Falconer came around the table to stand opposite of them. He didn’t sit down. He leaned forward, pressing his fingers onto the surface and studying Skylar intently.
Keiko’s eyes were bleary, and she looked confused. He didn’t pay much attention to her.
“Tell me as much as you know about Cortez, how many troops he has, and what defenses he’s installed in the prison facility.”
“He’s fierce and scary and determined,” Skylar said, trying to come across as cooperative while not giving up anything useful. “I’m not sure how many men there are. He let some of the prisoners go. I think they’re helping him.”
“I bet they are.” Falconer looked at his lieutenant. “I told you. Those damn cyborgs all stick together. I always knew Cortez couldn’t be trusted. He was too damn good to be true.”
“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant replied, though his expression was neutral rather than enthusiastically supportive.
Skylar didn’t want to read too much into it, but she hoped the crew didn’t like Falconer much. He was already rubbing her the wrong way.
“How many troops?” Falconer repeated.
Skylar shrugged. “I really don’t know. We were in a cell the whole time.”
Keiko squinted at her, her eyes growing less bleary by the second.
“I will capture him,” Falconer said. “And I’ll do it before the other three warships arrive. I don’t need anyone’s help to take down some errant poet professor.” He pushed away from the table and paced around it. “I have some footage from the prison that we were able to get before our cameras were destroyed. I think you may know more than you’re suggesting.” He paused to give them both flat looks, even though Keiko hadn’t suggested anything yet.
Skylar spread her hands and attempted to look innocent. “I know very little. Honestly, Captain, I’m glad to be out of there. Is there any chance of getting a shower and a bed?”
“A shower? What does this look like? A luxury liner?”
“Nobody on this ship showers?” She leaned out and sniffed the air as he passed.
She’d already seen that he didn’t appreciate sarcasm, at least not Jerick’s brand of it, so she shouldn’t have been flippant, but it was worth it to hear the snorts of amusement from the lieutenant and one of the door guards.
Falconer only glared. “We have sonic scrubbers.”
“That sounds… itchy.”
“I know he’s watching for attacks through the shuttle bay,” Falconer said, going back to his pacing. “Does he have men watching the airlock on Level 7? You, pilot. You any more willing to talk than your recalcitrant friend?”
Keiko appeared to be tracking what was going on now, but she didn’t seem to care for his tone. “Lieutenant Sasaki, sir,” she said stiffly. “I served during the war.”
“Yes, and now you’re a contractor shuttle pilot.” He sneered, as if she were one of society’s bottom feeders.
Keiko’s bronze cheeks reddened.
“Captain,” Skylar said, “we’re just civilians. We didn’t know anything about the cyborg invasion plan until we arrived and it was sprung. We don’t know where their troops are stationed.”
Keiko looked at her. Skylar widened her eyes, silently begging her not to share that she knew exactly where the men were at this moment. If Keiko did, it would be Skylar's fault. She deliberately hadn’t chosen a large dose of the sedative, not wanting to put the poor woman under for ten hours after she’d already been stunned and locked up continuously for days. But Skylar also hadn’t anticipated this interrogation.
“Sir,” the lieutenant with the tablet said diffidently. “With all due respect, we have one of Cortez’s men in the brig. Perhaps questioning him would be more lucrative, rather than civilians who will doubtless mention this to reporters when we get back.”
Falconer’s nostrils flared as he whirled toward his officer. “I’ve done nothing wrong, and I have nothing to hide from the media.”
“But Jerick… He used to be Cortez’s lead combat sergeant,” the lieutenant said. “They served together on this very ship for years. My first year of duty was under Cortez. Jerick was at the poker table whenever the captain showed up. I saw firsthand that they were close.”
“Were they?” Falconer asked, tapping his jaw.
At first, Skylar had been thankful for the lieutenant’s interruption, but she didn’t know if having the captain’s attention drawn to Jerick was any better. Falconer might use much more forceful interrogation techniques on a prison inmate than a civilian hostage.
