by Nick Webb
“Oh, I believe you’ve thought it through. I’m just not so sure about your choice.”
Volaski grimaced. Neither was he. “So are you saying you don’t believe Velar when she says that if we can bag this ship, it’ll earn us our freedom?”
Mott set his chin. “No.”
“Yeah, me neither.” He glanced back into the passenger compartment and nodded at the men huddled there. Volaski’s most trusted fighters and officers. Each of them outfitted with body armor, assault rifles, and a grim determination to carry out the brutal task ahead.
It would not be easy. But it would be worth it. Freedom always was.
***
Po watched as the shuttle set down gracefully on the fighter deck. Volaski was at least a good pilot, if nothing else. She peered up at the walkway ringing the bay, halfway up the giant walls, and nodded to Sergeant Tomaga and then again at Sergeant Jayce, who had both donned battle-scarred ASA suits and trained their assault rifles on the entrance hatch of the shuttle.
Po realized this would be a very inopportune time for Tomaga to show his true colors if he was indeed playing her. Just like that, it would all be over, the Phoenix lost. But her gut told her otherwise. Tomaga may guard his emotions and mind well, but he couldn’t hide the look in his eye—he was absolutely loyal not to the Empire, but to his men. She could see it in his interactions with them, and knew that his first priority was to get them to safety.
The door opened, revealing Volaski standing at the hatch opening. He started walking down the ramp slowly, before it had stopped moving. When he reached the bottom he turned back to the cockpit and signaled for his co-pilot to shut the door.
Well, at least he didn’t come out with guns blazing. Po nodded her approval to herself, and took a few steps to the man, who greeted her handshake with a grim smile.
“Commander Po,” he said.
“Captain. Is this private enough for you?”
She watched him look up at the marines flanking the ship at every angle. “A little crowded in here. Mind if we talk somewhere else?”
She regarded him. If he was planning on storming her fighter bay or ambush her during their meeting, he sure wasn’t placing himself in a very strategic position.
“Conference room good enough?”
“That will be fine.”
She waved her arm back to the bullet-riddled doors to the fighter bay’s anteroom. “Follow me,” she said, before turning to Ensign Ayala, who had accompanied her. It felt good to at least have someone at her side, even if she was only an Ensign with less than two years of experience in the fleet. As they passed through the fighter bay, she suddenly realized that not all of the senior staff was on the planet below. “Ensign, get Lieutenant Grace. I’d like her to join us.”
“Yes, sir,” said Ayala, and the white-haired woman spoke softly into her commlink as Po turned back to Volaski, who followed behind as they made their way through the anteroom to the conference room.
“I trust your men on the shuttle will be quite comfortable while they wait?” she asked.
Po watched as he gave a start, a nervous shadow passing over his face. She went on. “Surely you’d realize we would scan the shuttle before you landed. Or did you think you could hide the presence of sixteen well-armed men accompanying you?”
“I assure you, Commander, they are there for all of our protection. Yours included.”
“I’m sure,” she said, flashing a tight smile. “Just be advised that if the door to the shuttle opens again before you get back on it, an entire battalion of marines will make your men regret it.”
Volaski hesitated. “Understood, Commander.”
Strange. He seemed so demure. Hesitant. Uneasy. Quite unlike the man she’d met before. Earlier, he was far more brash. Commanding. On the viewscreen when they’d first seen him, he was a man in control. A captain not just in command of his ship, but a rather respectable fleet.
The doors to the conference room slid open and Anya Grace ambled in. “What’s up, Po?” As usual, her uniform top was tied around her waist by the sleeves, revealing her tattooed arms and shoulders. “I’m knee deep in training newbies how to not crash into the hull so this better be important.”
Po waved her to a seat. “Actually, I thought it would be a welcome break.”
