by Tammy Salyer
The woman starts us off: “I’m Captain Eleanor Vitruzzi, and you’re a passenger on my ship.” I don’t miss the inflection she puts on the word passenger. She means prisoner.
“This is Strahan, the one who nearly deflated your skull. Consider yourself lucky, after what you did to our mechanic.” Her posture is relaxed and in control, but her eyes betray tension. Anger, maybe curiosity.
“You’re probably disoriented right now because of the tissue regeneration stimulants and painkillers you’re on. They should wear off in a few hours.” She analyzes a monitor near my right shoulder and checks my IV drip as she speaks. “Your ribs look like you got hit by a cannonball, but nothing is broken. And the wound on your neck is superficial. In fact, you’re incredibly lucky.” She pauses, letting me absorb the information, and then continues, “Now why don’t you tell us the rest of the story?”
This is not the way I want this to go. I want out of these restraints and I want my guns. Neither of which is likely, so I start by trying to negotiate with something small.
“Look.” I clear my throat. “I don’t know you and I don’t know why I’m here. But I assure you, I have no problem with you, and as far as I know, you don’t have one with me. So let’s be civil. Take off these restraints and tell me what I’m doing here.” My voice gains momentum after the first few words. I’ve always been a quick healer.
Vitruzzi looks at me with skepticism for a moment, and Strahan’s scowl deepens. Surprisingly, she starts unbuckling the restraints.
“Captain!” Strahan challenges, but Vitruzzi frees both of my wrists.
She stares directly into my eyes and says, “She’s right, Karl. No reason to think she’s a threat to us. She’s unarmed, and we are civilized people.” Softening her tone slightly, she finishes, “This can’t be comfortable and you need to get some blood moving if you’re going to recover.”
Strahan takes a step back and rests his hand on the grip of his pistol, ready for anything. I have to be careful what I do here, and what I say. I don’t want to set these people off, but I have a few questions of my own.
I sit up as slowly and carefully as I can, more because of the sickening complaint from my ribs than any fear of alarming them. “So who are you? Admin? Where are we and what do you want with me?”
Vitruzzi takes another few seconds to look me over before she answers. “We’re in flight, three days from Obal 3.”
She continues to talk, but my mind is spinning. We’ve been flying for three days! I barely hear the rest of what she says before I’m on my feet, yelling, “I’ve got to get back there!”
“Hold it! Sit down.” The tone of command.
I comply as my head seems to fill with concrete, threatening to pull me face first into the hard floor, and shifting gray veils materialize in front of my eyes. With an effort, I continue, “Look, my name is Aly Erikson and you’ve got to take me back to Obal 3. My brother and my crew are there, and I need to find out what happened to them.”
Neither of them comments, just look at me. Anger suddenly tears through the tight fabric occluding my brain, making my next words rough and raw. “Why the fuck did you kidnap me? I haven’t done anything to you!”
Strahan’s eyes narrow further, but Vitruzzi seems unperturbed. It’s almost as if she’s holding back a chuckle. What’s the joke? If my head wasn’t so fogged up I’d be more on top of things. What am I missing?
“To tell you the truth, we brought you on board for your own safety.”
Urgency cleaves through my body like a plasma torch. I need to find Rajcik and the rest of the team. At this point, I don’t even know if they made it off Obal 3. If they did, they may know where David is. These thoughts pulse in time with the pain in my head, blocking everything else out. The last glimpse I had of David’s face, pale and severe as he surrendered so I could get away, floods my mind. Hold on, brother. I’m going to find you.
She continues, this time with a hard edge to her voice, “If you think nearly killing an unarmed man is nothing, you have a disturbing lack of empathy for others.”
The memory of a face comes to mind. “The blond guy…”
“That’s right. His name is Bodie Murdock. He’s a damn fine technician and a member of my crew. Lucky for you, he’s going to make it.”
“I can explain that. I didn’t mean to hit him that hard. I was trying to get away from the Corps, and when he came out of the control room—it was just reflex.”
“You almost killed him.” Strahan’s voice is granite.
