by Eric Thomson
A sudden scream of pain brought him to a halt. He turned back to see her slump to the deck, bleeding profusely through an open hole in the abdomen. The pirates’ plasma had punched through the container at last. Long years of experience had taught him a wound like that, without immediate medical treatment, was invariably fatal.
Rage surged through him, blind, berserker rage, pushing aside all rational thought and he stood to charge at the pirates, firing from the hip as fast as his finger could stroke the trigger, feeding copper disc after copper disc into the ignition chamber. Plasma splashed everywhere, and he was faintly conscious of another intruder falling down amid howls of agony.
He didn’t realize that they had stopped shooting until the first rifle butt caught him on the side of the head. It was followed by a second one to the kidneys and then a third to the knees, the pirates battering him down to the deck with unrestrained savagery. He was quickly trampled into unconsciousness by armored feet, but they didn’t stop until their leader, a brutal man wanted by the law on two dozen worlds, remembered his captain’s orders and put an end to it.
Two
Pain. Deep, nasty, bone-breaking pain.
It was as if the universe had decided to disassemble Zack Decker atom by atom and reassemble him randomly and without order.
He opened his eyes and immediately wished he hadn’t. The hot needles of light that pierced his cornea and seared his retina triggered a spasm of nausea that threatened to further throw his reconstituted body out of alignment. Though his stomach contracted and heaved, nothing by a thin trickle of bile escaped his bruised and cut lips. He screwed his eyelids shut again and waited until the convulsive shaking had passed.
As consciousness returned, he stretched out his thick, muscular body and forced his throbbing brain to take stock of the situation. First item: his wrists were manacled, which made him a prisoner. Second item: considering the pain he felt even though he was still in one piece, he’d been worked over by real artists. Third item: he had no idea where he was, except that he was on a starship traveling FTL if the subliminal vibrations were anything to go by. Fourth and final item: he was screwed.
A fresh wave of pain racked his body, but this time from sheer horror and anguish as his memory fully returned.
Zack slowly opened his eyes again, feeling tears flow freely as his mind’s eye offered up the image of the pirates cutting through their airlock and boarding the ship, heedless of the damage they caused. He flinched at the recollection of her dying scream and a new wave of emotion overcame him, throwing his abused body through another cycle of pain and nausea.
Then the hatred came, sheer, raw and unadulterated hatred, drowning out the grief and the physical torment, threatening to overwhelm what few reserves he had left.
His eyes gradually got used to the harsh illumination, and he saw that he was lying on a bare metal floor, in an empty metal compartment only slightly bigger than a closet. He gently turned his head to either side, grimacing at the artillery barrage in his skull, and decided it would be foolish to try and sit up. They had tied his hands in front of him rather than in the small of his back, and he raised them to the tune of screaming muscles so that they were in line with his eyes.
His knuckles were bloody and swollen, and a few fingers felt like they’d been broken, courtesy of the sustained beating inflicted on him after he passed out. He was alive, although between the physical pain and the anguish at her death, he almost wished he wasn’t. The fact that they’d taken him and were even now transporting him to an unknown destination meant his enemies had a worse fate in mind than mere death.
An uncomfortable sensation suddenly radiated through his lower abdomen and Zack cursed in a hoarse whisper. He either needed to stand up now and find a toilet or piss himself where he lay. With a force of will that surprised him in his current state, Decker rolled over and pulled his knees under his stomach, then levered his back upright. He paused for a few moments to let a wave of dizziness pass. Thankfully, the renewed bout of nausea stopped short of a further heave and he was able to haul himself up against the bulkhead.
He barely managed to stumble to the waste disposal funnel and open his pants before his bladder let go. Urinating had never felt so painful and looked so bloody. Even if they had meant to take him alive, his captors obviously hadn’t shown much concern for internal injuries. Hopefully, he had nothing that would require a medic. He doubted there was one on board, and he really didn’t want to risk a reiver’s sick bay. On the other hand, if he was indeed taken at the orders of the Amalis or the Coalition, he was dead already.
Sitting unsteadily on the narrow steel bench that passed for a cot, he struggled to bring his breathing under control. Around him, the ship hummed patiently as it ate up the light-years and for all Zack knew, he could have been the only living soul on board, destined to fly across the galaxy until he encountered a gravity wave strong enough to collapse the FTL bubble and bring him back to normal space.
The hum had an underlying note of discordance, hinting at skipped maintenance and worn-out components, at poorly tuned reactors and general neglect. Exactly what he expected of a reiver, which meant he wasn’t headed for the Commonwealth to be delivered to his enemies for an exquisite torture session crowned by a gory execution.
No. Whoever had put out a contract on his head had other ideas in mind, ideas that didn’t involve anyone in the Coalition dirtying their hands. They knew naval intelligence had been keeping an eye on him after he’d led the raid that destroyed the bug factory. Although he’d refused the offer to rejoin the Corps, preferring to make his life with the one woman who’d genuinely cared for him, he had agreed to pass on anything interesting, thereby joining the loose group of veterans and inactive reservists who still kept one toe in the Fleet.
