Starbreaker

by Amanda Bouchet

  Was there a way that could sound any more ominous? My jaw clenched.

  “Not necessary.” Mwende shoved Merrick forward when he balked at the block of elevators. “Bring prisoners Reena Ahern and Shiori Takashi to the interrogation room. They’re all we need to get information from this group.”

  Tess hissed in a breath and shot Mwende a look so hate-blackened I almost thought she’d missed her calling as an actress.

  Jax ground out, “You bitch.”

  Mwende gave him a cold look. She ignored Tess.

  Merrick didn’t say anything but growled when the guards pushed him into a lift. He was with Mwende and half the guards. I took a different elevator with Jax, Tess, and the rest of the soldiers who’d met us on the landing dock.

  At Lower H, we stepped out first. Mwende wasn’t there yet, and I didn’t know which direction to take. Tess angled her body to the left. I pretended to have pushed her that way to begin with and headed where she led. The second lift opened, and the others followed us down the corridor.

  It was impossible to miss the interrogation room. It was large and labeled, its size being the reason we chose it. Instead of separating the prisoners, we could chain them all in one place. The guards shoved Tess, Jax, and Merrick into seats on the far side of a rectangular table and attached their cuffed wrists to the metal rings in front of them.

  Tess jerked her hands away at the last second. The head goon grabbed her joined wrists and slammed them down hard on the table. Pain blazed across her expression, and it was all I could do not to heave the man away from her and teach him a bone-breaking lesson.

  Forced to seethe in silence, I watched him clip Tess to the ring, rattling her hands again just because he knew it would hurt and because she was tied down like an animal. She spat in his face.

  Oh yeah. I loved her.

  “Rebel bitch.” He backhanded her, snapping her head to one side with a crack that resounded.

  A bomb went off in my brain. Pure rage. I didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. I stared at the red mark blooming on Tess’s pale cheek, my vision on fire.

  “Did I say you could harm my prisoners?” Lethally soft, my voice came out a deceptive whisper.

  The goon turned to me, his eyes widening. “But, usually…” He backed up a step, my wrath pushing him away from the table. He flinched, looking to the others for support. They kept their heads down. Cowardice hiding behind Dark Watch uniforms.

  Mwende slid me a glance that reminded me of who I was right now: a cold-hearted bastard with prisoners.

  “Do not take the pleasure of the first hit away from me again,” I growled, narrowing my eyes on the soldier who led this unit.

  He nodded, fear draining his face of color. The whole unit stepped back as I spread my hands on the table and leaned toward the prisoners, menace in every line of my body. “Bring the other prisoners we asked for.” Without looking at the soldiers again, I slammed my hands down on the cold metal surface. “Now!”

  All three of our prisoners jumped, even Merrick. I’d bet the guards jumped higher.

  The goons left the room, some to stand outside the door and others to fetch our “motivation.” Lieutenant Mwende started perusing the torture devices on the shelf beside us. Shock wands. Hammers. Spikes. Blades. Scalpels. And these weren’t even her “usual.” I nearly shuddered.

  Glancing up, I took stock of the camera in the corner. Was there audio in this room as well as visual? Probably. I waited.

  The lieutenant picked up a long-handled prod and fired it up, looking at the shock wand with something close to affection. Electricity crackled at the tip. “Where’s the rebel hideout?” Sparks jumped in her dark eyes, a sinister reflection.

  Mwende pointed the wand at Merrick. “Talk. You first.”

  Merrick stared her down, his chin lowered.

  “No?” Mwende turned on Jax. “Talk and I might go easy on…”—she jabbed Tess in the fleshy part of her shoulder—“her.”

  Tess screamed in agony. She bucked and jerked like a live wire, throwing herself backward and nearly toppling over.

  I lunged for her, almost blowing my cover before I jerked back. Was Mwende crazy? Jax bellowed. Merrick snarled. I breathed hard, bracing myself against the table. “Enough!” I grated.

  Mwende pulled back the stick. The electric buzz of contact faded into a waiting hum that was almost as unnerving. Tess’s head lolled before she managed to steady it again on her shoulders. Her gaze found mine, unfocused. My insides flipped over. I swallowed.

