by M. D. Cooper
Her mouth throbbed with searing pain, and she tentatively felt her teeth. Two were loose, one was missing, and another was cracked. It felt like her jaw might be dislocated as well.
Scared to open her eyes, Juasa shifted and gasped in pain as something moved in her chest. She’d fractured ribs before, but this felt worse—they must be broken.
“Oh, you’re awake?” a nearby voice asked.
Juasa knew it, but it took a moment for her to place it properly. “Anna,” she whispered, careful not to move her jaw.
“Yup, that’s me. Hold tight back there; you look like you’re in pretty rough shape, if I have to shoot you, you may not survive.”
“You bitch.” Juasa packed all the venom she could into those two, soft words.
“That’s me, the richest bitch you’ve ever seen,” Anna laughed.
Juasa finally mustered up the courage to open her eyes. She was in the shuttle, on the floor at the entrance to the cockpit. Outside the glass was a starscape…and the growing shape of the Verisimilitude.
“What are you doing?” Juasa asked.
“’To the victor go the spoils’, right?” Anna replied. “Well, I have all the spoils, so….”
Juasa didn’t have the strength to reply, and closed her eyes again, trying to fight back tears. There was no way Katrina could help her now.
Unless…
I’m just a bargaining chip. They want Katrina.
“Verisimilitude,” she heard Anna say. “Come in. There’s been a change of plans.”
“You better not think you can double-cross me,” a deep male voice replied.
“Jace, I’m more than just a pretty face. That’s the last thing on my mind,” Anna replied. “I don’t have any intentions of sharing with the rest of the morons on that KiStar piece of junk. I’m bringing you all the pods, and I have the Streamer woman’s girlfriend.”
A short laugh came over the comm system. “You really sound like my kind of girl, Anna. Good work. Bay’s open; bring ‘em in.”
“Be there in a minute,” Anna replied.
A second later, a warning alarm sounded and the shuttle shuddered and slewed to the side.
“Fuck!” Anna yelled.
Juasa heard a whistling, and then a foosh as the cabin rapidly depressurized. Closing her eyes against the pain, she forced her jaw wide to open the canals to her ears, and then forced all the air out of her lungs.
A moment later, the torrent of air stopped; Juasa, her eyes still closed, wondered why the vacuum of space felt so…normal.
“Shit,” she heard Anna swear faintly.
It’s sealed? We still have air? Juasa wondered, and opened her eyes. No, she could see space through a rent in the hull. They must be inside the Verisimilitude’s shields; the pirates must have wrapped the shuttle in a bubble that would contain its atmosphere.
If not for the fact that the people who had just saved her were probably going to torture her, Juasa would be impressed. But as consciousness slowly drifted out of reach, she wished that space’s cold vacuum had taken her life.
That would be far better than what was to come.
* * * * *
Katrina reached the lift to the Command Deck, and gave it a moment’s thought before turning to the ladder shaft that ran next to it. It didn’t offer much cover, but it was better than stepping out of the lift into a barrage of weapons fire.
She climbed the ladder as quickly and quietly as she could, while around her, the ship groaned as it spun in space. She wondered how much damage it had taken from the pirate ship; was it in danger of breaking up?
Katrina slowed as she reached the command deck, and sent a probe ahead to confirm that the coast was clear.
It was not. As she’d feared, four enemy troops crouched behind makeshift cover with their railguns aimed at the lift doors. However, the command deck still had artificial gravity. That would be helpful.
She reached down to her waist, detached a flashbang grenade, and got ready to throw it. Just before she let it fly, the lift doors opened, and the four men and women let out bloodthirsty screams as they opened fire into the car.
Katrina stomped on their railguns as she passed by, destroying each of the weapons on her way to the bridge.
When she reached the sliding doors, Katrina reared back and kicked hard.
Once. Twice. On the third strike, the steel buckled. She grasped one of the doors and pulled with all her armor’s might.
The door screeched in protest, and then broke free, flying down the corridor behind her. She leveled both her rifles and strode onto the bridge to find only Hemry, standing in front of the command chair with his arms raised in surrender.
“I didn’t know!” he pleaded. “She fooled us all.”
Katrina fired a round from her pulse rifle. The blast hit Hemry center mass and threw him across the bridge.
Katrina replied as she sat in the command chair and brought up the comm logs.
Sam didn’t respond for a moment.