Grace flipped the chair around and straddled it. “Yeah, you’re right. I’m telling you, Po, these newbies are really making me nervous. And I don’t get nervous, remember? Just an hour ago one of them nearly punched a hole in the wall out there because he accidentally hit the gravitic accelerator during landing, the little fucktard.” She trailed off when she saw Po indicate Volaski, who had taken a seat next to Ensign Ayala.
“Lieutenant Grace, this is Captain Volaski of the ship …” she broke off, realizing that she didn’t even know the name of his ship, much less any of his affiliations.
“The Gamble. That’s my ship. And the fleet out there, well, that actually belongs mostly to Velar, though she lets me command the day-to-day operations.”
“Velar? So she’s the head of your organization?”
A look of disgust passed over his face. “She is. But not by our choice. You see, Commander, we’re all permanent indentured servants to her and the syndicate she runs.”
Anya blew air through her teeth. “Permanently indentured? Don’t you mean slaves?”
Volaski nodded. “Yes, that is another way to say it.”
Anya went on. “Come on, Captain, you look like a big boy who can handle himself. How is it that little old Velar has you and your men under her fingers?”
Captain Volaski reached up to his neck, slowly, apparently so as not to alarm any of them. Pulling down his shirt collar, he revealed the strange electronic device looped around his neck Po had glimpsed before. “A Domitian Collar. You’ve seen these, I presume?”
Po shook her head, but Ayala said, “I have. If you try to take it off, it kills you, right?”
He nodded.
Ayala turned to Po. “The Domitian Collar is an old Imperial tech that was banned soon after the destruction of my world. After the Thousand Worlds witnessed the horrors of the Belen diaspora, public tolerance for barbaric technology like this lessened. The Imperials don’t use them now, as far as I know. Only slavers.”
Volaski released his shirt collar, concealing the Domitian device. “And not even all slavers use them. But Velar has few scruples, and will not hesitate to do whatever she feels is necessary to keep control over her people. And those people now include your Captain, Commander Po.”
The pit in Po’s stomach returned. “They’re captured?” She nearly stood up, but forced herself to remain calm. No need to clue Volaski as to how she really felt.
“Yes. Don’t worry, they’re safe. They’re far too valuable to just kill. The government on Destiny is starting to crack down on the slave trade so it’s become increasingly harder for Velar to kidnap her regular rotation of vagrants and young, single women. She’s had to resort to kidnapping off-worlders, and, given your ship’s new reputation, she felt it would be a singular opportunity to nearly double her workforce by kidnapping all of you.”
It didn’t make sense. Why in the world was Velar’s second-in-command on the Phoenix telling her all about the inner workings of his boss’s operation? “So, Volaski, why are you here? Why are you telling me all this?”
“Simple, Commander. We’re slaves. And we want out. You and your ship represent the first opportunity to escape that we’ve seen in years. If we don’t get out now, with the Phoenix, we never will.”
Anya Grace blew the bangs out of her eyes. “Bullshit. It’s a trap, Po.”
Volaski shook his head. “I assure you, Commander Po, that I want nothing more than to see Velar hang, and to be a free man again. She’s had me under her thumb for over ten years.”
Po shrugged. “Why haven’t you left before now? You’ve got ships. Surely you could just find some place to remove that collar and then be on your way,” said Po.<
br />
“The Domitian Collar is a devilish little device, Commander. If I try to remove it myself, or any other technician for that matter, without the proper deactivation passcode, it sends a little signal to the tiny speck at the end of this fiber-optic,” he indicated a miniscule little transparent line that ran from the collar into the back of his neck.
“If I try to even pull this out, the little chip at the end will … well, let’s just say that even the milligram of explosive embedded within it will have quite a deleterious effect on a man’s head.”
Anya made a face. Po said, “I see. And if you were to just leave the system? I presume it has some sort of timed proximity response?”
Volaski nodded. “Unless Velar is with me, I have roughly twenty-four hours to get back to the planet.”
“Roughly?” Grace looked skeptical.
