Test Subjects

by R S Penney

  “Being a city cop has its own unique set of challenges,” Anna countered. “If they dropped me head-first into your job, I would screw up too.”

  A small smile appeared on the other woman's face, and then she laughed quietly. “Maybe we're more alike than I thought.”

  “Maybe.”

  Anna hopped off the desk, looking up at the ceiling and shaking her head. “Now, if I could just move past my own paranoia,” she muttered. “You ever get this feeling like you're waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

  “The other shoe to…”

  “It's an Earth expression,” Anna clarified. “It means you're expecting something to go wrong even though everything seems fine.”

  Bevi spun to face her with arms crossed, a grimace betraying the woman's distaste for the subject. “I've always found that such feelings are my detective sense flaring up,” she said. “Maybe you should listen.”

  A frown pulled at the corners of Anna's mouth, but she nodded just the same. “You could be right,” she said with more than a little reluctance. “But I try not to let anxiety control me. We have to make decisions based on things we can prove.”

  “Intuition counts for something to, Anna.”

  “I guess. I-”

  She cut off when her multi-tool started buzzing, alerting her to an incoming call. A priority-one emergency message from Justice Keeper Headquarters. One glance at Bevi made it clear that the woman had realized she was correct…and that she didn't like it one bit. “Think too deeply on the Bleakness, and the Bleakness takes you,” Anna grumbled. “I guess you were right.”

  Answering the call put Larani Tal's face on her screen. The Chief Director of the Justice Keepers looked…haunted. Seeing that much was enough to twist Anna's guts into knots. Something was wrong; she knew it. “Anna,” Larani said breathlessly. “I need you to come back to Denabria.”

  “Ma'am?”

  “There's a problem.”

  The story played out on a screen hung up on the wall in Larani's office: an endless expanse of blackness broken only by tiny pinpricks and three larger dots that must have been fighters seen from several kilometers away. This was footage from a rear-view camera on Jack's shuttle. So far, Anna had watched the entire story from the battle cruiser's arrival through the SlipGate to Jack's desperate escape attempt. And she did not like where this was going.

  Those three large dots swirled about like a swarm of angry hornets, trying to keep a lock on Jack as he outmaneuvered them. Green light exploded from one, rushed toward the camera and hit a flickering wall of energy that appeared at the last second. Another green blast pounded the force-field, and this one overpowered the shuttle's defenses. The screen went dark after that.

  Anna's mouth hung open, her face pale as she watched the whole grisly affair. “No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “No, I don't accept it. He's alive, and we're going after him.”

  Standing by the floor-to-ceiling window with her shoulders square, her face as hard as stone, Larani sighed. “Anna, this looks pretty conclusive,” she began. “I agree that we must investigate, but I urge you to prepare for the worst.”

  Anna closed her eyes, concentrating, focusing on the turmoil within. Her emotions were a tempest. Rage battled with terror and a profound sense of grief. A sense that she had been personally and vindictively targeted by the universe. After all this time, she had finally gotten together with the person she loved only to have it all ripped away. She was on fire with pain, and yet…

  And yet, there was warmth as well. Warmth and peace and a sense that Jack loved her with all of his heart. Somehow, she knew.

  Anna's head came up. Her eyes snapped open. “He's alive,” she insisted. “And we are going after him.”

  A frown was Larani's response, but the woman seemed to have opted for gentleness and empathy. “Perhaps,” she murmured. “But you saw the shuttle's sensors data. Critical systems were damaged. If they didn't finish Jack off, he would be unable to survive-”

  “Even if he's dead,” Anna cut in. “We still need to know who these people are and what they're doing here. We've never seen ships like that before. So, you're going to send someone to investigate, and that someone is me.”

  Larani shut her eyes, visibly calming herself before she spoke. “Anna,” she said. “I appreciate your desire to be part of this investigation, but you are in no frame of mind to handle the stresses that it would place on you. The best thing you can-”

  “Did I say something to imply you had a choice in the matter?” Anna turned on her heel and marched toward the other woman with arms swinging, a snarl baring her teeth. “I'm genuinely confused. Should I speak slower? I…am…going…on…this…mission.”