I didn’t want to hurt the guy, but it was instinct, and something tells me Strahan would have done the same thing under the circumstances. Maybe already had. I’m thinking of the soldier who’d been about to shoot me in the control room, and the rifle shot that had come out of nowhere, ripping his throat out. It had to have been someone from the ISPS who’d saved my life. Maybe intentionally, maybe not.
Vitruzzi continues, “So let’s talk about what’s fair. We saved your ass on Obal 3. You can just think of it as a neighborly gesture among people with common interests. And now we’re going to give you a chance to make it up to us.”
This just got more complicated. I force myself to stay still, though every muscle in my body is ready to fight. I could jump them, steal their ship and fly it back to Obal 3—in my dreams. In my shape, I’d be dead before I got to the door. One thing, at least, is clear. They’re not Admin, and if they haven’t turned me in yet, they probably aren’t planning to.
But what had they been doing on Obal 3 in the first place? It’s a small planet, mainly an outpost used by the Admin for launching security operations in that quadrant. The only reason for citizens to be there is if they’re under contract with the Admin. And the kind of citizens contracted by the Admin are the law-abiding kind, which leaves out kidnappers and people who shoot Capital Military Corps soldiers.
Vitruzzi watches me closely as I piece all this together. She seems to have relaxed a little, but Strahan looks as if he might be considering what I’d taste like spitted and roasted. His build is medium, neither bulky nor lithe. He could be a wrestler or a runner, but the rigid set of his shoulders and chronic, brooding scowl that carves deep lines across his forehead indicates his default setting is pissed off and dangerous. There’s no mistaking it—I can see by the way he holds himself that he’s ex-Corps. His at-the-ready stance and casual awareness of everything in the room makes it as obvious as if he were still wearing a uniform. It’s hard to know what kind of switch might be flipped if he decides he doesn’t like what I say.
She continues, “So here’s the deal. We heard a security transmission that your crew was smuggling something from the data warehouse. It sounds like they got off world, but you were left behind. Why? Were you running a diversion?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Why make it easy for them?
Her eyes don’t leave my face, and her expression remains very calm. “It doesn’t matter. The thing that does matter is that we have you, and your crew has the structural and security holodisc for the Fortress.”
My eyes begin to widen, but I clamp down on my surprise. How the hell does she know that?
“Now, here’s where you get to answer some questions. What’s your team planning on doing with them?”
This is not what I want to be happening right now. As I lean forward to hide the emotions rampaging across my face, my ribs moan in protest. I’m not telling them a damn thing.
“I’m losing patience,” Strahan warns.
What do they want? A cut? There’s no way in hell Rajcik will give them a percentage, not even in trade for me. At this point, the crew may even think David and I have both been arrested and have already started making their way to the Fortress to complete the job. If that’s the case, my leverage here amounts to nothing. If this situation could be worse, I don’t know how.
Completely without warning, Strahan’s grip locks around the neck of my smock, pulling me to my feet. My head spins, but I st
ill have the reflexes to strike out and try to dislodge his grip. The exertion and pain are too much. My knees give out, spilling me on the floor, half out of the smock. Waves of nausea leave me huddled, shivering on the cold tile. Warm, fresh blood from my neck drips down my shoulder.
“Karl, let her go!” Vitruzzi’s voice is sharp, but not angry, not out of control. She is definitely in charge here. He lets go, and I see his booted feet backing up through my half-opened eyes. My head is reeling, yet my senses are hyper-acute and strangely disconnected, as if I’m watching everything around me through a high-rez telescope. Grains of dust and debris the size of sand seem to be miniature planets set in the dimples of his boot leather, their details as clear as my own name. I can even smell the smoky residue of the firefight. Is it coming from my hair? I have to get off this floor. Summoning more will than strength, I pull myself up, holding onto the gurney to stay upright.
“If you ever touch me again, you’re a dead man. Get me?” Of course my threat is hollow; we can all see what kind of shape I’m in. But my silence isn’t doing me any good, so I’ll dangle them a little rope.
