“There’s no need to kill her, especially on my account.”
Before Emery could respond, the medic team came up into the cargo bay of the capsule, and Exton allowed them to fuss over him. It was preferable to answering all of his sister’s questions.
Exton felt his heartbeat swell into his ears as he gazed at the woman. Everything else—one medic taking off his pirate wig, another injecting serum into his bruise, Emery alternating her conversation from how this could have happened to blaming the URS for sending an assassin up to kill him—faded as he held onto his heart and watched the woman.
It wasn’t until Emery asked what he wanted to do with her that he jerked himself out of his own thoughts.
“Take her to a secure medical ward,” he heard himself say. “I want to ask her more questions after I chat with General St. Cloud and his fearless Daddy Dictator.”
“Are you sure about that, Exton?” Emery inquired. “She could be dangerous.” She nodded pointedly at the swelling bruise on the left side of his chest, as the medic finished covering it a cooling patch.
“What else would you have me do with her?” Exton asked. “Leave her here or throw her overboard, maybe? She’s not a refugee, and she’s not a recruit. Besides a decent fighter, I’m not really sure what she is.”
“She’s clearly a cadet,” one of the medics said as he began taking note of her vitals. “The uniform alone stands out, as her social rank and educational achievements are displayed on her collar.”
“Let me see,” Emery ordered.
“I figured that much out,” Exton said grudgingly. “I didn’t think she was an assassin.”
“She’s a graduate,” Emery announced, holding up the ranking badges. “Not in university, not in military.”
“It is close to graduation time for the secondary levels,” the other medic spoke up in a timid voice. “That was part of the reason we picked this day to strike, wasn’t it?”
Exton turned and glared at the medic, who promptly returned to her work in silence.
“It’s possible,” Emery admitted, drawing attention back to her. “If she’s a new graduate, that would put her close to eighteen. She’d be young enough to be trained in newer combat routines. That would explain how her attack was successful.”
“I’d hardly call this successful,” Exton objected. “She nicked my ribs some, that’s all. You know I’m a good fighter, Emery, and I keep up with the new training.”
“I didn’t mean to imply you are a bad fighter,” Emery insisted, incensed. “But she did manage to do some damage.”
“Barely,” he retorted, though his fingers gripped his chest more tightly. “This guy”—he jerked his thumb in the direction of the nearest medic—“just gave me the serum for it to heal. I’ll be working again in less than a rotation.”
“But—”
“And I’m hardly old, even though I happen to look it at the moment,” Exton added. He scowled at her as he straightened his wig.
Emery suddenly giggled, distracting him from his argument.
“What?”
“I can’t tell if it was me or her,” Emery said, “but I can tell your pride’s been trampled a bit.”
A small mew caught both of them off guard.
“Oh, my,” Emery shrieked. “What is that thing?” She pointed toward the shadowed eyes staring down at her.
“Calm down, Em,” Exton said. He placed his head in his hands as he realized he’d forgotten about the cat. “Whose pride were we just concerned about here?”
“What is it?”
“It’s just a cat,” Exton told her. He glanced down at the scratches on his hand. “Although demon might be more fitting.”
The cat seemed eager to agree with him. It bounced down and curled up on his knee.
“Well, look at that,” Emery said. “It likes you.”
Exton arched an eyebrow down at the cat, which ignored him and began bathing itself.
“A demon who likes a ghost,” Exton said with a shrug. “If insulting you is all it took to get you to like me,” Exton muttered to the kitten, “we’ll have to see how that works on your mistress here.”
“Mew,” was all the response he received.
“Why don’t you come with me while I go and talk to the URS?” Exton asked, petting the cat between its ears.
“Really, Exton?” Emery raised her brows in surprise.
“What?”
“You never seemed to like animals before.”
“Maybe it’s more that none of them have ever seemed to like me,” he said, picking up the cat before turning his attention back to the woman. “Place her under guard and medic watch. Notify me when she wakes up. I’d like to talk with her some more, preferably while she’s strapped down and unable to puncture my lung.”
Emery frowned. “You sure she didn’t get you on the head as well?”
“I’m fine,” Exton insisted. “Have Tyler call the attendants into the Biovid so we can find a good grounding for the tree. Get Bruce and his lumberjack crew to get started trimming it down and drawing out its water and resources. I have some gloating to do.”
Exton saw the shifting uncertainty in Emery’s gaze, but his tenacity won out. “Well, if you’re sure,” Emery said. “I can’t argue with you. Here’s your hat.”
“Thanks.” Exton took his pirate hat and placed it back on his head, carefully readjusting the wig once more as he settled into his pirate persona. “Wouldn’t want to look sloppy for His Excellency.”
♦8♦
Before she even opened her eyes, Aerie could feel the chains wrapped around her wrists, trapping them beside her torso. Her bonds were strong but light, with a coarse fabric lining providing a thin layer of intended comfort. It was their restraint that provoked her to full consciousness. Aerie cursed her curiosity, even as she couldn’t ignore its calling.
I just can’t resist finding out what kind of trouble I’m in, can I?
