Broken & Hunted

by Charissa Dufour

  “Tell Nathyn this isn’t his fault. He’s off duty. If he wants he can spend his time as he chooses, though I advise him to return to the ship for his own safety.”

  Reese gave him a terse nod, before going on to give them Bit’s description of her stalker. Blaine crossed the room, scooping up a chair as he walked. He plunked it down next to Jack and listened to the description. It was the same as cologne man at the hotel—the man who had chased them around the docks district.

  “I think this man may be the clue to Blaine’s mood swings,” Jack said.

  Blaine crossed his arms. “I’m fine.”

  “Trust us, Blaine. You’re not fine.”

  “Whatever.”

  Calen felt his lips quirk up into a half smile. None of them were fine, but at least they were together.

  Reese let out a long sigh, a smile pulling at his lips. For once things were going well for the crew members down on the surface. Though he felt a jealousy towards those wandering the planet while he was trapped babysitting the engineers, he had to remind himself again and again that he wasn’t getting shot at or chased by crazy protestors. And from what Jack had insinuated, Calen had been badly injured from his confrontation with their unnamed enemy.

  He had experienced enough adventure in his life to know that a little boredom was not such a bad thing, even if it came with the price of listening to Dirk and Forrest argue over stabilizers and condensers. Hardly the best dinner conversation.

  Reese climbed out of the pilot’s chair, another smile playing at his lips. It wasn’t a very comfortable chair.

  How do Calen and Oden spend twelve straight hours in it? he wondered as he let his eyes drift over the muted colors on the controls, the ship mostly powered down in docking mode.

  Like every other day since he had taken over security for the ship, raised voices drifted up from the engineering level. Reese felt another wave of sympathy for the youngest engineer. Jeremiah was left listening to the two older men argue over the details of their work morning, noon, and night.

  Since first coming on the ship, Reese had known that Forrest and Dirk didn’t always see eye-to-eye, but something had changed in the last week or so. What had escalated the friendly discordance into this all-out war? Reese thought back over their last harrowing journey from Earth to Mars. They had been attacked by pirates and the ship had responded beautifully.

  Reese paused in his assessment. Had it been the ship or had it been Oden’s masterful handling? That Reese couldn’t answer.

  He was a rifleman. Though he had training in basic piloting for the sake of the ship’s skiffs, Nolan and Isaac had been better suited for that duty—and now they were dead for it.

  Reese brushed those sobering thoughts aside, focusing on the current problem. Had the ship not performed well? Was Dirk calling Forrest on some dereliction of duty? Or was Forrest challenging the way Dirk was running the department?

  It wasn’t Reese’s place to butt into their fight. After all, he wasn’t the captain of this merry band of men. He was just the man left behind to keep them safe. Reese considered hinting to Jack upon his return that something wasn’t right in the engineering department, but even that felt out of his prerogative. Whatever he did, he didn’t have to decide now. It would be at least another twenty-four hours before the crew could deliver the embryos and return to the ship. He had plenty of time to watch the engineers and consider his options.

  His eyes drifted up to the screens where the exterior cameras displayed the movements of those passing their docking porthole. Men and women hurried past, dragging their wheeled cases behind them or yelling at over-burdened indentured servants.

  Reese’s overactive mind ran to Bit, wondering how she was bearing up under the burden of their unscheduled adventure. He hadn’t spent much time getting to know her as of yet. She had enough men clambering to get near her. She didn’t need another. Besides, Oden was better equipped to help her grow accustomed to the changes in her life, not Reese.

  His brows pulled down in a frown as he continued to watch the screens. Two men had been standing in the waiting area across from their porthole since before he started eyeing the screens. One was talking on an expensive personal comm. device—the type that most resemble what had been used on Earth hundreds of years ago, back when the small devices did everything but cook for you.

  Reese tried to remember his history lessons. He believed they had been called cell phones but wasn’t sure. As technology expanded and human travel extended past the atmosphere, communication requirements had changed. The idea of a person walking around with their own personal communication device that could reach any person they wanted became impractical. And so the “cell phone” died out, replaced by stationary comm. stations. Now, though, as technology took another leap, personal, transportable comm. devices were reappearing with the extremely rich.

  Whoever this man was, he was extremely affluent and extremely concerning. It wasn’t his money that concerned Reese. It was the way his eyes kept flicking to the door of their airlock that unsettled Reese. His eyes jumped to the other man, who carefully studied one of the electronic maps of the enormous port that could be checked out from a customer-service station. Like the man on the comm. device, he seemed more interested in checking on their airlock than in actually studying his map. After a few seconds, the two men glanced at each other.

  “Shit,” Reese exclaimed, his hands moving to the ship’s comm. of their own accord, pulling it up to his mouth as his eyes continued to watch the two men. “Attention all crew.”

  Even with his attention focused on the screen he heard the arguing from three floors down continue despite his call over the ship-wide communication system.

  “Shut up down there,” he ordered over the comm., ignoring all protocols. “We have company.”

  That shut them up.

