Polaris Rising

by Jessie Mihalik

  Richard had chosen my prison well.

  My only chance of escape would be the window or when the soldiers entered the room to move me. And with a dozen guards standing outside the door, the chance of success rested at approximately zero.

  It would help if I knew what Richard had planned for me. We were waiting for Richard’s battle cruiser, the Santa Celestia, to return, which meant it wasn’t here. Telling me that information was a slip on his part because it meant he had no backup except the soldiers with him. And while I worried that the Santa Celestia had followed Rhys to the gate, even if it had, space was vast and the stealth on the smaller, nimbler Polaris was second to none.

  It meant that Polaris wasn’t caught yet.

  It also meant that I had two hours or so to escape, assuming the Santa Celestia jumped with an alcubium FTL. Escaping from Richard’s ship would be orders of magnitude more difficult than escaping from this barely secured facility.

  I just had to get out of this room.

  I walked to the back wall. When that was successful, I paced back and forth. The soldier watching me didn’t move his head, but I had the sense that he carefully tracked my movements nonetheless.

  I had a stretcher, a glass window, and a locked door, plus a roomful of soldiers waiting outside. These were not the ideal circumstances for escape.

  I kept pacing, stretching the muscles that had tensed into knots under the onslaught of the stun rounds. Once pacing no longer hurt, I boxed an invisible foe. My arms felt heavy and slow, but I kept at it until the muscles warmed and softened.

  Richard walked out of sight, the commander trailing behind him. The rest of the guards stayed, though they lounged around more with their superiors gone. Plans flitted through my head, but I discarded them as fast as I thought them up. Richard had been thorough and I didn’t have much to work with. Only one option presented itself and it was guaranteed to get me stunned again.

  Yay.

  With nothing to lose, I picked up the stretcher and slammed it into the window in one smooth motion. The handles penetrated the window and glass shattered into a million tiny pieces. I kept pushing, ramming the guard who watched me. Before the other guard could react, I’d caught him by the belt and pulled his blaster from the holster, using him as a human shield.

  The room froze, as if they couldn’t quite believe their eyes. I did not waste time. I’d hit three soldiers with incapacitating shots by the time they regrouped and took cover.

  The guard I held tried to pull away. I jammed the blaster in his kidney. “Move and die,” I said.

  “You won’t shoot your shield,” he said. His voice came out muffled thanks to his helmet.

  “Oh, but I will. I have this nice wall to hide behind. And if you don’t quit squirming, you’ll see how serious I am.” I jabbed him again with the gun.

  “What the fuck is going on here?” Richard demanded. He walked into sight, his face furious.

  The man should know better than to walk into a combat zone. But perhaps he hadn’t heard the blaster shots, just the shouting.

  “My lord, get—” an anonymous soldier tried to warn him.

  I took a potshot at Richard. It went wide, but it forced him into cover. The guard in my grasp spun, trying to pull me off-balance. Instead, I let him go and shot him point-blank.

  I mentally boxed up the revulsion caused by my actions. I would mourn him later. I would mourn them all. But for now, I was still trapped. A half-full blaster was the only thing standing between me and a stint aboard Richard’s ship.

  It would not be enough. I knew it even as Richard yelled for the soldiers with stun pistols to pin me down. Stun bolts slammed into both the wall I hid behind and the back wall of the room, sending sparks flying everywhere.

  A quick glance out the window proved the guard commander was back and issuing silent orders via hand signals. The remaining soldiers fanned out. I jerked my head back as a barrage of blasts plowed into the wall.

  There was no substantial cover between me and the soldiers. The second I went over the wall, they would stun me into next week. But the longer I stayed here, the more prepared they became.

  “Richard,” I yelled, “call your men off. I do not want to have to keep killing them.”

  “You have a single blaster and are trapped in that room. Give up now and I won’t let them beat you to death,” he yelled back.

