Jess didn’t even need to query the ship, he knew Matt was right. He ran a quick scan of Matt’s health and decided there was no reason to argue. He nodded his head, then slipped Matt’s arm over his shoulder. Slowly, the two of them made their way out into the corridor and through to the lounge. Jess was supporting nearly all of Matt’s weight by the time they reached the sofa. Matt sank thankfully into it and sighed contentedly.
“Thanks kid. Damn it feels good to be out of that room.”
“That’s it, though. You stay put for a few hours at least or I’m dragging you back into the medical bay, feet first if necessary.”
Matt chuckled at that and leant his head back, closing his eyes. Jess stiffened as the ship received a message. He shoved it onto a screen so Matt could see it too. The image of Governor Julia Demery appeared, the same person Sal had negotiated with. Jess felt a knot form in his stomach and Matt sat up again, watching intently.
“I want to thank you once again for the return of Danny and Ellie. Their family asked me to pass on their heartfelt thanks. The return of those two goes some small way to easing the pain we feel for the people we lost.
“And for capturing the criminals responsible, for bringing them to us for trial, we thank you too. Next to bringing all our people back that was the most important thing for us. Rest assured that they will never be able to repeat their actions. No one else will suffer at their hands.”
She looked down for a moment, took a breath as she composed herself.
“As I said, we have so much to thank you for. I am truly sorry for what we must do, but we have no choice. Thanks to you we know where our people are now. They are at the Stone Snake mining complex, only two days flight from here. But the only ships we have are the two freighters, both with no offensive weapons and no ability to fight.
“We can’t go to the Empire for help. They won’t care about a few slaves. Why should they when they keep so many themselves? We have no strong allies, no strings to pull. We only have one hope… your ship.
“We interrogated the prisoners. They told us you destroyed an Imperial corvette. That makes your ship more than powerful enough to put the fear of God into a bunch of miners. Without it we will never see our people again, I will never see my daughter, her husband or my grandson. We are desperate, truly desperate, so we have to do this. We have your two friends. They’re in a cell. If you want to see them again, and unhurt, then you will do as we ask. We don’t want to take your ship from you, we just need to use it. You will allow twenty of our security guards onto the ship and fly them to Stone Snake. You will intimidate the miners with your ship’s firepower, then return with our people.
“When you return all our people your friends will be freed and all of you can go on your way without any interference from us. Please don’t get any ideas about attacking us. You have no idea where your friends are and we are desperate. Most people on the station lost friends or members of their family to the kidnappers. If you take any aggressive action we will kill one of your friends. Immediately. The other will be held hostage for your cooperation.”
She stared intently at the screen for a moment.
“Please believe me, for the sake of your friends. You have ten minutes to decide. Out.”
The message ended. Jess realised his hands were clenched into fists, anger boiled in his chest. The ship signalled that weapons were ready to be fired at the station, only the protocol he’d added before to prevent subconscious commands being executed had prevented them being fired.
“Jess! Jess!”
He heard Matt shouting as if from a long way away, and turned towards the sound in a daze. Matt dragged himself up, grabbed Jess by the shoulders and shook him.
“Jess!” he shouted again. “Listen to me! Don’t do anything. I know you’re angry but Sal and Ali need you to calm down. Don’t risk their lives!”
The words reached Jess, but he still struggled for control. Words failed him. He pulled away from Matt and stalked around the room, unable to stay still.
“We can’t let them do this. We can’t let them hurt Sal and Ali. I’ll rip the station apart if I have to. I’ll tear…”
As his steps brought him past Matt the old man lashed out, cuffing him around the head.
“For God’s sake, Jess!” he shouted. “Listen to yourself! What you’re planning will guarantee their deaths. These people are desperate. We have to find the best way to deal with this. I think we have to go to this mining station.”
“What?” Jess was shouting into Matt’s face now. “What? Just do as they say? Let their guards board and fly off under their orders.”
“No! That would be a terrible idea. Look kid, just calm down and listen to me for a minute. I’m not saying we cave in, but we need to think about how to get the best out of this situation. Under no circumstances are we letting anyone on this ship. Even if they’re on the level now I can guarantee when it came time to give up their control they’d find another reason to stay. And another, then another, and so on. So, we don’t let them on the ship. Right?”
Jess fought down his anger, realising he was out of control. He stepped away from Matt again, took a shaky breath, then nodded, not trusting himself to speak.
“Right, so no one comes on board,” Matt said. “I think we are going to have to do as they ask other than that. Go to this mining station, put the fear of this ship into them and grab the kidnapped people. Hell, kid, they’ve been made into slaves. You and I know what that means. Maybe we’d have agreed to do this anyway if the governor had asked instead of threatening.
“So… we go there, get their people. Once they’re on board we make damn sure to keep them locked away from us, then we head back here. At that point we’ve got the power. They have two hostages, we have over a hundred, plus the firepower to badly damage their station. They’ll have to give us Sal and Ali, we drop their people off, then we leave… blasting a few non critical bits of the station off on the way, if I’ve got anything to do with it. How does that sound?”