  “Right now they’re just watching, but we’re not taking any chances. Get your communicators and your weapons and go to your check points. I’ll get the porthole locked down, the booby-traps set, and come back up here to watch them. Go.”

  Even from three stories up, he heard the clatter of their tools being dropped and their clamor to climb the stairs up to the galley level, where the guns were stored. Doing his best to show more calm than he felt, Reese went to the living level and “battened down the hatches” as the old-timers had once said. He locked up the airlock and carefully rigged the booby-traps originally designed by Randal. Only Randal and he knew how they worked so, theoretically, there was no one to leak the information.

  Reese smiled. There was no theoretically about it. Randal would never betray his crew, and Reese had no one to betray them to. He knew Randal and the people Randal introduced him to. That was it. The information was safe.

  He gave it one last scan before charging back up the stairs and onto the bridge, his eyes immediately going over the screens. Mr. Comm. Device and Mr. I Can Read A Map were still in place. Reese continued to watch, looking for anyone else suspicious. Slowly, he picked out Mr. How Long Can I Sip My Drink and Mr. I’ve Walked By Four Times For No Apparent Reason.

  Reese adjusted the frequency on the bridge’s main comm. station to that of the small hand-held devices now being used by the other men and lifted it to his lips.

  “I see four men watching the airlock. They don’t appear to be making a move at this point, but we need to be ready at a moment’s notice,” he said, remembering to explain in detail.

  After all, these weren’t soldiers he was working with, they were engineers. They weren’t used to taking orders without an explanation simply because they came from a superior. The arguing between Forrest and Dirk proved that.

  “I’m coming up to see who it is you think is watching us,” grumbled Dirk into the comm. device.

  Reese let out a long-suffering sigh, suddenly regretting his choice to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he should have been treating them like soldiers after all. This wasn’t the time for a pissing contest, even if
he knew who would win in the end. When it came to security, he was the top dog, and Dirk knew it.

  Faster than he thought possible, the old man appeared on the bridge, followed by the other two engineers. At least Vance had obeyed his orders and gone to his check point.

  Reese put on his game face, disheartened that he would have to yell at Forrest and Jeremiah. He didn’t want to, but he had to make his point.

  “Forrest, Jer, get back to you check points,” he snapped, keeping his message short.

  They stopped in their tracks, blinking in surprise. Reese was not the kind to snap at people, and they had never heard him raise his voice, even in the practice ring. Now they didn’t know what to make of his sudden temper.

  “Did you hear me?” he demanded.

  They both nodded and scurried away.

  Reese turned to Dirk. “In the future, Dirk, you will remember that when it comes to the safety of your crew, I am in charge. If I tell you we are under observation and we need to begin checkpoint protocols, you will do as I say. Is that understood?”

  “Look here, young man, I’ve been…”

  “Is that understood?” repeated Reese, raising his voice above Dirk’s words.

  Dirk stared at Reese, baffled by the younger man’s transformation.

  Reese chose to give him further explanation since the engineer clearly did not understand. “In this situation, I am Randal. When I say there is a threat, you become my subordinate. I don’t care how long you’ve served on this ship. It means nothing in regards to your safety, and it sure as hell means nothing in regards to the safety of the men in your charge. If you question my authority again, I will bring it to the attention of the captain. Do you understand me?”

  Dirk ground his teeth together, anger bringing color and light to his otherwise black eyes.

  “I understand,” he growled.

  “Good.” Reese turned toward the screens. “If you’ll see here…”

  Reese took the next few precious minutes showing Dirk the men who had begun to watch their ship.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Jack shouldered the pack of embryos while Blaine took two decoy packs and Randal one, leaving Calen’s bruised back free. His little brother limped, grimacing with each step. He wanted to wrap an arm around his waist and help support him, but the arrangement of his bruises and the nerve damage to his arm made it more painful for him to receive support than for him to limp along on his own. All the same, Jack hated to see his little brother struggle. The worse part was knowing it was all his fault.

  Had he taken the embryos earlier, maybe the men would have come after him instead.

  Then again, maybe not.

  They disembarked the train and left the station behind. The next train they needed to take was on a completely different line, the nearest station nearly a mile away.

  Jack sighed. Tifton had a world-renowned network of high-speed, light-rail trains linking the various districts of the gargantuan city, but there weren’t any of the old-timey buses to transport travelers between the lines. If you needed to get from one line to the other, you were on your own. Granted, there weren’t many people who tried to travel from one end of the record-breaking city to the other. Most people never even left their district in the course of their life, much less saw half the city in one weekend.

  The captain shook his head. Half their earnings had been spent during the weekend, and they hadn’t even delivered the embryos. He would need to negotiate with MGC in the hopes of them covering some of his expenses. After all, when he signed the contract for this run he had never imagined spending a weekend on the run from some deadly gang of contract killers.

  They set out from the train station and began their trek toward the next station. Calen began to lag behind and they slowed their pace.

  Their small group turned a corner and came to a sudden halt. The same group of protesters who had sent them running from their hotel room filled the sidewalk, their signs held high over their heads.

  “Not again,” Jack mumbled under his breath.