Grogginess slowly left her mind as light blurred into vision and shadows transformed into shaded colors. Fear sharpened inside her as she remembered she was in enemy territory.
For a moment, Aerie squeezed her eyes shut, unsure if she wanted to recall or block out all her training on the torture practices of MENACE and the depravity of Captain Chainsword.
The number one rule: Never get captured. It was better to die in a fight than to be left at the mercy of the enemy.
Since she’d already broken that rule, Aerie realized, she would have to face the consequences. A new barrage of images, ranging in degree of torture and humiliation, followed either quickly or slowly by death, raced through her mind. Anxiety and fear, coupled with an adrenaline rush, caused her hands to shake as she fought against her bonds.
“Come on, come on,” she muttered to herself. Moments passed before she bit her lip, trying to block out the pain in her wrists and hold back her desperation.
Long moments passed before she finally gave up, tired and sore. She slumped back against the pillow behind her.
It was then she realized the straps contained slim tubes, carefully tucked into her skin.
She glanced around and noticed she was in a room that looked more like a medical ward than a torture chamber.
Which it could be, so far as I know.
Aerie squeezed her eyes shut, trying to recall what had happened. She remembered clinging to the tree as it was knocked over and hauled … into a space shuttle.
Captain Chainsword’s shuttle.
Her eyes opened as though she was seeing it, reliving it all.
She recalled the pain in her head, the roaring of both battle and blastoff, as the pressure pounded against her body; the shuttle had launched, packing her in along with the tree before it took off for the final frontier. Rage burned into her, realigning her ability to focus even as gravity’s shadow had finally overwhelmed her, just in time to launch into an attack against the man responsible for her pain.
Tears flecked her eyes as her gaze finally saw pas
t herself. She gasped in surprise. The ceiling was a crisscrossing pattern of steel-enforced windows, revealing the starry night outside the ship.
Clear of clouds and free of haze, the light dancing on the earth winked at her, as the world twirled slowly, steadily, outside her room.
Aerie did not know how long she stared, surprised at the simple beauty.
It was when the whispers reached her that she jerked her attention back to the situation at hand. Four crew members, all dressed in white coats, chatted easily together as they walked into the room. None of them seemed to notice she’d woken up. Aerie saw the insignia on their sleeves—a sharp, four-pointed star, with four smaller rays reaching out from its heart. It gleamed in the middle of an eye-shaped border.
Clearly not the URS, Aerie thought, and not the scrawling calligraphy of MENACE.
Confusion hit her. Dictator Osgood had been adamant that Captain Chainsword—or his ghost, anyway—had been in tight friendship with MENACE. Who were these people?
They looked like medics, but they could also be her tormentors.
The door opened again. Aerie turned to see a man walk into the room. His uniform was dark gray in color, and there was an air of authority in his movement; when the other medics nodded to him as they scurried out of his way, Aerie nearly cheered at her estimation. No doubt this man was a commander or doctor of some sort.
Probably a commander, since he was armed, she reasoned, noting the weapon in the holster at his side.
The man pulled out a screen and a stylus, and then turned his full attention on her.
Immediately, Aerie felt a rush of shyness. His eyes were the lightest blue she’d ever seen, like the sky in some of the old textbooks on display at the education center. His hair was dark and a bit longer than the General would have liked, and definitely messier than Brock would have dared.
After a moment, Aerie decided she liked it. And it seemed to suit the man in front of her. After all, what was authority but freedom with responsibility?
She almost slipped up and smiled at him before her mind screamed at her, forcing her to remember this was the enemy. An enemy who would willingly cause her great suffering. Someone who could break her, claim her, destroy her. Someone she should fight against until she was empty of all power.
“What is your name?”
It was his voice that revealed him.
His words echoed throughout the medic ward, a large room, empty of all but the two of them. Aerie felt the sound bounce off the walls and back around while it sunk in just who this man was—and how she was completely at his mercy.
Instantly, her demeanor changed, heightening her defenses and sparking outrage. “It’s certainly not a matter worthy of consideration from the great Captain Chainsword,” she grumbled.
His dark eyebrows arched and then he shrugged. “I was hoping you wouldn’t recognize me. First impressions are so hard to shake.”
When she just gaped at his irreverence, he gave her a wry grin. “Of course, I’m sure my first impression was a bit less exciting to you than yours was to me. It’s not every day I pick up a tree and find a lady living in it.”
“I wasn’t living in it,” Aerie asserted angrily before she could stop herself. There’s no need to give him information. Don’t make his job easy!
“Well, that’s good,” he said, the gentle tone somehow more scathing than his sarcasm. “I should just hate myself if I had destroyed your home.”
“You should hate yourself anyway,” Aerie bit back.
“Maybe I already do.”
His flippancy caught her off guard as much as his admission. Aerie knew she had to be determined to keep him on the defensive. She pressed forward, forcing herself to remain focused on resisting interrogation. No matter how irresistible it was turning out to be. “Well, you should. You’re the scoundrel who killed my tree!"
When he said nothing in return, she felt her heart break all over again at the loss of the Memory Tree. "You told your crew to crush its heart.”
“I did,” he admitted.
“You’re a monster.”
