling through the ensign’s pockets, I found the remote. The buttons were marked clearly, so all it took was a single try to get it unlocked. I put it around the sleeping guard’s neck, snapping it into place with a satisfied click, then stepped back.
Lex pulled the medkit from his pocket, much to both our relief.
It contained a few needed supplies, one of which was an analgesic. There were some clean bandages and more wipes, but I didn’t want to chance the guard waking up before I was prepared.
“We should fix you,” said Lex, motioning to my stomach.
“After we talk to this asshole,” I promised. “Think you’ll be okay to wait?”
“Yeah, Mr. Hughes,” she said, pausing for a moment. “And I didn’t say anything to them, I swear.”
“What?” I asked.
“You can trust me, Mr. Hughes. I wouldn’t tell them anything, even when they were mean to me and threatened to kill you and Abby. I promise.”
I stared at her and said, “Lex, you stop that now.” I cleared my throat. “I trust you no matter what, but if someone threatens you and asks you a question and we’re not here, you tell them whatever they want to know. You got that?” The words came out sharper than I intended.
“Yes, Mr. Hughes.” She turned away, like she was somehow embarrassed.
“Kid. Lex,” I said, and drew her into my arms, still careful to keep an eye on the guard.
I held her for a while, expecting her to cry, but nothing came.
“Sorry I wasn’t better,” she said, simply.
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry about,” I said, giving her an easy smile.
She quickly returned it, as though everything was fine.
She was always so full of joy and excitement. Even in those first few days, running from Fratley, she’d always kept her composure.
A memory of Lex covered in blood and sitting on Fratley’s shuttle entered my mind. Even then, she seemed oblivious to the horrors of the world, never one to break down or lose strength. Never the crying sort. How she’d found a way to stay so tender in a galaxy of horrors escaped me. I wanted to ask how she did, how she buried all of those emotions, if she felt them at all, because it seemed a rare sort of talent.
Instead, I turned my attention to the unconscious guard still lying on the floor. I needed answers before anyone else showed up to give me problems. “Time to wake him up,” I said to Lex.
“How?” she asked.
I reached for the medkit and retrieved some ammonia inhalant, otherwise known as smelling salts. “This’ll do,” I muttered, and placed the packet to his nose. “Time to wake up.”
4
The guard on the floor began to stir, moaning and rubbing the back of his head. He sat up and looked around, confused. His eyes widened when he saw Cardona lying next to him in a pool of blood, and again when he saw me as I sat in front of him with a gun aimed directly between his eyes.
His hand went to his weapon, his face filled with confusion. The next thing he noticed was the collar around his neck. He tried to tug it free, but I raised the gun for him to see.
“Don’t,” I said grimly.
He paused, lifting his hands in surrender, waiting for me to tell him what to do next.
“No sudden movements. Sit up. Do exactly what I tell you, answer my questions, because next time I’m not letting you live.”
The guard was young, but not nearly as fresh-faced as the ensign. Even in his current predicament, he seemed calmer. He’d probably been in a few scrapes, maybe a few combat drops. There was more meat on him too, and a stubbornness in his eyes.
Spreading his hands slightly outward, he used them to push himself into a sitting position. I followed his movements with the revolver, keeping it trained on his head. I let my hand shake a little, grimacing to make it look like I was in pain.
He noticed and smirked. “You’re injured, Renegade.”
“You’re the one with a dead friend on the floor and a barrel in your face,” I reminded him. “You should be more concerned about yourself.” I motioned at him, indicating his position, and smiled.
“What do you want?” he sneered at me, curling his lip in disgust. “You might as well kill me. I’m not going to tell you shit. Do you have any idea what they do to us if we give up intelligence to the enemy?”
“Nope. Don’t care either,” I countered. “How about we start with something easy?” I leaned in, making sure to keep my weapon aimed at him while still maintaining my distance. “Let’s start with this. What’s your name?”
He didn’t answer.
“If that’s the way you want to play it, I guess I’ve got no choice.” I tapped a button on the remote I was holding in my other hand.
He spasmed and grabbed the collar around his neck.
“Fuck . . . you!” he wheezed.
I zapped him again.