  “Watch your tone, Operative Lenai.”

  “Watch my tone?” Anna spluttered. “Watch my ass as I walk out the door.” And just like that, she did a complete 180, pacing across the room. She was two steps shy of knocking the door off its sliding track when Larani's voice cracked like a whip.

  “Operative Lenai!”

  Anna froze.

  She didn't have to look to see the woman's silhouette standing with arms folded and quivering with frustration. Only then did she feel a stab of guilt. Larani must have grown to care about Jack as well. “You are not emotionally fit for this job,” Larani said. “I must ask you to take some time off and speak to a counselor.”

  Grinding her teeth audibly, Anna squeezed her eyes shut and forced her anger down into the pit of her stomach. “You want to take me off active duty?” she said. “Go right ahead. You want to revoke my authorization codes, deny me access to the shuttle bay? Have at it! I'll book civilian transport to Petross Station, and if necessary, I'll hire a smuggler to bring me the rest of the way.”

  “With what money?”

  Anna turned to face the woman, hoping that resolve would drive the point home. It must have because Larani stepped back. “I'll sell my body if I have to,” Anna whispered. “But I am going to the Oniara System. So, you can either get out of my way or watch me bulldoze everything in my path. Choice is yours.”

  Chapter 17

  Another blast hit, and this one felt like a death knell. Alarms were screeching, and his navigational controls were fried. There was a hull breach in the cabin; the shuttle was venting atmosphere. Emergency systems kicked in, sealing the cockpit door to keep him alive. Not that it would do much good. At this point, he could only fly in a straight line and wait for those bastards to finish him off.

  Jack Hunter had never been a praying man, but he sent good thoughts out into the universe, hoping that whatever was listening – if, indeed, there was anything listening – knew that at least he had tried. He'd given it his all; no one could ask for more.

  When the next shot hit, everything went dark.

  And then silence.

  A silence broken only by the sound of heavy breathing. It took Jack a few seconds to realize that the noise was coming from his own lungs. He was alive. Alive and left alone in total darkness with only the faint light of stars to convince him that he had not been plunged into an endless void.

  With a gaping mouth, Jack folded up and covered his face with both hands. “Oh god,” he panted. “Computer, status report.”

  There was no response.

  He looked up to blink through the window, then puffed out his cheeks as air passed through his lips. “Okay,” Jack said, unfastening his seat-belt. “Where there's life, there's hope. Let's just assess our options.”

  As he stood, he realized that he was weightless. The disorientation hit him, and his arms flailed as he braced himself against the bulkhead. It left him with a hollow feeling in his belly. “Damn it…”

  His mind raced as he took stock of the situation. If his enemies had wanted to kill him, they would have had plenty of time to do so. Which meant one of two things. Either they wanted him alive, or they just didn't care enough to waste the ammo.

  He couldn't leave the cockpit, not with a giant hole in the cabin that
had vented all the air into space. Staying wasn't much of an option either. He gave it about half an hour before he ran out of air.

  But then…

  Flight training kicked in, and he remembered the emergency space suit stored in a compartment beneath the pilot's seat. That would buy him a few more hours until…Until what? The odds of a friendly ship entering the system in that time were…Well, let's just say he would have better luck winning the Manitoba Lottery on the same day that he was struck by lightning.

  Staring open-mouthed at the ceiling, Jack rolled his eyes. “They couldn't have just finished me off?” he mumbled, shaking his head. “It's just common courtesy.”

  Summer was not amused.

  Well, she would just have to-

  The shuttle lurched, and Jack was thrown forward, bracing his hands on the dark SmartGlass console to steady himself. He shook his head violently. “Great,” he muttered. “Now what?”