  It wasn’t a bad deal, all things considered, but if I was going down, I was going down in a blaze of glory. It might be a near-zero chance of success, but I’d been lucky before. Another glance showed me two soldiers on my left and three on my right. Both Richard and the commander were also on my left but they were now tucked out of sight. I pulled back before they shot at me again.

  I took a deep breath, held it, then released it slowly as I mentally prepared myself to do something that I knew was going to hurt—a lot. Success rested on surprise and speed. Any hesitation due to fear of pain would guarantee failure.

  I transferred the gun to my left hand. I wouldn’t be able to shoot worth shit but I needed my right hand to help me vault the window ledge. Without stopping to think too much, I launched myself out of the window while shooting at the locations I’d last seen the guards.

  I made it far enough that I began to hope.

  Then the pain hit in vicious waves as stun bolts slammed into my sides and back. I think I must’ve screamed but the pain was so intense my brain shut down for an indeterminate amount of time.

  I slowly came back to myself. Several people nearby cursed angrily in loud voices. My sides from my shoulders to my ankles throbbed with a deep, bruising pain. Maybe they had tried to beat me to death after all?

  “Enough!” Richard shouted over the general ruckus. “Sedate her then scan her for internal injuries. I want her loaded up and ready to go as soon as the ship returns. I do not want her awake causing trouble. She is valuable to the House. The next person who hits her dies.”

  Something cool pressed against my neck with a short hiss. I didn’t fight the fall into blissful oblivion.

  Chapter 21

  I felt a hundred years old. My bones creaked as I rolled over and nearly fell out of the bed. I caught myself just in time, balancing precariously on my side in the narrow cot. Both my mouth and my head felt stuffed with cotton.

  What the hell had happened?

  It came back in bits and pieces. Richard had captured me; I’d become a liability to House von Hasenberg. Fuck. I only hoped Rhys and Loch had made it back to Father with Polaris so he would feel like rescuing my sorry ass.

  I caught my balance and pushed myself up. The change in position sent shards of pain racing down my neck and back. I carefully tilted my head, working out the kinks. I felt like I’d gone a few rounds with my self-defense tutor on a particularly bad day.

  My space suit was gone, as were my outer layers of clothes, but they’d left my undergarments on. The cot I sat on was not luxurious, exactly, but it had real sheets and blankets. I looked around. My room was rather large, as far as such cells went. It was wide enough that the cot spanned the back wall instead of the more usual location of lengthwise in the room. There was also a tiny, curtained-off en suite bathroom where I could shower and use the facilities in pretend privacy.

  The cell walls were steel but they’d been painted a warm cream. A small white round table with two orange plastech chairs sat in the middle of the right half of the cell. The table was secured to the floor. The chairs’ honeycomb construction meant they wouldn’t have enough mass to be used as an effective weapon, so they were not bolted down.

  My pants and shirt were folded neatly atop the table. If it wasn’t for the door with no handle or control panel on this side, the room could be mistaken for a normal—if spartan—room on any ship. Richard was playing nice. I had no doubt that if I proved too uncooperative, my lodgings would deteriorate rapidly.

  I pushed myself up and pulled on my clothes. I felt better with another barrier between me and the world. I sa
t on the edge of the cot and contemplated where my life had gone wrong. Perhaps it was when Lady Louisa had thrown mud on me at a Consortium event when we were six.

  Or, more likely, when I had retaliated by making her eat mud.

  How was I supposed to know she was heir to one of the lower houses? She was a bully and I’d put her in her place. Only, because I was the child of a High House, it looked to everyone else like I was the bully.

  And clearly whatever they had given me to knock me out was not entirely out of my system. I tried to pull my thoughts into some semblance of order, with only mild success.

  A short while later the room’s only door opened and a soldier entered with a tray of food. He set it on the table without a word and left. The insistent growling of my stomach told me that more than a few hours had passed while I was unconscious. I got up to take a look. The food—waffles with fresh strawberries, eggs, and sausage—smelled divine.

