by A. R. Knight
There were six Beacon soldiers around them now, all with hands on their rifles. Two agents plus the officer. Sai and Eponi. Without knowing what side JJ and his soldiers would take, Sai couldn’t move to slice Aurora free. For her part, Aurora looked a little battered but okay, and she offered Sai a quiet look that said she was fine.
For the moment.
“Nothing less than insubordination, insurrection, and desertion,” Renard declared. “Aurora took her squad away after they completed their mission, and now they’ve returned to take the Nautilus with them.”
“What?” Eponi said. “Take the Nautilus? You’re insane.”
Renard eyed Eponi, stretched a glistening frown over his lips, “Am I? Aurora tried to assault me on the bridge. She already murdered one of our men. There’s no insanity here, just evidence.” Renard turned back to JJ. “I assume, commander, that you have good reason for leaving these two traitors armed?”
“Didn’t realize they were traitors, officer,” JJ said. “We’ll get that straightened out. Sai, Eponi, mind setting down your weapons? Don’t want to make things spicy now.”
“JJ,” Sai warned. “This isn’t the play to make.”
The intersection seemed frozen in space, faces fading to the background as Sai locked gazes with JJ. He tried, by virtue of the telepathy that existed between deep friendships, to convey how bad siding with Renard would be. How wrong.
“Not my choice, Sai,” JJ said. “Not that I’m happy about it, but a soldier’s a soldier. I’m not in this to make these kind of calls.”
The Beacon soldiers came forward, Renard’s smug face watching the whole time as JJ’s force cleaned out Eponi and Sai. Again, Sai watched his family’s katana stolen away from its sheath, taken into the hands of a soldier that looked at and held the blade as if he had no idea what to do with it.
“Thank you, commander,” Renard said. “I have one more request for you. If you would send a couple of your most loyal soldiers to assist my agents, here, I would like to send these three out the airlock. A summary judgment for their crimes.”
“No trial?” JJ said. “Most—”
“Summary judgment, commander,” Renard repeated. “In case you’ve forgotten, the Nautilus is under threat. This is not the time to get bogged down in particulars. Defend your ship, defend your admiral, and defend your employer.”
“Of course, sir,” JJ said, waving over several Beacon soldiers. “I will escort them myself.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that’s necessary,” Renard said. “The airlock isn’t far. I would rather you remain on the bridge with the admiral and I to ensure we’re as safe as possible. There are, I believe, two more Sever members somewhere on this ship.”
Sai saw JJ war with Renard’s request. JJ straightened, gave Renard a level look that said he wasn’t stupid, then barked the order to the four Beacon soldiers that’d formed around Sai and Eponi.
“Sai,” JJ said as the soldiers took Sai’s arms in their own. “It’s been an honor. Sorry that things had to end like this.”
“Me too, JJ. Me too,” Sai said as the soldiers formed them up into a line with Aurora.
Together, the three marched towards a nearby emergency airlock, one meant to help evacuate officers if the Nautilus fell to enemy fire. One about to be used to send Sever to a frozen, eternal death.
“At least it won’t hurt,” Eponi muttered. “Better than what I expected, coming here.”
Sai, though, wasn’t paying much attention to Eponi’s grumbles. Rather, he had his eyes on Aurora’s hands. She kept them loose in front, fingers working ever so slightly in a language few knew, sending a message Sai was all too happy to read:
Be ready.
Thirteen
Diplomacy
Gregor stood inside the lavatory, waiting to the door’s left while the squad outside hustled past, heading back towards the med bay. Rovo sat on the toilet itself, taking slow breaths. Fast ones, full ones, hurt the rookie’s repaired lungs, so he said.
Carrying Rovo like a child, Gregor had made it away from the medical bots, the curious doctors—one surgeon, apparently realizing Gregor wasn’t going to stop, had shouted ‘be careful!’—and the two agents after them. The red-lit concourse implied what was about to happen, and after a few seconds clanking down the empty hall, a lift’s opening whoosh sent Gregor heading into a squat lavatory.