  The implications dawned on him in a moment of blinding clarity. Newton's First Law. For him to be thrown forward…it meant the shuttle was being pulled backward. He could remember the data on his screens before they went dark. There was nothing nearby that could cause such a sudden change in the shuttle's velocity. Nothing natural, anyway. So, that left him with only one conclusion.

  The battlecruiser was pulling him in.

  His lips peeled back from clenched teeth, and he shook his head again. “Brilliant,” he growled, dropping into the pilot's seat. “Well, I guess POW is better than DOA. You know, in the much same way that Wal-Mart employee training videos are slightly better than Batman vs Superman.”

  For a long while – several minutes, at least – he saw nothing but distant stars in his window, but then the shuttle was being pulled backward through a giant hangar bay door. The instant he crossed through the threshold, the ship's artificial gravity asserted itself, and Jack grunted.

  When he looked out the window, he saw a powerful tractor-beam emitter guiding his shuttle through the hangar bay. Thirty seconds later, there was a mild jolt as it set him down far away from the door.

  Jack reclined in the pilot's seat with hands folded over his chest, taking a moment to steel his nerves. “Well then,” he said, his brow furrowing. “I guess I'll just have to go out and make some new friends.”

  He swiveled the chair around and stood up, carefully making his way to the back of the cockpit. A panel on the bulkhead, next to the door, allowed him to access the manual release. When he opened it, he found a circular crank that he had to turn several times to unlock the door.

  Jack slammed both hands against the heavy metal doors and slid them apart with considerable effort. “Mmph,” he grunted. Even with Keeper strength, it was no easy task. Once he got them apart, he stepped into a scene from a post-apocalyptic horror movie.

  The cabin was gloomy except for the square table in the middle of the floor. That was positioned directly beneath a massive hole in the ceiling that allowed light to spill in from the hangar bay.

  Through it, he could see pristine white walls and hear multiple voices shouting in a language he didn't recognize. There were footsteps as well, the distinct clomp-clomp of well-trained soldiers moving in unison. No doubt his captors had called in a security team to surround the shuttle.

  He took some time to assess the damage before resigning himself to the inevitable. There used to be a screen of SmartGlass on the starboard bulkhead, but that had shattered during the fight, and now shards were strewn across the floor. He was expecting to smell the stench of burnt metal – there were plenty of scorch marks around the hole – but the air that would have carried that stink had been sucked away into space.

  The SlipGate was still standing; its mountings held firm. It didn't surprise him that the bloody thing looked pristine, its sleek, metal surface almost shimmering despite being shrouded in gloom. There were some people who thought that SlipGates could survive a nuclear blast. Jack wasn't so sure about that, but they were durable.

  Quickly, Jack tapped at the screen of his multi-tool to interface with the Gate's systems. He set it to receive incoming travelers. If a rescue party came for him, this would give them the means to get aboard the battlecruiser.

  With any luck, the Gate's status would go unnoticed by the ship's crew. It wasn't connected to the battlecruiser's systems, which meant it would not show up on their screens unless they did a scan for active SlipGates. Sooner or later, that scan would happen, but for now…any small edge he could give himself counted.

  He looked to the air-lock.

  Getting that thing open would probably require more physical labour, and there was probably a team of people with assault rifles and itchy trigger fingers waiting on the other side. Of course, he had other options.

  Bending his knees, Jack leaped and reversed gravity's pull for a few brief seconds. He shot upward through the hole, curled up into a ball and somersaulted through the air. He uncoiled to land perched atop the shuttle's fuselage.

  The hangar bay was huge – four times the size of his high school's gymnasium, at least – with polished gray floor tiles and white walls so bright it made his eyes hurt to look at them. There were catwalks at multiple levels, some leading to small fighters that were suspended from the walls.

  A squadron of gray-uniformed security officers with assault rifles and body armour surrounded his shuttle, some gasping at his sudden appearance. Jack had surprised them. He had the advantage. He could…

  He could what? Slaughter maybe five or ten of them before someone inevitably put a bullet through his chest? Na-uh. Not likely. And even if he did manage to get out of the hangar bay, then what?

