By Dawn's Early Light

by Jason Fuesting

  “You might feel some discomfort.” Eric barely heard the click as a sharp pain lanced through his arm. The doctor held the gun up and pulled the vial of his blood from the back. She retrieved a different device that had several vials of clear liquid protruding from the side and touched it to his arm several times. Each contact left a stinging numbness.

  “Stand up.” She sounded irritated. “Over there by the counter. Keep your feet spread and place your hands on the counter.”

  Eric heard the door cycle as he bent over to reach the counter. The guards had left.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her pull off the black glove and retrieve two disposable gloves.

  “Prisoner Eighty-Seven, the Protectorate affords many legal privileges to those accused of crimes, even to pirates such as you. Per policy, I am to inform you that the following procedures are standard for a complete physical of males your age of unknown origin and are in no way a punitive measure in and of themselves.”

  Eric heard the gloves snap and glanced over his shoulder to see the doctor applying a gel to a glove. What the fuck? Disgust soured his stomach as she spread his cheeks and smeared the chill gel between them.

  “Should you wish, you may attempt to pursue the matter with your legal counsel,” she said and applied pressure.

  Stop. His body reflexively clamped down.

  “You are free to do so when you are allowed to meet with them. However, should you decide to file a complaint, please be aware,” she said. Her detachment etched gibbering warnings in his hindbrain. “We control everything on the Shrike. Everything, including you. No one will help you.”

  Eric grunted and gripped the counter top as the doctor grabbed his shoulder and she forced her fingers in. Eric closed his eyes and tried to block out her violation.

  “Guards, we’re done here. Issue him a blanket and take him to his cell,” the woman said. She leaned in close to his ear and whispered, “No one will help you, pirate. Tell the interrogators what they want to know or the next time won’t be nearly as pleasant.”

  Eric shuddered. He’d heard her first human emotion: satisfaction. The door opened. A guard stepped in, pointed at him, and then pointed through the open door.

  Cellmates

  Eric sighed in relief and apprehension as his escorts drew up short of a door. He clutched the scratchy dark roll to his chest, trying to savor the little warmth it contained. Trekking through the silent cold halls of the Shrike’s detainment ward had convinced him the promise of warmth more than outweighed the price of pain from the prickly material scraping his skin.

  One guard stepped to the side of the door. Eric felt the weight of a telling stare through the featureless visor as the man toggled a control on the door panel. Speakers on the panel crackled, and before he could tell what he was hearing, the lesson was plain: they can listen any time they choose.

  “You’d probably like that, wouldn’t you?” a gruff man demanded. Eric couldn’t place the accent, but taunting tone set his teeth on edge. Exhaustion and misery sapped his usual anger response to that tone.

  “Give. It. Back.” The second man sounded more like a former crewmate from the Fortune, Sokolov, deep in timbre and accent. From the cold anger in the man’s words, Eric’s primitive animal brain whispered warnings. In the pause between the two men’s words, Eric had heard a quiet, forlorn sobbing.

  The guard at the door’s helmet swiveled to the other escort who nodded and began to sling his rifle. The second guard pulled a thin cylinder off his belt. The man at the door motioned at Eric and tapped another control on the door pad. The door slid open with a hiss.

  Several bare cots lined the far wall. A single prisoner with close cropped brown hair and clad in bright orange coveralls lay sprawled out atop a dark blanket. The man’s head snapped toward the door and he half sat up as the guards shoved Eric through the doorway. Eric nearly dropped his blanket as he caught himself on a cot. The man in the coveralls gave a shark-like smile.

  “Oh, fresh meat. Hello, meat.” Booted footsteps came from behind Eric. “Oh, evening gents. I was just giving this back.”

  Eric stumbled as he was shouldered out of the way by the second guard.