“You’ve already called me a monster.”
“Just because I already said it doesn’t make it any less true.”
“And here I thought taking the pirate ghost costume off would help,” he replied. He shifted in his seat. “I’ll admit I am somewhat disappointed.”
“Why would you be disappointed?”
“Even the devil is capable of disappointment, I’m sure,” he said with a shrug. “But I was under the impression you were a trained combat soldier. I was expecting a little more creativity.”
“In name-calling?” Aerie asked. “Are you crazy?”
“Crazy’s not a bad attempt,” he remarked, jotting down some notes on his screen. “But I’d still try for something more robust.”
Aerie frowned. “It doesn’t matter what I call you!”
“Of course it matters,” Captain Chainsword replied. “It is your job to get under the skin of your enemy, to make his weaknesses all work against him.”
“It’s easier just to kill him outright,” Aerie argued.
“It’s easier just to kill,” he agreed, “but it’s the more skillful soldier who can turn the enemy’s imagination against him.” He glanced up at her, catching her eyes with his. “Don’t you think so?”
“Why don’t you take off my restraints here and we’ll see about that?” Aerie asked.
To her surprise, and seemingly his as well, he smiled. “Oh, I know you’d love your fair fight, Comrade, but in the real world—the ‘real’ world, that is, not the one you pretend to exist in while you’re in training—we don’t fight fair.”
“Is that what this is?” Aerie demanded. “You’re attempting to fight me?”
“If I am, it’s a poor attempt, considering you’re already bound and unlikely to defeat me at this point.”
Aerie tugged against her bounds again, to no avail. She glared at him. “I knew this was a prison.”
“That does remind me. Welcome to the Perdition. I am its captain, as you know, and this room is actually a medic ward. We are on Level One of the ship. I can assure you, those are the real stars you can see out your window, though there aren’t as many as you would likely expect.”
“It’s still a prison.”
“It might surprise you to know,” he said in a soft voice, “there are no prisons on the Perdition.”
“I don’t believe you,” Aerie scoffed. “Weren’t you the one who just said it was the more skillful soldier who could use the enemy’s imagination to win?”
At the quick frown on his face, Aerie knew she’d scored a point against him. But instead of retaliating, he simply went back to writing on his pad. “Clever girl,” he commented, further frustrating her.
What kind of enemy resisted battle?
One who already had the upper hand, Aerie thought bitterly.
A few moments passed in silence as he continued to look up from his screen, then to her, and then back at the screen again.
Aerie grew uncomfortable. Why is he here? Why can’t he just leave me alone? Is this part of the torture?
“Don’t you have more important duties to take care of?” she finally asked. “Torturing me hardly seems worthy of your time. I mean, if you’re really the captain of this starship, shouldn’t you be planning your next attack on innocent people?”
“There is no one who is without sin, without iniquity,” he murmured.
“I suppose I should expect such a remark from a hateful person like you.”
“What do you mean by ‘hateful?’”
“You know what I mean.” Aerie gritted her teeth together. This is impossible! “Just how ignorant are you?”
“I don’t know. What do you mean when you say ‘hateful’? If you can’t tell me, aren’t you the ignorant one?”
“It means that you hate people and you don’t mind hurting them,” Aerie growled.
“How did you come to the conclusi
on I am a hateful person?”
“I would think that was obvious!” Aerie argued. “You killed the Memory Tree. You attacked my home. You’re holding me prisoner and mocking me at every chance you get! How much more hateful can a person be?”
There was a long pause. “I could’ve been worse,” he finally said.
“That’s nothing to be proud of,” Aerie yelled back.
“Have you considered, Comrade, that you are being just as hateful toward me? If I remember correctly, you were the one who attacked me after I freed you from the tree.”
Aerie said nothing, boiling with rage and hatred for the man before her, not wanting to admit he was right. The memories of how he’d carefully untangled her hair from the new buds of the tree, and how he had safely carried her out of the tree’s embrace, flooded through her. Her fists, still bound to her bed, clenched as she fought against the urge to scream.
His voice, quiet and distinct against her silence, was unnerving. “I was a bit preoccupied with the URS’s retaliation when we picked up the Memory Tree,” he said slowly. “I did not realize you were climbing in it. I have it on good report that the URS is keeping its civilian populations largely, if not entirely, underground. I had no reason to suspect someone was … someone would defy their orders. Especially in New Hope. I would have thought there would have been more thorough security.”
He’s trying to use you for information. The warning flashed through her mind.
When she said nothing, he relaxed back into his chair. “So … I will concede that it is mostly my fault you were captured.”
“Mostly!?” Aerie felt her bonds strain against her blood.
“I wouldn’t try too hard to break free,” he told her, nodding toward the cuffs. “You were taken up into space with no preparation. It’s a wonder your eardrums didn’t burst and your brain isn’t damaged. Or should I say more damaged, since you’ve grown up in the URS?”
“I suppose you think my brain is busted because I didn’t burst into tears, bow down to you and your crew, and beg you to take me home?” she asked bitingly. “Maybe you’re just angry and insulting me because I didn’t.”
The Heights of Perdition Page 7