by M. D. Cooper
Gabriel crouched beside him and placed a tray holding a bowl of oatmeal and a glass of water beside his head. “Have to keep up your strength if you’re going to survive what awaits you.”
Grayson glanced at the steaming bowl of oatmeal. “No sugar?”
Gabriel grinned and gave a mean-spirited laugh. “I knew I liked you, Rudy. Saw a piece of myself in you, I reckon. Couldn’t put my finger on it earlier. Now I know. You’re a manipulator. Just like me. Gotta admit, I wanted to like you. Sorta did.”
Grayson met the captain’s eyes glare for glare. At least he hoped he had picked the right set of eyes to glare at—his vision kept unfocusing. Hopefully that would clear up soon. “I never liked you. Truth is, you’re scum. Just as much as Tayna. You just wear it on the inside more than she does, and that just makes you worse.”
Gabriel’s smile wavered, but never fully left his face. “I’m looking forward to getting to Scipio and watching our interrogators mop the floor with you.” He stood up and took the tray of oatmeal with him.
Pity. Grayson was starving. Still, he had work to do. If he could pull this off, in a few hours he’d be eating whatever he wanted.
* * * * *
Grayson tried another code matrix. He’d lost count by now of how many he’d tried, but with each he hoped it would be the last.
Much to his surprise, both of the cuffs unlocked and fell free. With a grim smile, he struggled to his feet. Tayna had removed the skin in the arch of his left foot and beaten it with rods. Not hard enough to break any bones, but hard enough to make walking excruciating. Sucking in his breath, Grayson limped to the door, more or less dragging his left foot behind him.
His nano could fix it but without Jerrod to guide them, it’d take longer than he was used to. Grayson knew he’d miss having an AI but he hadn’t realized just how much he had relied on them until now. Opening doors, hacking systems, healing the body; in his situation having an AI would’ve saved him so much time, pain, and suffering.
Without Jerrod was he really a military officer? Was he really a man at all? Or had having an AI made him weak, drawn him away from what life was really all about?
Grayson got to the door and tried it. Locked. Kylie’s nano would’ve opened it in a second. He wondered where she was right now and hopped that she was alright. He had been a fool to leave the Dauntless, but maybe he had done it for a reason. Maybe he had been placed here by fate to save Lana before she left Silstrand space.
By some miracle, the code to the cargo bay door was the same one Tayna used for her bedroom—which he’d hacked the first day aboard. He placed a hand on the door’s access panel and directed his nano into it.
Ten seconds later, he was out in the passageway. The coast was clear, and he turned left, moving as quickly as his ruined foot would allow.
It didn’t take long to reach the other cargo bay door. He tried the latch, but it was locked.
“Damn it”, Grayson swore under his breath as he tried a collection of random numbers on the access panel. Then, he remembered something Gabriel had said at dinner about the 401400 and passed that sequence through.
A cry sounded from behind him, and he turned to see Tayna running toward him.
“Hey! How’d you get out? Sonfoabitch!” she hollered. “Captain! Rudy’s out!”
The cargo bay door slid open and Grayson hopped inside and slammed it shut. He engaged the manual lock, aware that it wouldn’t hold them long; it was their ship after all. Moving as fast as he could, Grayson scoured the area for Lana’s cryotube.
Just as he laid eyes on it, he heard the door behind him open.
Grayson hobbled forward, the footfalls of his pursuer growing closer. At the last moment, he leapt and fell onto the tube, just as someone reached out and grabbed his shirt, hauling him back.
But not before he activated the cryotube’s wakeup process.
He caught a blow on the back of the head, and he fell onto Lana’s cryotube just in time to see her eyes spring open.
She was already waking up. That had to be the fastest cryo-recovery he had ever seen. Grayson was grabbed again, pulled upright. Tayna was before him and drove a knee into his stomach. Micha appeared before him, and Grayson assume whoever was pinning his arms back was the captain.