  “Let’s try this again.” Mwende slowly paced in front of the table, the shock wand pointed toward the prisoners. It was impossible for their eyes not to follow the crackling tip. Mwende stopped. She looked at Jax but held the stick in Tess’s direction, her message unmistakable. “Where’s the rebel hideout?”

  “We’re not that high up in the pecking order,” Merrick answered stiffly for everyone. “We don’t know anything.”

  Mwende lunged and jabbed Merrick in the chest with the weapon. He curled inward, grunting. After the initial punch of electricity, he straightened and stared at her while she zapped him. Other than his nostrils flaring, he didn’t move a muscle. He watched her, the whites of his eyes blazing.

  “Wrong answer.” Voice as flat as her expression, Mwende finally broke eye contact with Merrick and threatened Tess again. “Last chance or she gets another shock. Maybe in the face this time.”

  Jax stared in horror. He looked at Tess, then at me. Was Mwende bluffing? I didn’t agree to torture. None of us did. As Bridgebane, I could stop it. Should I?

  Own that uniform. Believe it.

  “Lieutenant.” Ice-cold. Ruthless. Dead eyes stared out from me. “I want this room blacked out for interrogation.”

  “They’ve seen worse than a shock wand in the monitor room,” Mwende said.

  I could imagine. “I have special plans for this group.” I picked up a hammer. A knuckle-breaking blunt-force primitive basher. Might come in handy. “Do as I ordered.”

  “Yes, General.” Mwende strode to a control panel on the wall and typed out a code I wouldn’t have known. It’d been a guess, but it looked like taking down the AV for a messy questioning wasn’t that unusual when you were General Bridgebane.

  The little red light on the corner camera stopped flashing. The surveillance device retracted into a box. The front panel closed, sealing with a click that would’ve scared the shit out of me if I’d been chained to the table and about to be tortured. At least now we could talk without riddles and stop electrocuting my girlfriend.

  Mwende lowered the zapper. “No wonder you call him cupcake,” she muttered to Tess. Her gaze spiked to me. She shook her head.

  “You didn’t have to torture her,” I said, furious.

  Mwende scoffed. “That was one shock.”

  “A long one!” I snapped.

  “That hurt more than the bullet in my ass.” Tess scowled. “Seriously, Sanaa, I didn’t agree to that.”

  “Well, I guarantee your reaction looked real to the people watching from the surveillance deck.” Mwende waved a hand toward the now-hidden and turned-off camera while glancing at me again. “But Softy here had a good idea with that.”

  I huffed. Softy. I hoped that nickname wouldn’t stick.

  Someone rapped on the door. “Enter!” I barked.

  One of the guards from earlier opened the door. Another two entered, hauling Shiori between them. Her legs dragged on the floor.

  My chest jerked at the sight of her. So small and fragile. Head down, gray hair in strings, her wrists bound with old gauze. Rusty stains left a gruesome slash of color across both bandages. The soldiers threw her down on the interrogation room floor. Shiori gasped and barely caught herself on hands and knees that cracked against the hard surface. Her head lifted. Milky eyes stared sightlessly ahead, pointed toward the bottom
shelf of the torture cabinet.

  “Shiori,” Tess whispered.

  “No.” The old woman’s face crumpled. No tears came, just a look of utter anguish as she turned toward the voice she recognized. “I told you not to.”

  “Shut up, you old dog.” The head goon kicked Shiori and sent her crashing into the table leg in front of her. I flinched. Tess yelled. Merrick rattled his chains, growling, and Jax looked fucking terrifying. Even Mwende seemed shocked, although it barely lasted a second.

  Blind fury coursed through me. Before I knew what I was doing, I grabbed the goon’s neck and slammed him up against the wall. Breathing hard, I squeezed until the man’s face turned purple. I was bigger, stronger, and right now, I was fucking General Bridgebane, and this insect was going to piss his pants in terror.

  “What did I say about leaving me the first hit?” I snarled.

  “I-I’m sorry, General,” he gasped out.

  I was about to put the fear of the cosmos into this asshole and save my cover. I carried him by the neck and threw him into the hallway. He landed flat out on the floor, wheezing. I stomped hard on his ribs and ground my heel down until I heard a crack. The guy squealed like a piglet. I kicked his broken bone, and he passed out before he finished rolling over.