“Hiding in a toilet,” Rovo said, coughing as he spoke. “Can’t say I pictured this one.”
“We do what we must to survive.” Gregor looked at himself in the mirror, nodded at the scuffed look. He’d earned those bruises. “Now we have to make a plan.”
“A plan?” Rovo braced an arm over his chest. “In case you haven’t noticed, this whole ship’s in lockdown. The squads are combing the halls. There’s no way we’ll get back to the Prisa. If everyone’s even alive anymore.”
“They are.”
“How do you know?”
“Because we are Sever,” Gregor said. “We are better than the ones chasing after us.”
“I repeat, we’re hiding in a toilet.”
“Smarter, too.”
The rookie, though, did have a point. Gregor wore beat up civilian clothes, while Rovo still sported a sky blue med bay gown. The rookie didn’t have a weapon, didn’t even have shoes. Getting anywhere without questions would be difficult. Answering any questions that wouldn’t get them shot would be impossible.
Unless.
“We go back for the suit,” Gregor said. “Down below.”
“Say again?”
Rovo stared at the floor, and Gregor wondered if the rookie was about to evacuate his stomach on the smooth gray tile.
“Back to the labs,” Gregor said. “Directly below us. We take the closest lift down one level, and we are there.”
“We don’t have a wristlet or an ID,” Rovo rushed the words out in a burst, then clamped his mouth shut.
“Leave that to me,” Gregor replied. “You stay here.”
“Can do.”
Gregor, never a man for subtlety, neared the lavatory’s door and blinked as it whisked open on its own. The red-splashed concourse greeted Gregor, filled with the sounds of a ship in mild panic. Boots clambered along the hallway, their staccato echoes picking up metal tones as they mixed and matched with shouted orders and the occasional overhead broadcast calling squads to their stations.
The big guy had to make a choice when he stepped outside the bathroom. Either try sneaking, making dashes from one place to another in hopes nobody saw him, or embrace the moment and act like Gregor was right where he ought to be.
Behind him, Rovo groaned.
Now was not the time to learn spy-craft.
Gregor went into the concourse, keeping his arms clear, his shoulders level, and his face patched over with a loose, nervous smile. Like what a civilian caught outside their section during a raid might look like. At least as well as Gregor, a strapping dude who looked like he belonged in a uniform, could pull off.
The nearby lift’s bright sign glowed a natural green, radiating near the concourse’s ceiling. Beneath it, two soldiers stood with rifles ready. Their eyes scanned the hallway, their arms taut.
Gregor could forgive them the attention. The invasion alarm hadn’t been cleared yet, and Deepak’s announcement made it seem like the enemies could be anywhere.
“Hello,” Gregor said, heading towards the lift and accenting the greeting with a high, friendly wave. “I’m a bit confused. Was in that bathroom there, then I come out and everything’s all red?”
The two soldiers looked at him, the farther one walking from his post to join his partner in a visual inspection. Gregor felt the crawling eyes, the analysis taking in his torn shirt, his battered outfit. The soldiers would be creeping towards suspicions Gregor couldn’t let them have.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Gregor said. “That I look like shit. I do, there’s no denying, but sometimes we have bad days in the labs.”
“The
labs,” the nearer soldier repeated. Both were low ranks, their protective vests and standard-issue equipment putting them in DC’s ground squads. The ones meant for larger engagements. Not quite fodder, not far from it. “What’re you doing up here then?”
“Had to visit a friend in the med bay,” Gregor said. “Bad timing.”
“I’ve seen better. Do you have any identification?” The soldier directed a pointed stare at Gregor’s bare wrists.
“Sorry, no wristlets with the tests we’re running. What we’re doing, would fry them.”
Not a bad lie, there. Maybe Gregor ought to try this stuff more often.
“Right,” the soldier dragged the word, as if playing out how Gregor would’ve come up here without the device. “Who’s testing with you? Anyone we can call for verification? The ship’s under lockdown for potential intruders. We can’t let you wander around.”