  Shark began to rise as the guard flicked his wrist. The collapsible baton clacked as it locked open. Half way out of his rack, Shark had little time to react before the baton caught him in the ribs. A second blow to the back of the head sent him to the deck. The guard stood silent over the motionless man. Shark stirred and tried to rise. The guard delivered a swift kick to injured ribs. Shark groaned and pushed up to one knee. Eric watched in mute horror as meaty thumps resounded through the room from repeated blows to Shark’s ribcage. Shark slumped under the assault and rolled onto his back. Baton upraised, the guard paused, as Shark weakly raised his hands in surrender. The guard began to lower the baton. Shark grinned and lunged, throwing a fist into the guard’s groin. The guard staggered back two steps. An electronic whine from behind sent Eric instinctively moving out of any potential line of fire. The guard with the baton surged forward and punted Shark in the jaw. The thin arc of blood painted itself across the ceiling and the wall. Something clattered as it bounced off the wall. Blood poured from his mouth as Shark giggled, spat several teeth on the floor, and began to rise again. With a sharp pop and a dazzling instant of light, Shark went rigid and toppled.

  Eric glanced at the guard behind him who immediately swung his point of aim toward Eric’s movement. Raising his hands, Eric stumbled backwards and dropped onto the bunk behind him.

  The first guard grabbed Shark’s leg and hauled. Eric wasn’t sure what bothered him more, the bubbling wheeze Shark made, or the fact he began to laugh again as they dragged him from the room. The guard with the energy rifle cautiously backed out of the room and the door closed. Eric found himself staring blankly at the floor.

  What hell did I get myself into?

  Motion drew his eyes from the trail of blood and shattered teeth. With a flurry of blond hair, a naked woman darted across the room, snatched the second blanket off Shark’s bunk, and bolted back to the corner from which she came. In the moments before she disappeared under the blanket, Eric clearly saw two matching hand shaped bruises on her hips and several more bruises on her arms and shoulders.

  Eric blinked and realized a man sat on a bunk between him and the woman.

  Eric stared at him for several moments, considering everything that had just happened, and muttered, “What the fuck?”

  “Welcome to hell, meat,” the man replied.

  “My name isn’t meat. My name is--,” Eric began. The red lighting replaced the white with an ominous clack of electric circuits swapping over.

  “Save it for the interrogators, meat. No one cares, and if they do, they’re not your friend. In fact, no one here is your friend so shut the fuck up and go to sleep before the guards come back wondering why we’re making noise.”

  Taken aback, Eric sat motionless. The man shuffled under his own blanket. In the dim light, the woman’s blanket shivered. Eric shrugged and tried to make himself comfortable despite the constant stinging, but the slightly too small, slightly too thin blanket conspired otherwise. Between the lumps in the mattress, the contortions necessary to keep under the sheet, the ever-present chill, and the intermittent sobbing, time passed at a crawl before sleep claimed him.

  White light stabbing into his eyes dragged him from his sleep. Eric groaned as he stretched out. His hands brushed against metal. He opened his eyes and sat up. Fuck. Bleary eyed, Eric stared at the trail of dried blood, at the seven other racks in the room, the two other figures beginning to stir under their blankets, and the recess containing the cell’s only toilet. Fuck my life. Why couldn’t this all have been a dream? Sighing, he stood up, began to lurch to the toilet, and stopped short.

  Every shipboard toilet he’d seen had a pressure indicator of some sort and this was no exception. Eric sighed. Son of a bitch. Blinking bright red, the indicator taunted him. Eric had seen what
happened when someone ignored the warning. The memory of highly pressured blackwater fountaining against the ceiling and soaking everything for meters brought small chuckle. Banks, you jackass. The smile faded. You were always worth a laugh.

  He considered doing his business anyway and simply not hitting the flush. Given how capricious the rules were so far, he expected that would be some sort of infraction. Giving his cellmates something to be angry about didn’t appeal to him either. Fine.

  The light blinked green when he started to return to his bunk, but returned to red when he paused. Seriously? Eric glanced about, searching for the cameras. Dickheads. Probably laughing their asses off at this. He returned to his rack and sat. I’m surrounded by assholes. The indicator blinked green. Yeah, keep firing, assholes.

  The door hissed open and all eyes turned to the two guards stepping into the room. The lead guard pointed at the other man in the cell who sighed and followed them out. The door did not close behind them.