Micha sunk a blade into Grayson’s shoulder while Tayna slammed her fists into his face.
Hook. Jab. Cross.
Grayson groaned and the captain let go, allowing Grayson to fall to the deck. He threw out an arm to protect his face, looking back past his captors to see Lana’s cryotube slide open.
She was awake. Now the real party was going to start.
GIRL INTERRUPTED
STELLAR DATE: 09.24.8948 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Emperor’s Tears
REGION: Gedri System, Silstrand Alliance
The last thing Lana remembered was sparring with Fra-x on The Futz. Now, she was peering up into Grayson’s face, but…by the stars, what had happened to his face? His eyes were both swollen, and his skin was cut more than not. There was a look of fear in his eyes that Lana couldn’t remember ever seeing there before.
Someone grabbed him and then another person threw a punch. Beyond that, Lana couldn’t make out what was happening.
Lana didn’t know what had happened to Grayson since he had left the Dauntless but she imagined he must have been trying to rescue her, and now she was going to rescue him.
< Cryotube is opening. They’d be on to you if they weren’t so busy with Grayson. I think they mean to kill him.>
She’d put a stop to that.
Lana balled both hands into fists and they started to glow with energy as she drew power from the cryotube into her body. She was going to need every bit of strength at her disposal to take on these chumps. She couldn’t imagine what sort of people would hurt Grayson like that, slice him up like he was a piece of meat, but if that’s how they operated, Lana wasn’t going to hold back.
She would kill these sonofabitches first and ask questions never.
Lana sprang out of the cryotube and landed lightly on her bare feet. Grayson was on the ground. Two men and one woman were bent over him. They were yelling angrily and the woman was raising a metal bar. As Lana lunged forward, she had the time to note that the woman was muscled like a female version of Winter, but looked pretty stupid with her dumbass braids.
Lana’s hand darted forward and grabbed the woman’s forearm mid-swing. The woman’s eyes widened with shock as she took Lana in. “She’s out! She’s—”
Lana snapped the woman’s wrist as though it were made of straw. The muscled bitch shrieked, and Lana pivoted, driving her foot into the woman’s stomach. The blow sent the woman sailing across the bay and into a stack of crates. Her head snapped back and she fell to the ground, motionless.
“Lana,” Grayson’s voice rasped from below. “Look out!”
She turned and it was as though time itself seemed to slow down. It didn’t, but her mind was working so fast, it might as well have. Both men reached for her. “We have to get her back into the cryotube!”
Lana grabbed both their arms and flipped them over onto their backs as though they were nothing but rag dolls. She drove her heel into the chest of the one who had spoken, feeling—and hearing—his ribs snap from the blow.
The other one had scrambled to his feet—impressively fast, but not fast enough. She grabbed him by the throat and squeezed. He gagged and his eyes bulged.
“You’re dead,” Lana said before she gritted her teeth, crushing his windpipe and dropping him like a sack of potatoes.
Grayson struggled to his knees. “Lana…”
“Easy.” Lana bent over and gripped his shoulders when her hearing picked something up from behind her. In a flash, she ducked down as bullets flew overhead. Lana didn’t wait for more shots to come. She leapt into the air, flipping over and landing behind the woman.
She reached out and snatched the gun from the woman’s hand, breaking her other wrist in the process.
“Turn around, bitch.”
The woman slowly complied, quaking with fear. Lana held out her hands, and strands of nano streaked through the air and into the muscle-bound woman’s body.
Her enemy began to shiver, then convulse. She crashed to the deck and thrashed her limbs, bones breaking as her muscles contracted and crushed the life within. Then, like a good mother, Lana pulled the nano back into her open palm and closed her fist around it.
They were all dead. All three of them, and they had deserved it. Every single one.
Grayson was on his feet, his breathing labored. Lana slipped an arm around him and he cringed. “Are you going to be all right?”