“Okay.” Gregor needed a name, any name. His mind went blank. “Gregor, Gregor Evanoff.”
The soldier raised his wristlet, started tapping in the name. Gregor took another step closer, mumbling that he can help find the right one. The other soldier did exactly as Gregor hoped, taking the opportunity to look off down the concourse.
As the soldier typed the name—Gregor’s own, the only one he came up with in the moment—a different question splashed in. Gregor had been planning a swift punch or two, knocking out the soldiers, followed by a running escape for him and Rovo to the lift and down below.
These soldiers, though, weren’t his enemies. Gregor wasn’t being paid to beat up random DefenseCorp troops, ones simply doing their jobs as ordered. As Gregor would have been years earlier, during his own early stints with DC.
Back on Wexer, the DefenseCorp forces there had come to take out Sever. Gregor had been fighting for his life and the lives of his friends on that rock ball. Here, that same threat existed, but not from these two.
“That right?” The soldier asked, breaking Gregor’s zone.
Every letter held the right position.
“Yes,” Gregor said.
The soldier tapped his wristlet. The screen changed as the wristlet searched the Nautilus directory, hunting for someone with Gregor’s name. After several seconds, the screen flashed red. Nobody in the records with Gregor’s name.
An active DefenseCorp trooper for more than a decade, and now Gregor didn’t exist.
Before Gregor could reply, behind him and down the concourse, a whooshing noise accompanied by a falling body’s fat splat on the floor. All eyes went toward’s Rovo’s form as the rookie propped himself up on an arm, looked their way, and coughed.
“Sorry,” Rovo said, his voice carrying and sharing enough weakness to propel the soldiers forward. “Not the entrance I was going for.”
“Thought you said you were alone in that lavatory?” the first soldier said to Gregor as they went towards Rovo together.
“I was wrong,” Gregor said, “apparently.”
The second soldier stopped, took a step to distance himself from Gregor and raised his rifle, “Look, man, this game has been going on too long. You’re going to wait there and I’m gonna call someone who can tell me whether or not to shoot you.”
“Ever hear of Sever squad?” Gregor asked, pulling at threads to see if anything stuck.
While he asked the question, the first soldier knelt by Rovo. The soldier took a good look at Gregor’s wounded squadmate, and cut off any answer to Gregor’s question by telling his fellow soldier to call for medical help.
“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” the second soldier looked torn between continuing Gregor’s interrogation and following his fellow’s command, and Gregor used that indecision.
He knew a rookie when he saw one.
One long step put Gregor past the second soldier’s firing field. Before the soldier could back up, Gregor grabbed the rifle’s barrel and tore the weapon from the soldier’s grip. The straps, left loose in the rapid scramble to get into position, let the weapon pull off the man’s shoulders and away into Gregor’s hands.
“Don’t,” Gregor said as the first soldier, recovering faster than his stripped friend, tried to bring his own rifle to bear. “We’re not the enemy. Don’t want to hurt you. We just need the lift for a minute.”
Gregor had his new weapon pointed the right way now, had a clock ticking along in his head telling him it wouldn’t be long till another squad happened along and interrupted this lovely get together. Time for Rovo to get rolling.
“Help him up,” Gregor said to the first soldier. “He’ll be okay.”
“Who the hell are you?” asked the second soldier, being smart about it and not reaching for his sidearm.
“Already told you.” Gregor back-stepped, put some space between himself and the two soldiers while the first followed orders and helped Rovo to a shaky stand. “Sever squad. We used to be DC.”
“Used to be?”
“Mission went bad. We bailed.” Gregor started walking backwards, towards the lift entrance. Kept that rifle pointed where business needing doing. “You ever get asked to choose between what’s right and what’s worth cash, you choose what’s right and you’ll end up here.”
Now the soldiers looked confused, though the first did an able job getting Rovo from one step to the next.
“Here? The Nautilus?” The second soldier asked.
“No—” Gregor started, then the second soldier, using Gregor’s answer as an opportunity, went for that damn sidearm.