“Yes, roughly,” he eyed her. “Velar never tells us exactly how long. She feels it inspires a certain amount of terror to never know exactly when one’s head will explode. It’s kept her workforce in line for years.” He turned back to Po. “But that’s not all. For many of us, she knows where our families live. Mine is still on Destiny, and she has hinted that there might be similar devices hidden somewhere in our homes as well. If we try to escape, not only do we die, but we simultaneously lose our loved ones, too.”
Velar’s insidious schemes turned Po’s stomach. But, no. It was all too convenient. “So, let me guess. You want us to lead another mission down to the surface to not only rescue our people, but to rescue yours?”
Volaski nodded. “Something like that, yeah.”
Po pressed further. “And why us? Why haven’t you just overthrown Velar on your own? Why now?”
“Because, Captain, if my men and I were to try a full frontal assault on Velar and her faithful slaves, we’d be instantly killed with the flip of a switch. But if some of your marines lead the assault and distract her from us, we’ll have a much better chance. With her distracted, I can hit the critical Domitian infrastructure in her command center and set us all free.”
Grace stood up, shaking her head. “He’s full of shit, Commander. He’s pulling your chain. Sounds like a ploy to capture yet more of us, and then, when we’ve only got a skeleton crew, that’s when they attack and enslave the rest of us and take the ship. Well, fuck that.”
Po’s eyes narrowed. “Why is our shuttle full of your armed men?”
Volaski nodded. “As I said, they are for my protection, and yours. And they are at your disposal in this operation. I’ve discussed this with them, and they all agree that the risk is worth it.”
“Are their families at risk too?”
“Some, yes. Not all.”
Po didn’t know what to do, or even if she could trust him. Anya clearly thought they couldn’t. And for good reason—the man could be lying. The device around his neck could be a prop, and he could be luring them all down to a similar fate to the first landing party.
“So what’s your plan? Just waltz into Velar’s headquarters, shut the devices off, and be on your way?”
“It won’t be quite that simple. But we have the element of surprise. She is not suspecting this—not in a million years. She can’t understand this.”
“Understand what?” Po shifted in her seat.
Volaski looked into her eyes, and rested a clenched fist on the conference table. “That we’re willing to risk our lives, and the lives of our families, for freedom.” He pounded the fist once for emphasis.
Po watched his fist. His eyes. His legs. Anything to read his body language—to try and discern his true intentions. “Has anyone tried before?”
“Just a few, and they died horribly. But it was always the new ones, and the single ones—the lone freighter pilot with no attachments. The newly captured merchant who didn’t know any better. Surely, Commander, you can understand the stakes involved when there’s more than one life on the line. Especially when those lives are young. Commander, I have two children at home that I haven’t seen in ten years.”
Charred little bodies flashed into Po’s mind, and she shook the image from her head. Her eyes drilled into Volaski. Could he know? Was it possible? Had he studied her past, and found the one thing that might let him in? That might get her to trust him? Just a mention of his made-up little children and he’d be in her good graces?
No. It wasn’t possible. A motley crew of slavers on Destiny would not have access to Imperial fleet records.
Unless Trajan had sent Velar all of their personnel files. Unlikely, but Po didn’t put it past the man. He’d gone to great lengths to arrange the ill-fated battle at the shipyards; doing something like this would be almost inconsequential.
She decided to just confront the possibility head on. Maybe put the man on edge. “Did Trajan put you up to this?”
A look of surprise covered Volaski’s face. “Admiral Trajan? Why, yes, he did.”
Po raised her eyebrows at his confession, but he continued. “Soon after you escaped Earth, he sent out private messages to all his contacts with the syndicates. Velar received one, and I can only assume that others on Destiny got similar messages, since soon after your landing party arrived it was ambushed, but not by us.”
Po watched his eyes. They darted between her and Anya, who paced back and forth nearby, perhaps in an attempt to put the man on edge. He ignored Ensign Ayala entirely. Had he ever seen a Belenite before? “What did Trajan promise you?”