  Eric stared at the door. His remaining companion stared back at him from under her blanket.

  “They’re fucking with us, right?” he asked.

  She did not answer.

  “So, uh, what do we do?”

  No answer.

  Eric sighed, padded over to the door, and peered outside. Several guards stood at the edges of the hall and several prisoners in varying states of dress were exiting their cells.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” Eric asked. Several prisoners shot concerned glances his way. The closest guard slowly swiveled his head toward Eric.

  Eric yelped as he was yanked backwards into the cell.

  “Shh!” The blonde was wide-eyed. “They’ll beat us both!”

  Eric focused on her face, trying to avoid the distracting features nearby. “Well, what’s going on then?”

  Fear played across her face and she stuttered several times before spitting out, “Showers,” and fleeing for her bunk.

  What’s wrong with her?

  She whimpered from under the blanket as Eric padded closer to her bunk. Squatting, he looked her in the eye and mustered as much an earnest tone as he could.

  “Lady, I don’t know what happened to you, but I know I didn’t do it. Help me and I’ll help you, okay?” She shook her head. Eric rocked back on his heels. “How about this, all I’m asking is for you to help me figure out the rules here. I’m not asking for anything else, okay?” She shook her head again. “Okay, well, I’m going to go take a shower. If you get your ass beat because of something I did, it’s on you.” Eric paused on his way out to glance back. She hadn’t moved.

  Eric stepped out into the hall and followed another prisoner past several closed cells to a much larger open doorway with six guards posted outside. Eric half expected the guards to swing into motion any moment at some infraction of the imaginary rules, and found himself releasing breath he hadn’t known he was holding as he passed them.

  The spattering of warm water called siren songs to the cold in his bones. When the wall of damp warm air hit him, he barely knew what to do. Holy shit, warm! Finally! Will power alone proved barely sufficient to keep him behind the person he was following. No, if I get around this guy, I’ll probably break some bullshit rule. Safer to take it slow, watch what everyone’s doing. Eric found himself in a room lined with lockers as two inmates finished stuffing their coveralls in their lockers. Not seeing anything else that seemed likely to bite him in the ass, Eric fell into step behind the pair.

  He paused at the threshold when he saw two of the eight prisoners showering were female. Men and women served side by side on the Fortune, but unless crewmates were married, they lived in separate living spaces. Relationships were expected, but Captain Fox’s law had been crystal clear: if something interfered with ship’s operations, it was proscribed. Frowning, he forced himself to step into the steamy open space and keep his eyes off their curves.

  As a whole, the inmates outwardly ignored his presence, but as he slipped under a cascade of heavenly warmth, he felt the attitude in the room shift. Despite the water, he shivered as the feeling threw drew a memory from his early days on the Fortune back to him. Even though there had been hell to pay later, he’d been jumped in the showers by a few of the lowest ranking apprentice crewmen. Being disrespectful, they’d said. More like they were the lowest rank on the boat and thought they could get away with bullying a kid half their age. Eric turned to keep his back to the wall.

  Shower quick, get out before something happens.

  To maintain an outward appearance of calm, he gathered soap in his hand from a wall dispenser. Like several of the other inmates, he made a point of studiously not watching the people around him while getting warm and clean as fast as possible. His skin began to ache as he warmed up. Time and cold had dulled the pain from his decontamination, but the slickness of his scalp reminded him precisely how little freedom he truly had.

  Good, done, now to get out.

  Eric froze as a soapy hand touched his chest. Eric opened his eyes to find a short black-haired woman with a disarming smile.

  “Haven’t seen you around. What’s your name?” she whispered in his ear, pressing herself against him. Something in her tone set his teeth on edge.

  “Quiet guy, hmm?” she purred. “Tell me your name, I can make it worth your time.” The soft hand on his hip slid forward. “Doesn’t feel like it would take long, hon. What do you say?” Eric grit his teeth as his stomach soured. This had to be some sort of set-up.

  “Maybe you’re into something else?” she asked.

  “I’m into you leaving me the fuck alone,” he rasped.

  “You sure, hon?” she asked with a knowing smile.