Sam chuckled.
“Hemry and some guy named Jace Kaidan sure had a fun chat,” Katrina said as she reviewed the comm logs.
Troy replied equitably.
“Now’s not the time,” Katrina said. “We need a plan.”
Katrina reached up, unsealed her helmet, and pulled it off. “Put him on.”
The holodisplay on the bridge flickered for a moment, and then the figure of a broad-shouldered man with long red hair and a thick beard appeared.
“Well!” he said with a snort. “Either you’re the woman I’ve been dying to meet, or Hemry has made a few well needed improvements to his looks.”
Katrina narrowed her eyes and stood from the command chair. “My name is Katrina, and I demand that you turn Juasa over to me.”
Jace chortled and waved his hand to the side. The view of the Verisimilitude’s bridge widened to show Juasa standing nearby—with Anna’s arm wrapped tightly around her throat.
“Hi, Verisa…or I guess it’s really Katrina? Juasa would say hi, but she’s too focused on breathing right now.”
Katrina’s breath caught as she saw the look of fear in Juasa’s eyes. Her face was bruised and smeared with blood and tears. A chunk of her dark hair was missing, and her once-pristine, white uniform was smeared with dirt and grime.
“As you can see, Katrina,” Jace said, a toothy smile peeking out from behind his large beard. “I hold all the cards—many of which, Anna here was so kind as to bring with her.”
“No problem,” Anna said with a sweet smile. “I deliver.”
Jace snorted a laugh as he glanced back at Anna. “You’re a fun one, Anna. I can certainly see a place for you in
my organization.” He turned to face forward again. “You too, Katrina. Things got off to a bit of a rough start, but I can see that you’re a resourceful woman. I respect that. I have use for resourceful people. I can protect you, too. A lot of places are like Bollam’s World—all too eager to kill you and steal your tech.”
“How’s that different from you?” Katrina asked.
“Me?” Jace asked. “Well, I’ll give you a job, a ship even—maybe even your ship over there, if we work things out right. That’s a lot more than you would have received in this system.”
Juasa let out a wavering gasp as Anna shifted, tightening her grip.
“Stop!” Katrina ordered. “You haven’t seen what the Voyager can do. Let go of her, or I’ll hole your ship through and through.”
“Be my guest,” Jace said with a magnanimous smile. “Take out the ship that your dear sweet lover is on. Sounds like a great plan. What other wonderful bits of bluster do you have stored up?”
Katrina replied.
Katrina took a deep breath. So had she.
Troy didn’t respond.
“I don’t have anything,” Katrina replied to Jace, her voice sounding as dejected as she felt. “You win. What do you want?”
“For starters, I want you over here on the Verisimilitude. Then we’ll talk about your ship, and how you’re going to give me full control of it.”
Katrina nodded slowly. “Will you let the Havermere be, if I do? They’re fools, but they can do you no harm now.”
Anna snorted. “You got that right. Pack of fools.”
Jace shot a cold look back at Anna. “Shut up; the adults are talking.” Anna’s face reddened—a look that did not go well with her silver skinsheath.
“Fine,” Jace said after a moment. “I’ll leave the Havermere alone. It’ll amuse me to watch the feeds coming out of Bollam’s World. I’m sure that KiStar will have some very harsh things to say to its employees.”
Katrina had no doubt about that. Still, it was the best they could hope for at present. She had no idea how much of the crew had participated in the mutiny, but hopefully some of them would get more justice from KiStar than they would from these pirates—that is, if Jace could be trusted. Which was hoping for a lot.
“Are you going to send a shuttle for me?” Katrina asked.
Jace laughed. “Why don’t you just fly over in your armor? I imagine that’s how you got on the Havermere.”
“Sure,” Katrina replied. “I’m almost out of fuel—it’ll be fun. We’ll see if I make it first.”
“There’s an escape pod on the port side of the bridge,” Anna offered. “It has flight controls; you can fly it over here.”
Jace shot Anna another look. “Helpful, but I told you to be quiet.”
Anna’s face reddened even further, and it looked like she was grinding her teeth. Perhaps Jace wasn’t as accommodating a host as Anna had hoped.
“OK, I’m coming over,” Katrina said. She killed the connection and picked up her helmet from where she had set it on the command chair.
Across the bridge, Hemry slowly rose to his feet, groaning as he straightened.