“I saw that they served together.” Falconer started pacing again. “I didn’t realize the captain would have had much of a relationship with one of the enlisted men. Poker night? That’s bordering on fraternization.” He sneered again.
Skylar doubted Falconer ever spoke to anyone under his rank unless it was to give an order.
“Very well. I want these two kept under watch, but we’ll shift our focus to Jerick. After I comm the admiral and let him know how things are progressing.” Falconer headed for the door, gesturing for the lieutenant to follow him but for the two guards to stay put. As he exited, he lifted his wristcomp to his mouth. “How’s that shuttle search going, Varma?”
Unfortunately, Skylar didn’t hear the reply. Falconer disappeared into the corridor with his lieutenant, and the door slid shut behind him.
Skylar wanted to whisper to Keiko, to thank her for not saying anything condemning, but she doubted they were in the clear. Further, they were still being observed. As she looked to the stone-faced guards, there to ensure she and Keiko wouldn’t wander off to look for showers, she couldn’t help but feel they had already been condemned.
17
Jerick feigned nonchalance as the two armored men led him through the corridors toward the brig, but he certainly didn’t feel it. As familiar as the ship was, he couldn’t find it comforting to be back aboard, not now.
An unfamiliar sensation of panic welled in his chest as they turned down the corridor to the block of cells. He’d just gotten out of a cell. He’d had a taste of freedom, even if it had only been the freedom of a prison facility. The idea of being stuffed back into a cell now made his muscles tense and his eyes dart about. His mind started frantically seeking an escape.
He believed Cortez would come for him if he allowed these men to lock him up, but wouldn’t it be better if he could escape and begin the team’s work of taking over the ship early? Logic aside, he couldn’t face being hurled behind a forcefield again, and he balked when the men tried to push him into one of the cells.
They growled and shoved. He sank his weight down and grabbed them around the waists, trying to bash them together in front of him.
If they hadn’t been armored, he might have managed it, but their gear gave them strength to match his—and a lot more protection from blows. One threw an elbow at him, and he tumbled backward, almost falling into the cell behind him. He clipped the corner instead and used it to brace his back so he could launch a kick as the men swung toward him, raising their weapons.
He lacked boots, or any footwear at all, but his heel struck one soldier’s armored abdomen solidly. The man’s rifle flew out of his grip, clattering down the corridor.
The other soldier found the trigger of his weapon, but Jerick leaped in close and jerked his arm up. He struck the rifle aside as it fired. The plas-bolt streaked into the cell behind them.
Jerick ducked and dove for the man’s legs, mostly because he feared the bolt would ricochet and hit him in the back. But the move helped him avoid a punch that the other man threw.
With his powerful thighs pushing off the floor, Jerick drove his target backward, into the cell they’d intended to put him in. The soldier hammered a fist into his back, and pain blasted him, but he only used the pain to harness more power. He shoved the man forward, hurling him against the rear wall of the cell. His armor clanged against it, and he pitched to the floor.
Jerick glimpsed movement out of the corner of
his eye and ducked, avoiding an attack from the other soldier, a series of punches meant to hammer him with armored fists. One clipped him on the shoulder, but Jerick barely felt it. Fear and pain drove him. He wouldn’t end up caged again. He wouldn’t, damn it.
He spun, throwing a hook kick. It caught the man, pulling him sideways and into the cell with his buddy, stumbling over his boots as he tried to get his balance. The one disadvantage of combat armor was that it didn’t make a man agile. Quite the opposite.
Jerick slammed a palm strike into his foe’s faceplate before the man recovered. His head whipped back. It would be cushioned by his helmet, but that still had to be jarring. Using all of his power, Jerick slammed more palm strikes into the faceplate. The sturdy glass composite didn’t break, but the man took a beating. When Jerick grabbed his wrist, the soldier didn’t resist. Jerick hurled him against the back wall where his comrade was just staggering to his feet.
Jerick raised his fists, ready to continue the fight, but he realized he didn’t have to. He leaped out of the cell, slapped his hand against the control panel on the side—he remembered those controls well from his years aboard the ship—and activated the forcefield.