Jess could feel tears coming, hating the feeling of helplessness. Angrily, he fought them back.
“We can’t just leave them here, though. Not for four days. What will they think?”
“They’ll know we’re coming back for them, that we’ll get them out. That’s one of the conditions I’ll insist on, that we have to speak to Sal and Ali before leaving.”
“You’ll insist on? Why you?”
“Kid… Jess. Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re angry as hell and damn near out of control. That’s understandable, and it’s no bad thing. At your age I’d have been spitting teeth too. But in a negotiation like this it’s a weakness the other side will use. I’m a lot older and a lot harder. I’m still mad as hell inside, but I can negotiate this without them getting me so angry I make a mistake. This is going to be tricky to pull off, but I can do it.”
“You’re sure? That they’ll be safe?”
“I’m sure. These people are desperate but they aren’t evil. If we don’t push them into doing anything the girls will be fine.”
Jess thought hard but he didn’t see any flaw in Matt’s logic and he couldn’t think of any better ideas. Reluctantly, very reluctantly, he agreed.
* * *
The governor fought hard against Matt’s proposal, but the old man refused to budge and in the end she agreed. Matt had already warned Jess to stay off camera, especially while he spoke to Sal and Ali. They couldn’t let any sign of weakness be seen.
Watching Sal and Ali on the screen, seeing them listen as Matt laid out the plan but not being able to talk to them, Jess realised how much he’d come to care for both of them, to love both of them. Sal as a friend and Ali… well, definitely as a friend but also as something more. He wanted to protect both of them, but he wanted to wrap his arms around Ali and never let go. Once the screen went dead Matt had the sensitivity to busy himself and not comment on the tears running down Jess’s face.
Several minutes later
the Wanderer disconnected from Glory Falls station and pulled away. Not wanting to give away the ship’s unique jump abilities they waited until they’d reached the normal clear distance then made the jump for Stone Snake mining complex.
Chapter 11
Matt continued his determined recovery from the operation. Within a few hours of their departure from Glory Falls he was almost back to his old self, though he still needed to take frequent rests. Jess had stopped worrying that Matt would overdo things, more because he realised there was no way to prevent it than that he thought the danger was past.
The time stuck helpless had grated badly on Matt. He told Jess how much he’d hated it, then went on to say how worried he was with only the two of them in the ship.
“What if something happened to you, kid? What if you fall ill and we come under attack? Or you’re so ill the ship can’t help and we need to get you to a doctor? I need to be able to pilot the ship in an emergency.”
The arguments made sense to Jess. Together with what Ali had told him about not doing everything himself, he was sure having Matt able to fly the Wanderer was for the best.
“OK. I can get the ship to format some basic controls so you can manoeuvre, dock if needed. Weapons and combat will take a lot longer to learn and we’d need to be in real space for that time.”
“That’s fine, kid. Can we get started now? I’ve been sitting around doing nothing for far too long.”
“Sure. Let’s get up to the flight deck.”
* * *
Matt quickly learnt the controls. He said they weren’t that different from other ships he’d flown. For Jess the lessons took his mind off Sal and Ali, and off the reception they were likely to get at Stone Snake. Before long he was back to worrying, though, trying to find any flaws in Matt’s plan or any areas they could improve. He didn’t find any and that just worried him more, made him certain he was missing something obvious.
* * *
Jess was a solid knot of tension as they neared Stone Snake. Matt had decided they should drop into normal space a long way out, to let them study the station. Despite Matt’s assurances that they could pull this off Jess wasn’t sure they would.
“I’m so glad you’re with me,” he told his friend. “I couldn’t do this without you. I couldn’t have come up with this plan. Thanks.”
Matt patted Jess’s shoulder.
“You’re welcome, kid. You’re young, still quite naïve. Nothing wrong with that, especially growing up a slave. There’s lots of people out there who would take advantage of you, run rings around you. I aim to make sure that doesn’t happen, not to mention getting Sal and Ali back as soon as possible.
“We’ve got a few minutes till real space, then things are going to get intense pretty damn quickly. I’m going to grab a drink now. You should too. What do you want?”
“Just a juice, please.”
“Sure. Back in a minute.”
Matt returned just in time for the return to real space, handed Jess’s drink over and settled into his seat. As Matt had predicted, the mining complex was huge with a number of bulk freighters docked and many smaller ships and shuttles on the move in the area.
“Damn. Sometimes I hate being right. Right kid, better drink that quickly. Things are going to get real busy for us.”
Putting action to his words Matt downed his own drink in one. Jess followed suit. Suddenly the cabin started to spin around him and the floor felt like it was dropping away.
“Matt, I really don’t feel…” he started to say. Then everything went black.
Chapter 12
Jess groaned and struggled to open his eyes, blinking against the light. The first thing he managed to see was Matt’s face peering down at him. Not the most pleasant of sights, but one that was incredibly welcome.
“What… what happened?” he managed to croak out.
“You’re OK? I was getting worried about you there for a moment. Take it easy.”