“Katrina, then, is it?” he asked, as he approached on shaking legs.
“Yes,” Katrina replied. “Sam, you’re in charge now. Get this ship somewhere safe. Once I get over there, I’ll convince them not to shoot at you…somehow.”
“Best I have,” Katrina said. “Where’s the pod Anna was talking about?”
“Thanks,” Katrina said as she put on her helmet and walked across the bridge.
“So you’re just going to leave to chase after Ju?” Hemry asked, his tone accusatory.
Katrina spun and took two loping steps to cross the bridge and stand face to face with Hemry, barely containing the urge to tear him in half.
“I have pretty much zero patience right now,” Katrina hissed, her tone pure acid. “If you all hadn’t been such greedy, entitled little pieces of human garbage, this would have all gone a lot differently. If I were you, I’d keep your mouth shut, or someone might just tear it off the donkey’s ass you call a head.”
Katrina turned and strode back across the bridge where she slid into the escape pod, and Sam whispered on the audible systems, “burnnnnnnnn.”
She let a smile touch her lips at the AI’s audacity, and then checked the seal on her helmet before triggering the pod’s door to close.
The escape pod rocketed out of the Havermere, and Katrina brought up the simple control interface, and directed the craft toward the Verisimilitude.
Katrina replied.
Ahead, a bay door opened on the Verisimilitude, and Katrina steered the escape pod toward it, firing the retro-jets as she approached.
Katrina cut the connection. She knew what Troy was going to say, and she needed to focus. She had to get her head in the game. Jace was going to be ruthless, and she still had to come up with some way to get Juasa free.
She took slow, steady breaths as she approached the Verisimilitude, and recited her mantra to herself.
I am Katrina. Daughter of the despot Yusuf, friend of the Noctus, liberator of the Hyperion, wife of Markus, president of Victoria…
She paused, considering what came next, and then added, lover of Juasa, and still searcher in the dark, before continuing.
I am all of those things; together, they are me. They form my foundation; they give me purpose. My memories are my strength, the proof of my convictions.
I am the soft reed that grows a
long the shore. One foot in the river, one on land. I bend in the wind, I weather the flood, I persist, I survive. I touch all these things, I live in their worlds, but they are not me, and I am not them. I am Katrina.
The pod passed into the ship, and a grav beam caught hold of it and lowered it to the deck. Katrina pulled up the external feeds and saw that a dozen armored figures were arrayed in a semicircle in front of the pod. There was no sign of Jace or Juasa.
She triggered the pod’s hatch and carefully stepped out, keeping the bulk of the pod—which only came up to her shoulders—between her and the enemy.
“Drop your weapons,” one of the armored figures, a man in the center, called out.
“No,” Katrina replied. “I want to see Juasa!”
“She’s right here,” another voice said, and Katrina saw the armored pirates part to allow their leader through.
One of Jace’s hands gripped Juasa by her hair, and the other held a pistol to her neck. Juasa was crying, but when her soft hazel eyes met Katrina’s, she drew a deep breath and straightened, nodding slightly.
“Oh, how sweet,” Jace said with a coarse laugh. “She’s all happy to see her mistress…or bitch? No. Mistress. Katrina is definitely the one on top in your pairing.”
“Let her go, Jace,” Katrina said. “Let her get in the pod; she can return to the Havermere. You have me.”
“Almost,” Jace nodded. “But you’re a bit too well armed for my liking. Drop the weapons.”
“Like I said.” Katrina kept her tone as even as possible while looking into Juasa’s fear-stricken eyes. “She goes first.”
“And like I said,” Jace said, punctuating each word with a pull on Juasa’s hair, wrenching her head back and forth. “Take off your armor!”
As the bearded pirate screamed the last word, he lowered his pistol and fired a round into Juasa’s side. The shot blew clear through, and blood poured out of the wound and down her dirty KiStar uniform.
Juasa screamed and held a hand to her side. Then Jace fired another round into her leg, and she collapsed, shrieking in pain as blood began to pool around her on the deck.
“I’m done playing games,” Jace said in a soft voice. “I didn’t mean to hit a vital in her gut, but I suspect I may have done just that. You cooperate, and we’ll patch your lovergirl up. Fuck with me, and I’ll still patch her up, just to shoot the shit out of her all over again. How’s that sound? Or, you can drop your weapons…and take off your fucking armor!”