  It didn’t make sense to keep me alive just to poison me with food, so I shrugged and dug in. Besides, Richard knew I had House-level nanobots that would take care of most toxins. Unless House Rockhurst had cooked up some radical new poison, I would be okay. And while a hunger strike might make a nice political statement, hunger led to weakness, which meant a smaller chance of escape.

  I could be practical when it suited me.

  Once I’d finished with the meal, I rebuilt the walls of my public persona. It was an act I’d have to carry off for weeks or months, potentially. I hadn’t had to be on that much since I’d left home. And like a muscle, my ability to maintain the illusion for long periods had atrophied. Hopefully I wouldn’t be forced to endure Richard for more than a couple hours a day.

  As if summoned by my thoughts, Richard waltzed into the room without warning. A different guard followed him. The guard took my tray and disappeared. Richard sat across from me.

  “Ada,” he said, “I’m glad to see you’re awake. My soldiers got a little . . . overzealous in their anger. You’ve been unconscious for over sixteen hours.”

  That explained the breakfast food. I’d lost almost an entire day. I smiled politely. “Thank you for your concern,” I said. “I feel much better.”

  “Are you ready to discuss our upcoming nuptials? Or would you prefer to be moved into the general holding cells while I purge your friends?” he asked, almost casually.

  I wasn’t sure why he still wanted the marriage. If it was for my dowry, he had to know that House von Hasenberg would not turn it over so easily in light of the new information. But perhaps he didn’t know I had worked out the details of the FTL drives.

  Or my information was bad, which was far worse for me.

  “Very well,” I said, “we may discuss it. What is your offer?”

  “We marry. Your friends live. You’ll be inducted into House Rockhurst. You will prove your loyalty to the House by sharing everything you know about von Hasenberg shielding technology, as well as any other advanced technology. You will then continue to spy on House von Hasenberg as a sign of your ongoing allegiance to our marriage.”

  I kept my expression placid when I would’ve liked to tell him where he could shove his proposal. “Will the marriage require consummation?” I asked.

  His eyes darkened and his gaze raked down my body. “Yes. I expect you to provide me with several heirs.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Is that a part of the agreement? What if I am barren?”

  “Are you?”

  “I do not have any children, so all available evidence points to yes.” That and very good birth control. “How many times will you require sexual intercourse per month?”

  “Per month?” he scoffed. “We’ll fuck as often as I desire.”

  I pursed my mouth. “I do not think so. Once per month until I am pregnant, then zero until the baby is born. One year after birth or miscarriage we will resume at once per month until the agreed-upon number of heirs has been produced.”

  He laughed in my face. I tilted my chin up slightly and hit him with Mother’s stare. He went red. He said, “You seem to have the mistaken idea that you have any leverage. You will accept my terms. You should be grateful I’m willing to give you your friends’ lives.”

  “And you seem to forget that you need me to willingly sign my life away before I become your wife. My life does not come cheap. If you are not prepared to pay the price, perhaps we should cease negotiations now.”

  “I could purge your friends right now,” he snarled.

  “Could you, though?” I asked thoughtfully. He still had made no mention of Lin or Veronica, or named any of my friends other than Loch. “I want proof of life. And while we are discussing things we could do, I sent my House a detailed plan of where I was headed and what my suspicions were, both about the planet and the alcubium FTL drive.”

  I smiled at him. “If I do not contact them in four days’ time, with my personal encryption codes, they will assume I have perished at Rockhurst hands. Father will launch an attack on House Rockhurst. I do not believe your House is ready for war, so it is in House von Hasenberg’s best interest for me to do nothing.”

  He recovered quickly, but not quickly enough. His flinch led me to believe I was on the right track with the importance these planets had to their new drives. “I could get the codes from you,” he tossed out idly, as if torturing me was of no more importance than the day’s weather.