  “Very.” Anger flashed across her features before she stalked off. Multiple eyes watched her stalk off, not just his. More than a few returned to him once she was gone. Move.

  Eric made his way back to the locker room and dried off with a towel plucked from a rack before padding back to the central hallway. He stopped short of his cell.

  Two guards stood by his door. One made it plain with a wave of a baton that Eric was to come with them. The other tossed him his blanket.

  Fuck my life.

  After passing through several security checkpoints and an obvious pressure door, his silent sentinels stopped outside a locked door. A few seconds later, the door hissed open and a diminutive man in blue coveralls carrying a clipboard stepped through.

  “Prisoner Eighty-Seven?”

  Eric nodded.

  “Come with me.”

  As the man led him through what looked like an administrative space, Eric sighed in silent thanks for the warmer air. His new escort punched a code into a panel and motioned Eric through.

  Eric stopped just inside the door as it cycled shut. The room was miniscule, hardly three meters on a side, and nigh featureless. Aside from two mirrored walls, a single small table occupied the center flanked by two cheap seats. Hm. Well then. Eric settled into one of the chairs and pulled the blanket tighter, resigning himself to wait for the next surprise.

  The door’s opening hiss snapped him from his sleep. A man carrying a briefcase in one hand and a cheap foam cup in the other hurriedly entered. Eric had not seen a suit in quite some time.

  “Guten morgen,” the guy said and coughed as he sat his briefcase and the cup on the table. “Oh, I’m sorry, I meant good morning. Last client didn’t speak English.” The man chuckled and leaned forward, offering his hand. Eric stared. As he sat, the man opened his briefcase and began flipping through files. “I believe your case file says you are Prisoner Eighty-Seven?” Silence. “Look, I’m Tomas Holmes, the public defender. I’m legal counsel for your upcoming trial.”

  “Trial?”

  “Yes, trial. Every accused in the Protectorate is entitled to a trial. Ah, yes, here’s your file. Prisoner Eighty-Seven. One Eric Friedrich, I presume?”

  Eric slowly sat forward. How does he know my name?

  “Normally I would take that as a yes, b
ut procedure mandates you answer verbally.”

  Lieutenant Pascal’s warnings began to echo through his head. Eric chewed on his lower lip and answered, “Yeah, that’s me.”

  “Good, good,” the man mumbled to himself as he read through the file and absentmindedly sipped from his cup.

  Coffee. Holy shit, that smells good.

  Eric’s stomach growled. His lawyer looked up, “I hate to say this to a client, but I’ll be honest with you. This doesn’t look very good for you, Eric. I suppose it could look a lot worse. The Protectorate’s laws against piracy are extremely explicit, but we might have enough wiggle room to get a positive outcome, relatively speaking of course. I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer thirty years in prison to being executed.”

  He’d been here a day and a half. The thought of spending thirty years in prison left a cold mass in his gut. Being an old man before seeing freedom again did not appeal. His stomach growled again. Tomas looked up from the paperwork and his head cocked to the side as he stared.

  “Good God, man, are you all right?” Tomas asked.

  “What?”

  “You look absolutely thrashed. When was the last time you ate?”

  “Two days ago, I think.”

  “Two days?” Tomas flipped through the file. “Eric, it says here that you were picked up outside of Protectorate space. Were you?”

  “I don’t really know where we were, sir. I wasn’t a navigator.”

  “Call me Tom,” Tomas said, grinning. “Here, take my coffee.”

  “What’s so funny?” Eric asked, trying not to gulp down the hot drink.

  “Well, like I said, the laws are very explicit. Where, how, and why you are apprehended matters quite a bit. So does your treatment post-apprehension. You look like a textbook case of prisoner mistreatment.”

  Eric sighed. “You don’t say?”

  “Listen, if you were outside Protectorate space, you’re entitled to certain presumptions and a certain level of treatment. Under the Universal Code, you’re entitled to humane treatment befitting your crimes. Breaking the Code carries some extremely stiff penalties, especially for law enforcement, and you will surely receive sympathy from the court.”