One of the soldiers had recovered and was springing after him, but the forcefield activated in front of his eyes. He hit it with a zzzzt-zapt and bounced back.
“I’m afraid you two boys never would have cut it against the Hrorak,” Jerick said. “Fortunately, I’m not going to kill, eat, or dismember you, like they might have.”
“Eat?” one man squawked. “Those are just stories.” He looked at his buddy. “Right?”
“Oh, they don’t really like the taste of humans, not like they do those apparently succulent Shakro’sk aliens, but they have a thing about devouring fallen enemies to claim their souls. Saw it happen to a buddy once. Unpleasant.” Jerick stepped back from the forcefield as memories flashed into his mind. Maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to bring that up. He had more pertinent things to think about now. “Hope you boys enjoy your stay in there. I can’t recommend prison myself, but at least there aren’t any orange pajamas around.”
He picked up the two fallen rifles and ran out of the detention area, but he paused before he turned into corridors that were more likely to be populated. Should he return to the shuttle bay and see if Cortez needed help yet? Or should he go search for Skylar and her pilot friend? Or…
He fished in his underwear, amused that the guards hadn’t thought to search him. Or maybe they had intended to, but not until they had him in his cell. Either way, he had four vials of Skylar's concoction. Fortunately, they hadn’t been broken in the fight. Maybe he could take the vials to the environmental control room and let the stuff loose in the ship’s vents. He doubted he had enough to affect the whole ship, but even if he only knocked out a few people, it would make things that much easier for Cortez.
Then he would go find Skylar. Jerick liked the idea of being the one to rescue her while Cortez was still futzing around with his combat plan down in the shuttle bay. He would heroically rescue her.
Lieutenant Varma had been kind enough to shut the hatch on the shuttle. Cortez checked the sensor display while he waited for his men to clamber out of their hiding spots.
Two armored guards stood by the bay door, gazing toward the cylindrical shuttle. A small number compared to earlier, but it would still be a challenge to take them down before they commed the bridge, and the whole ship was alerted. Cortez might just have to accept that such would happen.
“Tek Tek, take four men and head down to engineering,” he said, joining the rest of his strike team near the hatch. “Secure it and barricade it if you can. I expect the crew to react quickly and for Falconer to send people straight down there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Pip, everyone else, you’re with me. We’re storming the bridge. Defend yourselves as needed, but if we can take the ship without killing anyone… We need to do our best to make that happen.”
A couple of men exchanged dubious looks with each other—Cortez knew he was asking a lot and probably being naive—but ultimately, they nodded and said, “Yes, sir.”
“Thank you all for following me in this.” Cortez realized he hadn’t said that yet and that this might be the last chance he got. “We’re going to succeed, but if things don’t go exactly to plan, know that what we’re doing here matters. This isn’t just a prison break; it’s a quest for freedom, a search for a place that might not exist yet but will one day. A place where we can be free and we can be ourselves.”
The nods were more vigorous this time, and Pip said, “We’re with you, sir.”
“Good. Let’s go knock those two soldiers on their asses.”
Cortez reached for the hatch, but two of the armored men stepped forward to block him. “Let us go first, sir. We may not want to kill anyone, but I haven’t noticed that the fleet soldiers feel the same way.”
Cortez hesitated, not wanting to hide behind anyone, but unfortunately, there hadn’t been a suit of armor that fit him. It would be better to first send out men who could take a few plas-bolts to the chest.
“Very well.”
He had no more than nodded when one of the men thrust the hatch open. The two of them sprinted out, the enhancements of their armor mingling with their own muscular enhancements, and they crossed the shuttle bay so quickly, they slammed into their enemies before the soldiers had time to get a shot off.
Cortez and the others ran out, but the first two cyborgs had the armored soldiers pinned and disarmed by the time they got there. Regular men never could have kept armored soldiers down like that, but his men were anything but regular. Pride swelled in his chest.