“Look, you’re right. I’m a smuggler working with János Rajcik. We deal mostly in arms, and you probably know as well as I that we could lift enough from the Fortress to live a long, comfortable life.” I look for any sense of recognition in their faces. Anyone in the system working in law enforcement or crime will know Rajcik’s reputation, but their faces remain stony. Either they’re very good at hiding their thoughts, or they’re completely clueless. If they haven’t heard of Rajcik, they’re small time.
Vitruzzi asks, “Why didn’t you fly out with the rest of your team?”
She must be trying to suss out my value to my comrades. It’s no use evading her questions. I have nowhere to go, and considering the fact that we’re most likely a couple astronomical units from the nearest planet’s orbit, neither do they. All we have right now is time and distance, one too short, the other too long and getting longer. Somehow, I have to convince them to let me go. I’ll tell them as much of my story as possible. If I’m lucky, they’ll have a little sympathy. Really lucky.
“My brother and I were drawing off fire, making for a short-range shuttle stashed in…” And I remember. The shuttle wasn’t where we’d thought it would be. Their eyes stay on me, and I shake off my confusion and continue, “We got pinned down by Corps and David was arrested. I escaped and ended up in your dock’s control room. And then you,” I look pointedly at Strahan, “killed the remainder of the squad.” I pause, giving him a chance to elaborate on that point, but he doesn’t.
“So here I am. I’m cut off from my team and you’re harboring a fugitive, which probably isn’t the smartest move you’ve ever made. If you’re looking for a percentage of our take, I can’t promise you anything. We only stole the holodisc, nothing that can be split.”
It’s a risk to tell them this much, but what difference does it make? Vitruzzi made it clear: I’m their prisoner. I have nothing to bargain with, so they can do whatever they want to me. If they were going to kill me, they wouldn’t have gone through the trouble to fix me up. I have a feeling that these people aren’t cutthroat smugglers willing to spill blood out of convenience. I hope like hell I’m right.
A look passes between them, but I can’t tell what they’re thinking. Finally, Vitruzzi turns back to me. “All right Erikson, we’re going to be in the sky for a few days. Maybe you’ll think of something else you want to tell us before we get where we’re going.”
“Which is?”
“Spectra 6.”
I mentally flip through navigation charts in my mind to figure out how far that is from Obal 3. It has to be a week at least. Alarms shriek in my head, but I manage to keep my tone at least semi-reasonable. “Wait. You don’t understand. My brother’s been arrested and I have to try and rescue him. There’s still a chance! Look, take me back, let me rendezvous with my crew, and I might be able to get you in on the deal. We can work something out so it won’t be a waste of your time. But your chances for making any bank on this get worse with every mile that passes between me and my team.”
The corners of her mouth drop into a frown. “It would be suicide to take you back to Obal 3. By now they’ll have the planet locked up like a holding cell and every Corps search-and-destroy team in the quadrant will be looking for your crew.” She crosses her arms resolutely. “Face it, you’re better off here than anywhere else right now. Why do you assume we want a cut, anyway?”
She’s testing me, and I almost laugh at the absurdity of the question. But I don’t have the energy to haggle anymore. “Why else would I be here?”
She stares at me blankly, long enough for me to figure out that my question has pissed her off.
She walks to the cabinets and comes back carrying tissue glue and cleaning solution. “We’re not pirates, Erikson. My crew and I have a contract with the Admin, and some of us are citizens. But we’re not going to turn you in. Which you’ve already figured out.” She hands me the solution and some gauze and motions for me to clean off my neck. The bleeding has stopped on its own, which is a good sign. “All we want is the holodisc.”
Strahan finally relaxes. The verdict is in: I’m not nearly as threatening in my weakened, bruised, and spinning state as I want to be. Reaching into the breast pocket of his jacket, he pulls out a small box of cigarettes and shakes one loose.