  Jack couldn't speak their language, and security protocols would make sure that he couldn't access their systems anyway. It would be a short, exhausting and pointless chase through unfamiliar corridors while enemies who knew the layout of this ship surrounded him on all sides. He would have to kill, and he was not okay with that.

  Jack could take a life, if it was necessary, but he would not shed blood in some sad escape attempt that was doomed to fail anyway. A Justice Keeper acted to preserve life. Always. He would not kill in some childish act of defiance.

  Summer was beaming with pride.

  In the few seconds while those thoughts flashed through his head, several of the uniformed men lifted their rifles and fixed their sights on him. One fellow, clearly the squad leader, shouted at the others, no doubt ordering them to hold their fire.

  Jack raised his hands above his head and put on the biggest smile he could manage. “Nice to meet you too!” he called out, stepping off the edge of the shuttle to land on the port side. “Anybody know the way to the mess hall? 'Cause I am famished.”

  The crowd of tactical officers parted to make way for a short woman in a dark gray uniform with striking red epaulettes. She was old enough to be Jack's mother, but her hair was still dark and cut short in a bob. The ship's captain? From the way everybody walked soft around her, that was a good bet.

  “Echak!” she snapped at him. “Dojon, vol tavor'nak!”

  Grinning at her, Jack shook his head. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I don't speak Simlish.”

  The woman frowned thoughtfully, turned her gaze on one of the armoured men and then gestured toward Jack. “Jhique nak tiage nador!” Oh, God, was she ordering them to shoot him? No. No, not likely. Not after they had gone to such trouble to take him alive. “Iah kash dolovar.”

  One guard came up behind him; Jack made no move to resist. The man frisked him, unfastened the gauntlet on his left wrist and removed his multi-tool. He gave it to a red-haired woman in a gray uniform who examined the tool with a careful eye.

  The lead guard stepped forward, pointing his rifle at Jack. Then he gestured with the weapon toward a door that clearly led out of the hangar bay. “Go that way,” Jack said. “Got it.”

  He walked with his hands in the air, moving slowly in the direction indicated by the guard. Several other uniformed men scurried past him and fell into step j
ust a few paces ahead. Spatial awareness let him sense many more bringing up the rear, the nearest two with guns pointed at his back. No, he wasn't going anywhere.

  They marched him through gray-walled corridors with tiled floors and shiny metal bulkheads. Every now and then, they passed some low-ranking schlub who hopped out of the way. There were robots as well: floor-polishers that looked like little trash cans on wheels and a round drone that hovered at chest height, repairing a wall that had been scorched. Had his attack done that much damage? Well, good on him.

  One corridor ended in a big metal door that was so thick you couldn't cut it with a plasma torch, and when he passed through it, everything changed. Gone were the narrow hallways with warm lighting meant to mimic a yellow sun. This new one was wider, and the lights offered a harsh, fluorescent glare.

  On his left, there were metal doors in the wall, each one as thick as the one he had just walked through. Yup…There was no denying it.

  This was a cell-block.

  The lead guard tapped something into a panel on the wall, and then one of the doors slid open with a whooshing sound. They shoved Jack inside without even giving him the chance to make a quippy remark.

  He stumbled a few steps and then froze.

  His cell was much larger than he would have expected – big enough to host a dance party with room to spare for a snack table – but aside from a metal toilet and sink, it was completely bare. No bed, no table, no chairs. Nothing but four gray walls. One had a line of tinted windows that he assumed looked into some kind of observation room, but the rest were unadorned.

  Biting his lower lip, Jack nodded as he took in the sight of his surroundings. “Nice diggs,” he said, turning around to face the guard. “You ever think about putting up some paintings? 'Cause my mom can do some amazing things with pastels.”

  The guard said nothing; he merely stepped out into the hallway. The door slid shut behind him, sealing Jack in.

  “Well…” he said. “Guess I'll just wait here then.”