  “Get him out of my sight,” I ordered. The other guards left immediately, hauling the unconscious man between them.

  So this was power. Unquestioned. To use or abuse in any fashion. No wonder Bridgebane was such a dead-eyed bastard. How could you do this every day and not hate yourself?

  Shiori knelt and groped above her, feeling for the tabletop. She found its edge and pulled herself to standing. Calling for her, Tess banged with her chains. Shiori followed the sound. She reached out and wrapped her hands around Tess’s, the metal ring between them. Tess’s sudden sob broke my heart ten times over.

  “Why, child? And now this…” Shiori’s trembling voice had half the strength that I remembered. “If I’d died, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “If you’d died, I’d have lost even more of my family,” Tess answered.

  “We missed you, Shiori,” Jax said.

  “Jaxon, too?” Shiori squeezed her eyes closed, but even blindness didn’t shut out the worst views. “I’ve failed you.”

  “No, I failed you,” Tess said. “You and Miko. This is all my fault.”

  Shiori spread her hands, showing her bloody bandages. “I tried. I tried to stop you.”

  “By killing yourself?” Tess’s tone hardened. “Then it’s a good thing you failed, too. And this… It’s not what it seems.” Guards trooped outside the door again. Tess lowered her voice. “Now hush and don’t move.”

  Someone knocked. Shiori’s face went blank, her paper-thin skin waxen and static. If it weren’t for the unhealthy spots and the tremors she couldn’t control, she’d have looked like a doll. Still. Small. Powerless. Except she wasn’t. With the rest of her face expressionless, her blind eyes held more than I’d ever realized. Love, hate, determination, and a hardness that said anything she’d done in here wasn’t about giving up, it was about fighting back. Always.

  She froze the second Tess told her to stop moving. Shiori was a damn good soldier.

  My breath gusted out. “Enter!” I shouted.

  Shiori turned her head a fraction. She cocked an ear and saw. In that moment, she knew me, and my insides clenched in a way that said family could be given and taken away, and sometimes, it was found.

  Three more goons entered with a woman who must be Reena Ahern. I’d been expecting an older, graying female of Caucasian origin, like her husband. The woman shoved in front of me was the total opposite. Not a day over fifty, compact and hard, with near-black hair, light-brown skin, and dark eyes that incinerated. She turned a scathing look on me and her upper lip curled. “You.”

  My back stiffened. This was starting off well.

  The soldiers pushed her inside the interrogation room but didn’t lay a finger on her. It appeared they learned from each other. Mistakes. Corrected behavior. Survival of the fittest was still at work everywhere, especially inside the Dark Watch.

  “Leave us,” I ordered.

  They got the hell out. I closed the door and bolted it. As I turned back around, Reena Ahern kicked me in the face.

  Pain rang in my head. I reeled back a step. Mwende grabbed her and pulled her away from me as I hissed in a breath and gingerly touched my nose. Bleeding. A quick check assured me that the mask was still in place. The throbbing intensified.

  I glared at Ahern. Even with her hands bound, she’d blindsided me and managed one hell of a kick.

  “Keeping in fighting shape inside your cell, I see.” I dabbed my nose with my sleeve. Crimson on crimson. It wouldn’t stain. The Dark Watch wore black, but the Overseer’s generals wore the blood of the galaxy.

  Hatred burned from her like radiation from a star. “You evil bastard. I’ll never give you what you need.”

  “And what’s that?” I asked.

  She snort-huffed like we’d already had this conversation a thousand times. “I’d rather let my beautiful planet stay a poisoned jewel in the heavens than turn her over to the Overseer. The bounty of Demeter Terre will never be yours.” She struggled forward, trying to lunge at me.

  Mwende jerked her back again. Ahern flung herself from side to side but couldn’t break the lieutenant’s iron hold. With a bellow, she stopped struggling and looked around, her chest heaving. She swept a fearsome gaze over the prisoners but didn’t stop, no recognition flickering in her eyes as she turned back to me.

  “Why am I here?” She glared. “You know I won’t talk.”