Volaski snorted. “What else? A very large payment. And possibly your ship. He was vague on that point, but he was clear that if we took your entire crew as slaves, we would not only be highly paid, but that the Empire would look the other way on the slave trade in this sector, giving Velar and the other syndicates free reign.”
Po pressed on. “And Velar believes him?”
“She is wary, but this is too good of an opportunity to pass up. If we refuse, the Empire swoops in and takes her out. Simple as that. They’ve only let her live this long because she is willing to do the odd job here and there for the Empire. We’re not the November clan, or any of the larger, wealthier syndicates. We’re small fry, and Trajan knows it. And he’s had other business on Destiny. So the rumor goes.”
The rumor? What sort of business?
Anya, still pacing, turned to Po. “You can’t trust him, Megan. Let’s just take him and their men hostage, and their ships, and use them as bargaining chips.”
Po nodded. “The thought had crossed my mind.” She turned back to Volaski. “Any reason why I shouldn’t?”
Volaski cleared his throat and leaned back in his chair. “Your Captain will die. The landing party will die. Velar has no compunction about putting a bullet in their heads if she thinks it will encourage you to cooperate. For now, they are safe. But if she doesn’t immediately get what she wants, she will start killing your crew, one by one, until only the Captain is left. And then she’ll just call Trajan and hand Mercer over to the Empire if she can’t get you to come down with a handful of crew.”
“So, she’s expecting you to return with a shuttle full of Phoenix crew members? As more slaves?”
“Yes. Those men in the shuttle were under her orders to secure the Phoenix once I leave with another group of you.”
The enormity of their problem weighed on Po. Refuse Volaski, and her crew members die. Trust him, and risk all of them dying. Or worse, living for the rest of their lives as slaves to some small-time syndicate on the dustbin called Destiny.
“Commander Po, this is the bridge,” a voice sounded over the comm.
Po moved over to the wall to access the comm receiver there, out of others’ hearing range. “Go ahead.”
“Sir, we’re not sure, but we think sensors have picked up a large gravitic signal. Something big just entered orbit around Destiny. It’s hard to tell for sure, but the signal matches the signature of the Caligula.”
Damn. They weren’t even going to wait for Velar to uphold her end of the deal.
And they
were probably going to give the woman more than she bargained for.
CHAPTER SIX
WHEN JAKE WOKE UP, HIS head hurt. A lot. He struggled to open his heavy eyelids, and reached up to rub them when he realized he couldn’t even reach his face. He pulled.
A chain tugged back at his wrist.
Shit.
Forcing his eyes halfway open, he peered around. Alessandro lay next to him, chained to the wall, and against the other wall lay the heaping forms of Avery and Suarez, similarly bound. They had the same collars around their necks as the medic and Velar’s two grunts, and a little dribble of dried blood marked both of the men’s necks.
He reached up to his own neck, and felt the collar there. A thin wire led from the collar to the back of his neck and he winced in pain as he realized that it ran under his skin.
That’s when the headache kicked in. He could almost feel the end of the wire sticking deeply into his brain. He wondered exactly how far it went in. Wrapping his fingers around the wire he tugged at it, wincing as the pain of one hundred tiny daggers seared into his head. Pulling harder, he grit his teeth and prepared to yank the thing out before pausing to consider his actions. With no idea what might be at the end of the wire or what it could be wrapped around, he decided to let it be.
He looked back down at the sleeping forms of his crew and a sudden realization dawned on him. Ben. Where was Ben?
“Avery!” he whispered, as lowly as he dared. “Avery, wake up. Bernoulli! Suarez!”
The others seemed to be still sound asleep, deep under the effects of whatever had been in those canteens. It started to make a little more sense to him now. That room—it was probably a prisoner prep area of some sort, where Velar brought her victims to rest, perhaps after a contrived chase. He thought back to the bandits with the guns at the marketplace who had chased them all the way to the compound, and wondered if they had been in on the whole thing. And then, once the unsuspecting prisoners felt somewhat safe in that room, that’s when they were given something to drink from the tainted canteens.