  I let arctic ice frost my expression. “No, you could not,” I promised softly. I let the words hang in silence for a few seconds, then continued, “If all you bring are threats and demands with no willingness to compromise, you can leave. We will not find a mutually acceptable solution today. Come back tomorrow and we will try again.”

  He exploded out of his chair. “I will not be ordered around on my own ship!” He got in my face. “We will marry in the next three days or your friends will fucking die. Then I will personally hunt down your siblings one by one.”

  White-hot rage burned through my veins at the threat to my friends and family but I kept my expression serene. “Your crude language is unbecoming. Until tomorrow, Richard,” I said. I turned my chair away from the table, effectively giving him my back. I wanted him off-balance, but I had to be careful that I didn’t push him into rash action. Of course, if he completely lost his head then it would be an opportunity for me.

  “I will enjoy destroying that ice shell you wear like a shield,” Richard said.

  I still had trouble believing that this cold, cruel man was the same person I’d played with as a child. He had invited me to play with the older kids at Consortium events, even though I was two years younger. He had been my hero.

  In fact, it was because of that early friendship that our parents had started discussing marriage in the first place. It was supposed to ease the tension between our Houses.

  Friends were liabilities to a member of a High House. They could be used against you, as Richard was so aptly demonstrating. As we grew out of childhood, perhaps someone in House Rockhurst thought Richard and I were getting too close or maybe I was deemed a bad influence, but whatever the reason, Richard disappeared from Consortium events for nearly four years.

  He returned when I was in my early teens, but he’d changed. He was colder and he seemed to have no time for me. The flame I’d carried for him faded and winked out completely during that season. As the years wore on and stories of the Santa Celestia’s exploits came in, my feelings morphed into distaste and finally disgust.

  Our marriage talks were not called off, even though I pleaded with Father. Left with no other choice, I had fled what I knew would be a horrible match. Unfortunately, my actions did not improve relations between our Houses.

  I glanced over my shoulder and met Richard’s eyes. “What happened to you, Richard?” I asked gently.

  His face shuttered completely. Oh yes, there was definitely something there worth exploring. Today wouldn’t be the day, though, because he swept out of the room without a word.

  Without a
clock it was impossible to know the time and trying to figure it out would slowly drive me insane. I stood and stretched. I still felt like I’d been used as a human punching bag. And, from Richard’s words, I had.

  I moved the chairs against the wall. The table was on the right side of the cell, leaving a clear path from the door to the cot. That gave me just enough space to lie on the floor if I wanted to do push-ups. Which I did not.

  But I did want to go through a slow movement-based meditation routine. It would waste time while also gently working my muscles. I’d asked a lot of my body over the last few days, especially with the lack of sleep. Thanks to my forced nap, sleep was no longer a problem, but another day of rest would do me good.

  And it might lull my guards into a false sense of security. Lord knew I needed every advantage I could get if I wanted to escape.

  I eased into the first form and let my mind drift. I could always plot later. For now I needed to focus on my body and just be.

  I felt calmer after completing the routine. The residual muscle stiffness from being knocked out for sixteen hours had faded. I remained stuck in an untenable position aboard an enemy’s ship, but I was ready to tackle the challenge of finding a way out.

  I propped my pillow against the wall to cushion my back and sat crosswise on the narrow cot. Looking at my bare feet, I realized I hadn’t seen my boots since I’d woken. Unless they were hiding in the bathroom, Richard had confiscated them.

  Those were my favorite boots, dammit.

  If he thought missing footwear was going to keep me from breaking out, he was sadly mistaken. With that in mind, I focused on recalling everything I knew about the Santa Celestia. It was not a lot.

  The huge ship was newly built and freshly christened when Richard took command six years ago. And while House von Hasenberg had acquired a full set of blueprints and schematics, we’d never managed to get anyone on board long enough to verify their accuracy. I had a basic understanding of the ship’s layout but unfortunately didn’t know of any weaknesses in the holding cells.