They seem sincere, but what could they possibly want the holodisc for? Vitruzzi has one thing right: the disc contains all the plans for the Fortress—a space station designed by the Admin as both a containment and development site for its covert research, mostly in biological warfare, the kind that regular people would shudder to think about. Nuclear and chemical munitions development is its secondary purpose. Its location, and until now, its infrastructure, are only known to the scientists and soldiers who operate there, and the few leaders in the Admin’s hierarchy who keep the station funded. Most citizens don’t even know it exists. It’s the Admin’s bogeyman, the nightmare leviathan of an advanced military industry.
And Vitruzzi, this down-and-out captain of an obsolete and ramshackle transport ship, wants me to believe that I was kidnapped for a copy of the holodisc? That I’ll happily hand it over as a thanks for saving my skin? This has to be the joke she was trying not to laugh about earlier.
I hold her eye, waiting for the punch line, but her expression is somber. Letting my glance jump to Strahan’s face, the amusement I expect to see isn’t there either. Nothing. They’re serious.
“So that’s it, huh? A copy of the holodisc? And if I arrange it, you’ll let me go?” She doesn’t nod. She doesn’t need to. I can’t think of a reason for anyone besides my crew to want that disc. It’s worth next to nothing on the black market because no one besides us is crazy enough to get anywhere near the Fortress, much less smuggle weapons from it. I won’t bother asking Vitruzzi what she wants with the disc. If I were her, I wouldn’t tell me anyway.
Trying to sound convincing, I continue, “Yeah. I think we can work that out.” Which is about as likely as me growing wings and learning to breathe nitrogen. Even if I could contact Rajcik and the team, there’s no way in frozen hell that he’ll ever, ever, let anyone else have a copy of the disc. The deal he made with T’Kai to get his hands on it was practically signed in blood. But what else can I say?
Which brings up a more important question: How do they know about the disc and our intent to steal it in the first place? Rajcik has been on the Admin’s top-ten most wanted list for years, and if Kurosawa T’Kai, the Admin’s director of the Ministry of Science and Engineering, is ever tied to those plans being leaked to him, T’Kai will be tried and fried before the sun sets. Everyone involved knows the risks, and no one else should know about the disc. No one. So, either T’Kai had changed plans and betrayed us, or…what?
I bring my attention back to the present problem. “When can I contact my people?”
“We’ll be on Spectra 6 in ab
out four days…”
Impatiently, I cut in, “We need to get back to the Obals now. There’s no time to lose.”
“Not going to happen. Spectra 6 is the only place with the kind of equipment we need to send encrypted communications across citizen-controlled satellites. Once we get there and you get in touch with your people, we’ll decide how to proceed. When will they make their move on the Fortress?”
If I tell her it will be soon, it might speed up her willingness to get back to the Obals. But she’ll see right through me if I lie. “My best guess is that we’ll…they’ll be ready in a couple of weeks. That’ll be too soon for the Admin to make major changes to the Fortress’s security protocols, even if they find out we have the details. Which, according to the contact who provided them, they won’t.” I watch them carefully as I say this, trying to catch any hint that might reveal how much they know. But they’re too good at this game; their faces are as smooth and expressionless as a missile housing.
“So we have some time. Where were you supposed to rendezvous with your team?”
She gets right to the point, but I’m tired of answering questions. “Look Vitruzzi, I’ve been incredibly cooperative, considering the circumstances, and I’m done until you give me something in return.” I’m pissing in the wind, but I’m exhausted, angry, and have a sinking feeling the whole shitstorm is just a prelude to a catastrophe. “What about giving me back my clothes and weapons? At least my gear.”
Strahan lets out a sarcastic grunt and drops his cigarette butt into a sealed trash canister. Vitruzzi decides to be more accommodating. “Sure. Karl, let Desto and the rest of the crew know we’ve got a guest on board.” Strahan exits and she turns her hard gaze back on me. “I’m going to let you out of here, Erikson, because I know that you know there’s nowhere to run, and we’re your only chance of finding your brother and your crew. We’ve got an arrangement here, and as long as you keep as level about it as you are right now, we’ll all come out of this with what we want. But the minute you fuck up, no one on this ship will hesitate to send your ass into cold space.”