“Good work, m—”
The shuttle bay door opened, interrupting Cortez. Four armored soldiers charged in.
The cyborgs sprang into action, leaping in to knock weapons away before the soldiers could fire more than a couple of times. A plas-bolt skimmed past Cortez, and he jumped aside. Though he wanted to wade into the fray, the armored men were better equipped to handle the threat.
But the fleet soldiers knew who he was and knew that he led this mad charge. They picked him out right away, one of them pulling free from the fray to launch himself at him.
Cortez jumped aside, whipping up his arm to block a punch. The hard armor battered him, but he knocked the attack aside, twisted, and launched a side kick at his foe’s crotch. The armor protected the soldier’s mass, as Jerick would call it, but the man still stumbled backward.
Cortez had time to bring his own rifle to bear, but another cyborg leaped on his assailant from behind, arms locking around the neck. He drove the soldier to his knees, then to his chest, sitting on his back to pin him to the deck.
“What do we do with them, sir?” Pip asked.
The other soldiers were similarly pinned. Their armor protected them, but with cyborgs kneeling on their backs, they couldn’t escape.
“I’m out of can openers,” Pip added.
“We all are,” another said. “Hard to get these boys out of their armor without tools. I doubt they’re going to be acquiescent and undress for us.”
Cortez scanned the bay. He thought about trying to lock their captured men inside the shuttle, but if the mission failed, that was the only way his team could escape. He didn’t want to return to find the craft sabotaged.
His gaze snagged on an airlock. “Space them and lock the hatch behind them. The Star isn’t moving, and their armor will keep them alive out there for at least ten hours. Long enough for us to finish up and collect them.” Or long enough for Falconer to defeat Cortez and retrieve his men himself. But Cortez didn’t say that. He dared not show his doubts to his troops.
“Yes, sir.”
Cortez waited by the door while the cyborgs manhandled the soldiers to the airlock. The fleet men fought hard when they realized what was happening, but it didn’t matter. Cortez’s people were stronger. If they weren’t so outnumbered, taking the ship wou
ld have been easy.
When the deed was done, Cortez let his two armored volunteers lead the way into the corridor. He worried they would find more armored soldiers running their way. But the corridor was quiet. The cyborgs strode toward the nearest lift without trouble.
Security Level Alpha hadn’t been set, so the lift doors opened without requiring a retina scan. Cortez mentally chastised Falconer for being lax, even as he appreciated it.
“Uh, sir?” one of the armored men asked, stepping aside and gesturing to the floor of the lift.
A sergeant in black fatigues was slumped on the deck in the middle of it.
“Do we have a helper?” Cortez wondered, kneeling to check the man’s pulse.
It was slow but steady. The soldier didn’t stir. He was out like a light, and Cortez thought of Skylar's potion. Was it possible she was responsible for this?
He looked around for signs of a broken vial, but didn’t see any glass.
“In.” Cortez waved for half of his team to pack into the lift. “Bridge,” he ordered the computer.
As they rose, Cortez felt a hint of weakness and braced himself on the wall.
One of the men yawned noisily.
“I think Skylar's sedative was used,” Cortez said, fighting the urge to slump fully against the wall and maybe slide down to the floor for a nap. “If we get knocked out, Martinez and Fognini, you’re in charge,” he said, naming the armored men who’d been leading. “Take the bridge.”
“Yes, sir.”
The lift doors opened, and the armored men strode out, rifles at the ready. Once again, nobody occupied the corridor. Cortez waited for the rest of the team to come up before advancing.
It was a short walk down the corridor to the bridge, and the armored men strode along easily. Cortez struggled to keep up, fighting yawns and urging his weary muscles to continue working. If he pitched over and fell asleep, this incursion could be over for him.
But they didn’t meet any resistance. Startlingly so. His men strode onto the bridge, ready to fire at anyone who moved to attack, but three officers were slumped at their duty stations, heads pillowed on arms, and two others had fallen to the deck. Snoring.
Unchained_ A science fiction romance adventure Page 20