He nodded but didn’t seem ready to use a lot of words. “Bridge…we have to turn her around. Taking us to Scipio.”
Lana’s eyes widened and she could see why he had been in such a rush to free her. “Then let’s hurry. Can we find Kylie? The Dauntless?”
Grayson’s lips twitched into a frown. “There’s a lot you don’t know. I’ll fill you in…on the bridge. If you’re strong enough to hear it.”
Lana scowled. “Of course, I am. What do you mean ‘if I’m strong enough to hear it’? Did you see what I did here? I’m the epitome of strong.”
“I saw. And while I’m grateful you saved my life, I saw a woman…a young, brave woman who gave into her power without forethought. You need to learn self-restraint.”
Lana dropped her arms to her side. “I saved you. They were going to kill you.”
“I know, and I’m grateful, but I worry about you, the girl. Not this tech, but you. I worry your humanity is slipping from you and I’m not the only one who thought so.”
Lana raised an eyebrow. “Maybe humanity’s the problem.”
Grayson sighed. “Lana, please. Listen to what I’m saying…”
“You listen. Some gratitude would be nice. I saved you, so maybe you should say thank you.”
Grayson’s eyes filled with fear but Lana didn’t know why, just as she didn’t know why so much rage was pumping through her heart.
“Thank you, Lana. A million times, thank you. Would it be all right now, if we get to the bridge?”
Lana nodded. “Can you fly this thing? Because that’s one thing I really can’t do, even with this nanotech.”
“I can.” Grayson offered a tentative smile as she half-carried him out of the cargo bay. He glanced back at the fallen bodies and Lana wondered what he was thinking. Was it about what she had done? Was it about how those people had tortured and hurt him? Lana hoped he didn’t think ill of her after everything she had done to save him. Really hoped.
Because she couldn’t read his mind—yet.
* * * * *
The ship used the same standardized nav and flight systems as most ships that plied the black in Silstrand space.
However, when Grayson first tried to turn the ship and begin a braking burn, the nav comp refused, citing ‘stealth systems active’ as the reason for cancelling the burn.
Lana sat at the comm console, fidgeting with her shirt impatiently as he worked through the ship’s subsystems, trying to locate the controls for its stealth technology.
Considering the Emperor’s Tears had slipped right past the SSF fleet with their prize aboard, the stealth must be very effective. After almost thirty minutes, he found the controls in a section labeled ‘auxiliary lavatory services’. He disabled it, and the nav comp flashed acceptance of the braking burn.
The ship began to slow, and he plotted a parabolic return to where scan showed the bulk of the SSF fleet to be—searching in an expanding grid around Freemont.
Once the course was set, Grayson looked toward the girl. There was a lot he needed to tell her, though he didn’t want to risk her coming unhinged with the news about the attack by her father on the Freemont, but at some point she’d find out.
He didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but also needed to be honest. If he lost Lana’s trust, it could be deadly for him—and very bad for Silstrand.
She was still fidgeting as she sat. Grayson didn’t know if it was from coming out of cryo, the rush of adrenaline, or if she was losing control. She had moved with such fluidity as she’d killed the crew, Grayson doubted she even gave any of her attacks much forethought.
The anger in her eyes was deadly. Grayson didn’t doubt for a second that she’d hesitate to kill anyone who she believed had crossed her. But it wasn’t her fault.
As far as he knew, this was rogue technology, weaponized by people who probably barely understood it themselves. From how Lana was acting, he doubted Abby was having much luck controlling the girl either.
Grayson caught her staring at him as she chewed on her fingernail. “You said something about stuff you need to tell me? You could start by telling me where we’re going.”
“I sent a transmission out earlier, before Gabriel, the ship’s captain, apprehended me. It was sending a distress call to General Samuel to inform him where we were and that we needed rescue.”
Lana’s eyes widened. “What? You change your mind or something? Because last I remembered, we were doing everything in our power to avoid my father. Now you’re saying you’re bringing me back to him? What the hell, Grayson?” She shifted in her seat, sitting taller, her face reddening.