“Quiet. You don’t talk unless you’re answering my questions. Touch the collar and you get a jolt. I don’t believe the answer, you get a jolt. You do anything I don’t like? You get a jolt. Or a bullet.” I shrugged. “Your choice. Makes no difference to me. Understand?”
He glared at me, but he nodded.
“What is your name?” I asked again.
“Lieutenant-Eddar Ratchell.” He said it flatly, hints of anger behind each word.
“How did you find Lex?” I asked.
The question seemed to catch him off guard and he looked up at me in surprise. “Don’t you remember? It’s the whole reason you’re on this ship. The reason we all are.”
I stared at him and smiled, deciding to keep my memory loss to myself. Then, without looking at it, I lifted the remote and pressed the next button up.
He jerked and squirmed, a scream ripping from his throat as the electric current from the collar arced through him.
“Well, if you don’t want to talk to me, I’m sure we can find someone who will.” I let go of the button and he collapsed back, trembling, a thin dribble of spit trailing down his chin.
“Okay! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, just stop, please,” he begged.
I sat back, the pressure on my side from leaning forward causing hot sparks of pain to shoot through me. The collar seemed more effective than the gun at the moment, so I holstered it and fixed a look on the lieutenant.
“Alright, Lieutenant-Ratchell. Start from the beginning.” I said it casually, but the truth was, I didn’t know how long I had before the pain came back and got the best of me.
He licked his lips nervously, then looked from me to Lex, then to Cardona’s lifeless body.
I cocked an eyebrow at him, waving the shock collar remote and forcing his attention back on me. “Well, what’s it gonna be?”
Ratchell cleared his throat and eyed the device in my hand. He swallowed hard. “After your meeting with the Union council, we received orders from Command to follow your ship. We—”
“What meeting?” I broke in.
He stiffened, blinking at me with a confused expression. “Vice Admiral Vick ordered us to follow The Galactic Dawn through slipspace. He couldn’t follow you himself because of your agreement, so he sent us.”
“What meeting and agreement?” I repeated, hovering my finger over the controls. My memory was sti
ll blank when it came to the events leading up to my arrival on this ship. I had no idea who Vice Admiral Vick was, or what I would have possibly agreed to. I wondered suddenly if the Celestials had finally found us and attacked. His answer only created more questions and it was starting to piss me off.
It must have shown on my face because the lieutenant paled a little, still looking at me like I’d lost my mind. “I don’t know the specifics,” he admitted. “All I know is that it was some kind of treaty between your people and theirs. Admiral Shaw sent us and a few others because he couldn’t go after you himself.”
I considered this. We had obviously met with the Union, but I couldn’t recall the details. Maybe something to do with the Celestial threat. It made sense. There was no way I would have agreed to the meet if it wasn’t absolutely necessary, and the Celestials certainly qualified as a legitimate threat. Hearing that the Union had gone back on their word was hardly surprising. Even with half the galaxy at stake, they still found a way to ruin my fucking day.
“So, you followed us to get your hands on Lex,” I guessed, watching him closely. I was surprised when he shook his head, a guilty look on his face.
“No, we were to ascertain Earth’s location, observe your defenses, then return without engaging. We were tracking you for some time after you left the Centaurus. When we finally made it to Earth, we nearly turned back but decided to get a closer look when we were certain you couldn’t detect us.”
“Yeah, about that,” I interrupted. “How did you do that and get by our defense network?”
His words had surprised me. The Galactic Dawn should have been able to see any ship using Union tech, even one of the sixth generation cloaks that we’d run into before. All cloaks were derived or stolen from existing Union technology, so by all accounts, there shouldn’t have been a problem. Yet, somehow, this ship had gone undetected by the Dawn, the drones, and Titan. If nothing else, it proved we’d been overconfident in our defense strategy.
The Union had used its sixth generation cloak to follow my ship, The Renegade Star, undetected for longer than I cared to say. We’d only found out from Alphonse, back before he switched sides. He and his crew had boarded us, taking me by complete surprise. It was a moment I didn’t care to repeat, and I’d taken every precaution I could to avoid it in the future. Apparently, I hadn’t gone far enough.