  I wiped my nose again with Bridgebane’s jacket. He probably didn’t want it back anyway.

  At least we knew Ahern hadn’t turned over her formula for cleaning up the DT atmosphere—if she’d even figured it out. As far as we knew, the neutralizing method was still a theory.

  “We’re here to rescue you.” I checked to make sure my nose wasn’t broken. The throbbing was settling down—just like Ahern now.

  She looked at me and started laughing.

  I wasn’t in a laughing mood for several reasons. Tess in chains. The Overseer somewhere on this starbase. Us still in the interrogation room instead of leaving. I’d laugh when we were safe, but until then, nothing was funny.

  “You’re always trying different things. You should know by now that I. Won’t. Crack.” Ahern’s dark eyes narrowed in promise.

  I lowered my chin in acknowledgment. “You and Fiona are gonna get along great.” I turned to Mwende. “You have the key to those cuffs?”

  The lieutenant took a master key from the shelf and liberated Ahern first.

  “What’s going on?” Warily, she rubbed her wrists.

  “We’re freeing you.” I reached for Shiori, who wasn’t bound, and guided her against my side. The frailty of her body didn’t fool me anymore. Her backbone was made of heroic stuff. “Get on board with it,” I said to Ahern, “and only kick the bad guys in the face.”

  The rebel scientist snapped her mouth shut, but suspicion stayed plastered across her face like this damn mask across mine. I already hated looking like Bridgebane, but I suddenly wanted to rip his likeness away and howl my own name for once. For the first time in a decade, I wanted to claim myself.

  Shiori leaned against me, light and cool, a ghostly weight. Her trust humbled me, and I wrapped an arm around her, wanting to steady her and warm her up. She trembled. I didn’t think it was fear. More like adrenaline and age. As Mwende freed the prisoners from the rings on the table, Shiori lifted her fingers to touch my face.

  Gently, I took hold of her hand and lowered it. “That’s not my face. I’d rather you touched the real one.” She’d never learned my features. She’d obviously learned my voice.

  Her smile was so soft I might’ve imagined it.
“Tess forgave you then?”

  I nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see and scraped a sound of confirmation from my thickening throat.

  “I knew your heart before you did.” Her gentle murmur went straight to the organ she was talking about and squeezed out a painful beat.

  “Did you?” I asked, my voice rough.

  She nodded. “It whispered to me of your choice.”

  Before I could answer, or even try to understand, Tess spun Shiori from my arms and folded her into a tight hug. Jax joined them, his arms around them both.

  “Merrick’s here, too.” Tess pulled back. She sniffled once. “Big Guy, I mean.”

  Shiori nodded. To my surprise, she reached for me again. “Is your plan to walk right out?”

  “Will she let us?” Ahern tilted her head toward Mwende, her hellion hackles going back up. “And what about you?” Swung back on me, her poison-dart eyes were something else. “Is the Dark Watch turning on itself? Finally melting down into a pile of galactic waste?”

  “She just let you out of your cuffs,” Mwende muttered.

  “And I may look like him, but I’m not.” I handed Ahern a pair of dummy cuffs from deep inside my jacket pocket. The lieutenant stashed the real restraints under the torture cabinet, pushing them out of sight.

  “Put those on,” I instructed. “They latch, but don’t lock. One hard pull, and they’ll come apart.”

  Ahern’s nostrils flared once. Slowly, her mouth pinching, she put her hands behind her back and let Mwende cuff her again. She immediately yanked the cuffs open, looking shocked when they gave way. “Just checking,” she said stiffly.

  Grumbling in her native language, Mwende cuffed her again—not gently. When Jax, Merrick, and Tess also wore the fake restraints again, the lieutenant and I drew our guns. It was time to move some prisoners.

  I held Shiori’s arm to guide her. “Here’s the plan to get us out of here. We’re transferring you because we suddenly have reason to believe that rebel spies might’ve infiltrated Starbase 12. We’re not telling anyone that unless they ask. No need to cause a ruckus unless we have to. We’re banking on Bridgebane not explaining himself to anyone. If someone wants a reason for the transfer, we’re moving you to a secure location for further questioning. That’s it. Unfortunately for them, the Dark Watch is going to lose you along the way.”