Jess struggled into a sitting position with Matt’s help, then just stared at his surroundings. They were in some form of cell, his life as a prisoner meant he had no doubt about that. The room was about three metres by two with a hard bed that he lay on, a toilet that was little more than a hole in the floor and nothing else. The floor was stone as were the ceiling and the walls. A solid metal door was set into one wall with no window or bars. Two small gaps in the ceiling supplied stale air.
“What happened?” he asked again. “How did we get caught?”
“We didn’t. You did. By me.”
Matt looked sheepish as he spoke. Jess just stared at him in disbelief. After a pause the old man spoke again.
“You’re too trusting, kid. Much too trusting, and much too naïve. Someone was going to get the ship from you, or get you and so the ship under their control, and it was probably going to happen pretty soon. Just look at what happened to Sal and Ali. So if someone was going to get control of the ship I decided it should be us.”
“Us? What us?”
“I know Stone Snake well. I operated from here for years before I was captured and turned into a slave. I know the people here. They’re the closest thing to a family I’ve got. The place is more than a mining complex, much more. It’s a base for an organisation that gets involved in some less than legal actions.”
“What? Piracy? Slave trading?”
“Yes, and more. I told you before kid, this is a tough universe. The Empire makes sure of that. The rest of us make do as best we can. You and the ship are too good an opportunity to miss. If it makes you feel better, at least this way the Empire will never get control of the ship.”
“Nor will you. Do you realise what this means? Sal and Ali are going to be killed, and it will be your fault!”
“No they won’t. They’re safe. About the only chance of them being killed was if you’d started shooting up the station and hit the section they were in. Threatening to kill one of only two hostages is useless, a sign of amateurs. If they were serious the threat would have been to hurt them, maybe cut bits off. Something that put pressure on you without wasting a hostage.”
“What? But you said they were in danger, that we had to come here and… oh!”
“Exactly. I needed you to come here. You were kind enough to teach me the basic controls on the Wanderer, so once we dropped into normal space I gave you a drugged drink. I wasn’t sure if the food unit would make it without warning you, but it did.
“As soon as you were knocked out I contacted the station, explained about the ship and flew her in. For some reason the ship wouldn’t cycle the airlock with anyone else in it so I had to drag you out myself. No fun with the way I’m still feeling, I can tell you. Once outside the others took you and brought you down to this cell, which I should tell you is fully shielded. Your link to the ship is cut. We don’t want it powering up weapons or anything else unfriendly like that.”
Panicked, Jess reached out for the ship. He found nothing. That hit him harder than he could have guessed. He’d become so used to the ship being a mere thought away, enhancing and extending his abilities, that the absence was a huge shock. He reacted angrily.
“So you’ve got a useless ship that no one but you can get into and out of, and you can only handle basic flying. Well done you. Ali and Sal are safe and I don’t care what you do to me.”
Matt smiled, shaking his head.
“Afraid not. Ali and Sal are safe for now, but not for long. We know they’re your weak spot, we know that we need them, so a freighter launched for Glory Falls a little while ago packed with the prisoners from that place. It was accompanied by a number of fighters and larger combat ships. The good people of Glory Falls are going to get a chance to get their friends and families back. All they have to do is turn Sal and Ali over to my friends.
“To make sure they comply their people will be loaded into containers and shoved out in a variety of directions. Far too many for Glory Falls’ small fleet of ships to recover in the time available because the co
ntainers will have limited oxygen, very limited, and because any ship attempting to reach them will be blown out of existence by the fighters.
“So, soon after arriving, one of our ships will pick up Sal and Ali, then they will all return here. As for the people in the containers… well, they’ll be left as an example of what happens when people try to threaten us. Who knows, the station may be able to rescue one or two groups, if they’re lucky.”
Jess stared at Matt as if he was a stranger. How could he discuss the deaths of so many people, including children, so calmly?
“So is this what you always planned?” Jess asked. “Right from the start?”
“No. You saved me from captivity. I owe you for that. Then you saved my life by removing the cancer. I owe you for that too. Unfortunately I can’t repay you. Funny, lots of people seem to be saying that to you today.
“You brought this on yourself, you know. First off you picked up the kidnappers and nearly let them take over the ship. That gave me a worry I can tell you. Two of them knew me and would have told you the sort of company I used to keep. Spacing them from the airlock would have made the problem go away, but you were too soft.
“Then at Glory Falls you let Ali and Sal fall into the hands of the governor, let them be captured so they could be used against you. I could see you were never going to retain control of the ship. Someone was going to take it from you, and soon. The moment Stone Snake was mentioned I knew what I had to do. You might not appreciate it, kid, but I’m looking out for you. Your life won’t be so bad. They need you to pilot the ship. As long as you cooperate Ali and Sal will live safe lives too.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You don’t want to go that way. Trust me. First off it’ll be broken bones. Fingers, toes, arms, legs. Then burns and other torture. Then, if necessary, cutting bits off. Ears. Toes and fingers again. Then they’ll get inventive. None of this for you, of course, they need you whole. This will all be done to the girls.”
Wanderer's Odyssey - Books 1 to 3: The Epic Space Opera Series Begins Page 9