When the door opened with a tired squeal, he looked up right into the mouth of a large-bore blaster. A human face, female by all appearances and of indeterminate age beneath close-cropped hair, stared at him over the length of the barrel. Hard, black eyes set deeply in a seamed face turned almost leathery by decades of exposure to deep space radiation, examined him mercilessly. She could likely have passed for any number of humanoid aliens whose reptilian ancestry left them with a rough hide, but she was indisputably of his own species.
“Put your hands behind your head,” she ordered in a gravelly voice, “and drop to your knees. Try anything else and I’ll wing you. Painfully. My contract is to deliver you alive and functional. No one said anything about leaving you pretty, although nature already took care of most of that.”
Wincing, Zack obeyed her without speaking a word. She didn’t look like the chatty type, and she wasn’t appealing enough for him to try the patented Decker charm. In fact, if it wasn’t for the evidence of breasts and the absence of an adam’s apple, the matter of her gender might have been in dispute.
“We were warned about you and after what you did to my men, I’ll not be taking any chances.” She wrinkled her pug nose in disgust. “You managed to stink up this place real quick.”
“Getting the shit kicked out of you often does that,” he replied, eyes locked with hers in a contest of wills. “I hope those assholes I damaged smell worse than I do, preferably like they were decomposing.”
“Maybe I should let their buddies in here so you can check up on them real close,” she cackled. “They're kind of mad at you, but like I said, I have to deliver you alive and functional, so I can’t let my boys indulge themselves.”
“You come here to ogle me, or you have something intelligent to say?” Decker tried to sneer, though he suspected the expression was indistinguishable on his battered face.
“Feisty, aren’t you? Too bad I can’t keep pets. I might enjoy your company in my quarters after you get cleaned up and suitably disciplined.”
“Wouldn’t work out. I only fuck women.” His attempted sneer turned into a nasty grin.
“Joke all you want, Decker. Where you’re going, the laughs are going to be pre
tty scarce.”
“And where’s that?”
“Why should I spoil the surprise? You’ll find out soon enough.” She smirked back at him, and it turned her face into something from a child’s nightmare. “I’m to give you a message: Harmon Amali sends his best and hopes you live long enough to suffer an eternity’s worth of torment for what you did.”
“Fancy bugger,” she commented when Zack didn’t reply. “An eternity’s worth of torment. I’ll try and use that in casual conversation someday.”
“What happened to my ship and my wife?” He asked even though he didn’t want to hear the answer.
The reiver shrugged.
“Contract said we were to take you and make sure the wreck will never be found. I didn’t want to waste ammo on a ship with no engines, no power, and no radio, so she’s just a piece of drifting junk now, lost in interstellar space. As for your woman, the boys reported she was bleeding out on the deck, gut shot. She’s probably dead by now, but who knows. Maybe she’ll hang on for a while, wondering where you’ve gone to.”
The pirate cackled again.
Decker felt a surge of fury overtake him. He had no doubt he’d be able to launch himself at her from his kneeling position before she had the time to adjust her aim and pull the trigger. But then what? He forced himself to remain still, but his eyes betrayed his inner fire.
“Don’t,” she said, shaking her head. “Even if you’re quick enough to take me, my man in the passageway will end any funny business. Since the contract didn’t define functional, I figure my crew might decide to geld you if something happened to me.”
“Got it.” Decker nodded. He had no problems believing they’d carry out the threat and wasn’t about to risk castration for what would be an empty gesture.
“Good.” She tilted her head to a side, like an ugly little bird. “Now listen up, big boy. We’ve got to feed you and let you clean yourself up, so here’s how it’ll go. I’m going to remove the handcuffs while you stay right like you are. Then, I’ll let you get up and walk you to the showers down the passageway, and you’re going to get clean while we hose down your cell. Do anything other than obey orders and you’ll spend some quality time as a punching bag. If you’re a good lad, you’ll get some food.”
“Got it,” Zack repeated. His eyes promised violence, but not in the near future, and she seemed satisfied with that. “What am I supposed to call you?”
“You can call me captain, or boss. My name isn’t something that’ll be of much use to you. I’m going to remove the cuffs now, so stay nice and quiet.”
She handed her weapon to the Kardati tribesman who had appeared behind her and entered the cell. The gray, leathery-skinned humanoid kept the blaster aimed steadily at Zack’s gut. He’d been in the boarding party, and his hateful stare promised further artistry with a club if he so much as moved a muscle without permission.
“Okay, Decker,” she said after removing the manacles and tossing them at the Kardati, who snatched them out of the air with his clawed left hand, “stand up, but keep your hands on the back of your head.”
When he’d obeyed, her rough shove propelled him past the tribesman and into the corridor. He might have been weak from his beating, but she still had a strong arm for someone that wiry.
“Get in,” she pointed at an open door, “strip and drop your crap on the floor. Wash. Then put on the clothes you’ll find on the bench. You can keep your boots. Everything else gets tossed into the disposal.”
Decker briefly glanced down at himself. He’d been wearing his usual shipboard outfit when they were attacked, and it was now thoroughly soaked in blood, sweat and vomit. There was no point in keeping anything.