  “They just won’t leave us alone,” agreed Randal as the group spotted them. “Let’s lead them to an AS.”

  “An Authority Station?” asked Jack, flabbergasted.

  “Maybe we can get a few of them arrested. Get them off our back.”

  Jack turned on his heels, followed by the rest of the group.

  “We have to do something,” said Blaine.

  Randal took off, leading the group at a quick jog. Jack glanced back at Calen who had already dropped to the back of the group, pain lining his features.

  “I can keep up,” he panted.

  Jack gave him a nod and turned his attention back on the road ahead. They increased their pace as the protestors chased them, their chants and cries nearly driving him to distraction.

  What did they want from him? Did they want him to bankrupt his company for their wild hopes and dreams that MGC might one day bend to their will? Besides, surely the enormous consortium had a division already dedicated to health-related scientific advancements. The growing city certainly needed it and, therefore, there was a market.

  Jack reined his mind in, focusing on the uneven sidewalk beneath his feet and the wheezing breath of his brother. They took a turn, the mob hot on their heels. One more turn brought them to the doorsteps of an A.S.

  “Are you sure about this?” Jack said.

  “Trust me,” replied Randal.

  The group ascended the steps, amazed to see the protesters hesitating down on the street.

  “You have to join us!”

  Jack turned to see the same woman who had approached him at the hotel only a few hours earlier, her face turned up at him.

  “I told you I wouldn’t give up,” she said to him from across the length of the steps. “You can help the entire city of Tifton. You can help the millions of people who are sick.”

  Jack felt a stab of guilt. He wanted to be the savior. He had since the moment his father put the weight of the family company on his shoulder, since the first moment he knew one day he would carry the burden alone, but he couldn’t shoulder the burden of millions of dying people. That wasn’t his responsibility.

  The twelve people on his crew and the two women in his family who looked to him, they were his responsibility.

  “Let’s go,” he said, turning his back on the woman and her mob of angry protesters.

  Jack caught Calen’s eye, and the look in his brother’s gaze sent a dagger into his stomach. Calen understood every feeling that had just passed through Jack—every morsel of guilt, every hesitancy, every question of morality—and Calen knew that Jack would carry that self-doubt to his grave, wondering if he had done the right thing.

  Calen kept moving and the moment passed, but in that brief connection Jack realized he had underestimated his brother, not just in what Calen could handle, but in how much his brother understood. Calen understood the differences between their lives and appreciated the burdens weighing his brother down, just as he understood his brother’s tendency to carry the weight of those around him, from Dirk’s loneliness to Bit’s trauma.

  Jack shook off the sudden realization and followed the others into the A. S. They pushed through the lobby up to the desk, finding themselves greeted by a machine.

  “What do we do?” asked Calen, having never been inside an Authorities Station.

  Jack glanced around, noticing a group of peace officers making their way up a case of stairs while another group of paramedics enter through the main doors. The various factions of Authorities for this district all worked out of this central hub. Those they arrested and those with minor injuries were brought here, just as the workers came here for their vehicles and supplies. It was an enormous building, rising some thirty or forty stories into the sky before transforming into some other function.

  “Leave it to me,” Randal ordered.

  “State the reason for your visit,” said the machine in an automated voice.


  “We’d like to report a crime.”

  “Was the crime a personal crime, a property crime, an inchoate crime, or a statutory crime?” asked the machine.

  The men glanced at each other. Even Randal looked a little fazed.

  “A p-personal crime?” he said, trying his best not to sound like he was asking a question.

  “Was the crime an assault, battering, false imprisonment, kidnapping, homicide, or a rape?”

  “Oh, for pete’s sake.” grumbled Blaine from the back of the group. “This isn’t helping Bit.”

  “Which one covers ‘our friend is going crazy and we think he’s been poisoned’?” asked Calen under his breath.

  “I think it’s an assault,” began Randal. “No, wait. Battery. Can I change my answer? Shit, you have to be a lawyer to get through this thing. Can I just talk to a human being?”

  “I am sorry. Your answer was not recorded. Was the crime an assault, battering, false imprisonment, kidnapping, homicide, or a rape?”

  “Bloody hell!” barked Blaine.

  “Blaine, calm down,” ordered Jack.

  “Battery,” said Randal clearly into the speaker before shrugging his shoulders.

  “Your identity has been recorded. Someone will contact you within two to six business days.”

  “Wait, what!” yelled Randal at the machine. “Two to six business days!”

  “Have a nice day. And be safe, citizen.”

  “Who designed this piece of crap!” snapped Blaine.

  “Where is a peace officer?” asked Randal as he turned and began to scan the lobby.

  They were the only citizens present. Everyone else knew better than to come to the A.S. for help.

  “You there!” Randal called to the small group still working their way up the long flight of stairs.

  The peace officers turned to glare down at Randal, who was racing toward them, taking the stairs two at a time. The officers moved their hands to their high-powered Tasers, wary of the large man barreling toward them.

  Jack stayed back, not much wanting to lead Calen into whatever fray Randal was about to start.