Grayson held up his hands. “Listen to me before you make a decision we’ll both regret. Please. Do you trust me, Lana?”
She slowly nodded. “I did. I mean, I do. You helped to wake me up and that’s something. You saved me from the SSF and that’s something too, but that’s why what you’re saying isn’t making any sense.”
“That’s what I’m trying to explain. Let me get it all out.”
Lana folded her arms like an angry child, but she was quiet. She was listening even if she wasn’t happy about it.
“Your father, General Samuel, has been looking for you and the crew of the Dauntless. When he tracked you to Freemont, things got a little tense.”
Lana raised her eyebrows. “How tense?”
“He blockaded the station. When president Vaax wouldn’t give you up, he attacked and the GFF put up one hell of a fight. It’s started a war. I was sending a communication to him aboard this vessel when I was caught. From what I can see on scan, they’re searching on the vector this ship was originally on. Gabriel shifted to a different jump point, but we’ll all meet up eventually.”
Lana’s arms relaxed. “He started a war for me? Or for my tech?”
“Both.” Grayson wasn’t sure but he couldn’t really tell her that, could he? “Now that we’re in charge of the ship, I can negotiate our surrender and get a good deal out of it for both of us. I can make sure they help you. Make sure any procedure to extract nano from your blood doesn’t harm you. I promise, Lana. But with Scipio getting ready to invade, Silstrand needs this tech if there’s any hope of survival.”
Lana ran her hands through her hair and gave a small cry of dismay. “I don’t know what to do. I’m scared, Grayson. So scared.”
“I know,” Grayson whispered. “I’m scared too. Without my AI, I’m lost out here. I’m lost inside of the SSF too. If they’ll even have me back. I might be looking at a prison sentence for what I did aboard the Dauntless.”
Being vulnerable with her was a good tactic to get Lana to trust him, but it was also the truth. Not a word from his lips had been a lie. Grayson really was scared and maybe that’s the re
ason he had fled the Dauntless in the first place.
“We could run. Go lay low and find the Dauntless. Meet up with Kylie.”
Nothing would make him happier. “With the GFF and Silstrand at war—which I can’t believe is happening on the eve of Scipio invading—it’s only a matter of time before other systems join the fray. Everyone will want a bigger piece of the pie. This could be the end of Silstrand. There’ll be nowhere safe to hide. Think about everyone you know. All the people of the Alliance…without your technology they could all end up dead…or subjugated by Scipio at best.”
Lana sucked on her bottom lip, then curled her legs up on her chair and wrapped her arms around them. Grayson thought she really did look like a lost little girl when she did that. “No. You’re right. I’m just…scared. Like I said.”
“I won’t leave your side. I’ll be with you the entire time. I promise.”
“And if they don’t listen to you?” Lana asked with wide eyes.
“I’ll make them.” Grayson smirked. “I’m very good when it comes to that.”
Lana laughed. “I guess you are. I’ll trust you. I want to do the right thing but will they take it all? Will I get to keep the nano? I feel safe with it.”
She liked the power; Grayson didn’t know if that made her dangerous or just a regular human being. “I don’t think they have to get it all. That was just something Harken was trying to do so she could sell it to multiple buyers. Even if they pull most out, it’ll replicate.”
“Like it did in Kylie.”
Grayson nodded. “For now, we’re just backtracking the way we came. I suggest, we both get some rest and find something to eat.”
“And maybe lock the door to the cargobay? You know, just in case.”
Grayson grinned even though it hurt to do so. “Just in case.” He offered Lana his hand; he wasn’t sure if she’d accept it at first, but she did. Lana squeezed his fingers as she climbed out of the chair and Grayson eased out of his with a groan, hobbling toward the back of the bridge.
“C’mon, Colonel Grayson,” Lana’s words danced with a chortle of laughter. “You think they have any potatoes?”