Gregor shot. Pulled the trigger and sent burning energy streaming right at the second soldier’s feet before the man’s hand had his weapon free. The second soldier reacted the way a smart person would: let his hand walk away, kept his arms wide.
“Another tip,” Gregor said, feeling the lift doors against his back. “Don’t use the same trick I just used on you. It is boring.” With his left hand, Gregor gestured at the lift’s panel. “Call it, please.”
The first soldier, still with his rifle strapped over his chest, still helping Rovo walk, though at least the rookie had his eyes open now, tapped his wristlet against the lift panel. Had a mouth that looked to be breathing, even if speaking seemed beyond the rookie.
Not a bad thing. Rovo always talked too much.
“You won’t get far, you know,” the second soldier, determined to stick with his bravado, said. “The Nautilus is awake now. Squads are everywhere. We’ll find you.”
“As I said, we are not the problem.” Gregor felt the lift thrumming behind his back. Soon. “The ones in crimson and black are your real enemies. They are crawling around this ship, and will stab you in your sleep.”
The lift shunted open behind him. Gregor watched the soldier’s eyes to see if the lift had anyone on it, but their stares stayed on him. An empty vessel. Gregor sent his left arm out wide.
“Pass the boy here,” Gregor said, and the first soldier obliged. Rovo took his freedom to half walk, half fall to Gregor, who backed into the lift.
The first soldier played it smart, didn’t take the chance to reach for his rifle. A cooler head that’d live to see another day. Or at least another minute.
“Remember what I said.” Gregor drifted to the lift’s left side, where another panel waited for him to choose a destination. “Crimson and black. Those are the ones to watch.”
When the lift doors closed, the two young soldiers still stood there, still watched Gregor, as if he and Rovo were ghosts in a story they didn’t quite understand.
Fourteen
Vacuum Twist
You might think, growing up around space, jumping to the stars, leaping between worlds, and surfing the nebulas, that vacuum wouldn’t be all that frightening. Like an omnipresent danger, it would fade into the background of her life, a whisper informing every action with a little extra caution. Don’t mess up that repair, push that button, or open that hatch or you’d find all your air sucked away and your insides popping out like some horror show balloon.
And yet.
And yet.
Eponi still felt her heart pick up whenever she thought back to the moment over Dynas, to the creeping along the gray tunnel connecting her kidnapped shuttle to Anaskya’s ship and its salvation. The whip-sawing tube, the crackling as the oxygen feed from her ship to Anaskya’s tangled itself up and threatened to rip Eponi loose.
So she had her mouth shut tight, her legs feeling locked as she walked in step with the four soldiers, two agents, Sai and Aurora towards the nearest Nautilus airlock. The standard deserter sentence: banished out into the cold dark to float until some gravity well burned you to cinders. A risk Eponi had accepted when she’d bounced along with Sever in their desertion post-Dynas, one that, in the somewhat adrenaline-fueled heyday after escaping that damned swamp of a world, felt like it’d never arrive.
“How about we substitute the punishments?” Eponi said, as neither Sai nor Aurora seemed to be talking. The soldiers and agents, too, were quiet, and, dammit, Eponi couldn’t take that anymore. “You can take these two out the airlock. I’m sure they’d love it. Go right ahead. But me? I’m thinking you still have a use for a skilled pilot. Shuttles that need landing and so on.”
Nobody replied. The agents, the soldiers, didn’t bother looking her way. They kept their pistols focused where they belonged as their booted steps marched through the red-lit concourse. Beacon squad expanded its reach around the bridge, clearing one room after another, and eventually the little death squad passed beyond their assigned radius. Alone, now, in their march.
“Do you all, like, not talk?” Eponi said. “Is this a new rule, that while doing an execution the victims don’t exist?”
“Orders,” one of the soldiers on Eponi’s right said, and she, at least, didn’t sound all that thrilled to be doing this. “The only reason you’re talking with us is to argue for your life, or get us to make a different decision. By not engaging, we can preserve the objective.”