Ten minutes later, he was standing in the corridor again, this time, dressed in what he’d decided was reiver casual: worn black coveralls that stretched over his solid frame like a second skin, the pant legs tucked into his calf-length boots. The captain gave him an appreciative once over, and Decker couldn’t resist a wink and a smile, but she responded with a scowl and pointed back at his cell.
“There’s a ration pack waiting for you. If you keep quiet and clean, you’ll get one every eight standard hours.”
“Any chance of getting something to read?”
“Cute,” she replied with a snort. “Half of my boys can’t read Anglic to save their lives and the other half prefer to watch holoporn. What in the galaxy makes you think I have any reading material on board?”
“Doesn’t hurt to ask.” He shrugged and shuffled off to where the Kardati was waiting with the blaster.
“Be happy that I don’t let my crew use you for entertainment. The last time we had prisoners, they kept us amused for days before they died.”
Three
A screeching siren blared three times, pulling Zack from his endless contemplation of the universe’s unfairness. It beat re-playing the final moments aboard Demetria over and over again. The searing pain he felt whenever his mind’s eye saw his wife was almost enough to drive him over the bounds of sanity. Only his need for vengeance kept him grounded in an increasingly bleak reality.
The one saving grace of his descent into a private hell was to find the food on offer wasn’t the nasty, if nourishing Fleet-issue ration bar, but commercial grade packs containing edible, if not exactly varied meals. There had been enough times in the past when ratbars were all he had, and he thanked the sarcastic gods watching over him that this trip to whatever hell Harmon Amali had consigned him wasn’t as rotten as the last journey to a purported doom. On the other hand, that hadn’t worked out so well for the man’s predecessor.
Along with food, they’d given him a bedroll to provide some comfort on the cold metal. The cot, welded to the bulkhead, was too narrow for his wide body and he’d elected to sleep on the floor. For some reason, this seemed to amuse the Kardati, who was his chief watchdog.
He still ached all over but had stopped pissing blood, to his great relief, which probably meant he had no major internal injuries. The few times he caught sight of his face however, he had to laugh at the purplish, yellow and green mottling from the fading bruises. They made him look more like an Itrulan than a human. All he needed was a forked tongue and eyes with a long, vertical pupil.
Zack stretched out on the bedroll and relaxed. Ten seconds after the last screech, he felt the disorienting nausea of emergence from hyperspace. Had they arrived at their destination or were they simply tacking? In the time since his capture, they could have covered a lot of parsecs, but if they were going well and deep into the Coalsack, where human law and order hadn’t the glimmer of a chance to rescue him, this might just be a waypoint check.
Nothing happened for the next two hours, and he went back to his bleak contemplation of life’s unfairness. Then, without warning, the door to his cell opened, and the Kardati poked his head in.
“You come now,” he growled, his words barely understandable, as he pointed a blaster at Zack’s midriff. Decker shrugged, got up and stepped past him into the corridor.
“What’s up, leather-face?”
“You leaving now.” A rumble escaped from deep within his chest. Decker had learned to identify the sound as the alien’s version of laughter and concluded that the unexpected amusement didn’t bode well. He was about to ask another question when the Kardati poked him roughly in the back with his weapon.
“Go.”
When he got to the portside airlock, the ship’s bosun was waiting for him with a being that looked even more villainous than the reiver’s crew.
“He is as described,” the newcomer said after examining Zack intently. “I trust he’s fully functional.”
“If you’re asking whether we gelded him, no we didn’t,” the bosun replied with an evil chuckle. “Mister Decker here was wise enough to cooperate.”
“Most excellent.” The man handed a case to the reiver. “The agreed upon price.”
After checking the contents, he nodded and passed the case to the Kardati.
&n
bsp; “Put the cuffs on him.”
When Zack was manacled, hands in front, the bosun said, “He’s all yours, but before he goes, I’d like to say farewell.”
Without warning, a fist lashed out and caught Zack just below the sternum, sending a blast of pain through his chest and abdomen.
“That’s for the men you killed, you ugly sonofabitch. I hope your girlfriend died in agony.”
Decker bent over with the force of the punch, gathered his fury and, hands joined in a double fist, straightened up as fast and hard as he could manage. He struck the bosun under the jaw with the force of a pile driver and had the satisfaction of hearing his teeth shatter before the man screamed out in pain.
Zack looked at the newcomer.
“Time to go, before they change their minds and cut my balls off.”
The man stared at him for a few heartbeats, as if wondering about the wisdom of his purchase.
“Follow me,” he finally said.
Under the bemused stare of the Kardati, who seemed to be paralyzed by Zack’s sudden outburst of violence, they scuttled through the airlock and into a waiting shuttle. Another one of whatever the newcomer’s species was sat at the controls and quickly shut the hatch before undocking. Zack expected the radio to come alive with outraged messages from the reiver but they sped away in silence towards a angular ship of a type he’d never seen before. The markings on its flared nacelles resembled nothing so much as runes and were utterly indecipherable to his human eyes.
When he looked back at the being who’d fetched him, he saw curious black eyes staring out from under thick eyebrow ridges, and what was unmistakably a weapon aimed at his chest.