“No,” Boyd said.
“You do care for her,” Kitzov said with a smile. He stood up. “It’s a pity you are a spy. I’d have liked her to find someone who made her happy.”
“I helped take down that Union cruiser, the Truth. I’ve been a loyal member of Poledri’s crew for months.”
“Yes, Poledri is tearing his ship apart right now, looking for any evidence you are a spy. If I thought he was complicit in your actions, even in the slightest, he knows he’d be dead too. I trust Poledri. I trust Enke. I don’t trust you. I like you—you have courage, you are good in a fight, you are a clever guy, you would have made a great Faction captain—but you are a Union spy and I’m going to have to kill you.”
Just then, the door to the small room slid open and in walked Poledri. As the door slid shut, Boyd saw Jemmy Noland standing outside, prevented from entering by the troopers guarding the door. Noland was grinning at Boyd through his nasty little teeth. He drew his finger across his throat and stared at Boyd. The door slid shut with a thud.
“What?” Kitzov said looking at Poledri.
Poledri nodded, then turned to scowl at Boyd. He pulled a small device from his pocket and dropped it on the table in front of Boyd.
“Union covert device,” Poledri said, snarling at Boyd. “It was well hidden—” He turned to Kitzov. “—but I found it. I’ve run a few tests on it. It’s a quantum twinned device, only able to send and receive to one other device. Its twinned nature means it’s impossible to intercept or otherwise detect communications. I can’t open the channel. I suspect Boyd can, though.”
Kitzov looked at Boyd. “This doesn’t look good for you.”
“I don’t know what that is,” Boyd said. “I’ve never seen it before.”
Poledri walked around the desk and grabbed Boyd by the hair. “On my ship. You spy on me on my own kravin ship!” He slammed Boyd hard into the table. Fury boiled over and he punched Boyd in the kidneys.
Boyd tried his best to ignore and endure the pain. It was impossible. Crying out caused his heart to sink. He hated thinking that anyone would have the pleasure of hearing him in pain almost more than he hated the pain itself.
“It’s not mine,” Boyd said as the punches rained in.
“It has got your DNA all over it,” Poledri said, stepping back, panting from the exertion.
“I’ve been alone on that ship for over a week, repairing it, making sure I could return to the Faction, return it to you. My DNA is going to be all over that ship.”
“He’s got you there,” Kitzov said. His voice light and with a hint of amusement.
Poledri was not amused. He stormed in and attacked Boyd again, grunting with every punch, punctuating the attack with shouted condemnation.
“You. Lying. Union. Spy. Scum. Bastard.”
Boyd collapsed forward onto the desk, blood and sweat pooling on the surface in front of his eyes. The door slid open again. Boyd heard Kitzov.
“Last chance, Boyd,” Kitzov said lightly.
Boyd tried to sit up, but the bruises hurt. He was sure he had a broken rib.
“I’m Faction. I’m no spy.”
Boyd was jerked up off the small stool. He was dragged around the desk and to the door. He could tell from the grunting that Jemmy Noland was forcing him along. His hands pulled up behind him, still bound. He barely kept his footing as he was forced along the corridor. The bindings at his feet made it impossible for him to take anything other than tiny steps.
His feet failed to keep up as Noland gave him a heavy shove. He saw the boots of a half-dozen people in the corridor of the Silence. Kitzov, Poledri, Noland and three Faction troopers. He was hauled back to his feet and thrown along the corridor, where he crashed to the deck once again.
Clambering up onto his knees, Boyd saw he was at a junction. A short corridor led off the main corridor to the small portside airlock. The inner hatch was already open, a red light flashing inside. The small porthole on the outer hatch showed black void beyond.
“Get up, Union,” Noland said as he kicked Boyd back to the deck.
A pair of troopers dragged Boyd to his feet. They dragged him the few meters to the airlock and threw him inside.
Boyd landed heavily on the cold airlock deck. He was hauled up and set on his knees, his back to the outer hatch. He looked up at Kitzov, Poledri and Noland on either side.
“Any last words?” Poledri said.
“I’m no spy.”
Noland stepped forward and drew his pulse pistol from his waistband. He primed the weapon.
“I really want to shoot you,” Noland said. “But a pulse round to the head would be a mercy. I am happy that we will let you choke on a lung full of vacuum. But I would enjoy pulling the trigger on your Union scum head.”
“I’m telling you, I’m no spy. I’m Faction.” He looked up at Poledri. “We’ve fought together. We’ve taken down Union ships together. How could I do that if I was Union?”
“We all do terrible things to advance our causes, Boyd,” Kitzov said. “But what was it you were doing amongst us? You had your chances to kill me, so I don’t think you are an assassin. Tell me, and I’ll make it a pulse round instead of airlocking you. They say the airlock is a nasty way to go. Your skin freezes while your blood boils in the low pressure of the vacuum. And it takes a long time. A long time to think about how much easier a pulse round to the head might have been.”
“I’m no spy,” Boyd repeated. There was no way he was going to betray the Union by admitting the truth.
Movement at the end of the corridor caught his eye. He looked up and saw Thresh being led to the airlock by a pair of troopers. She had been crying, her face and eyes were red, but she had a stern expression. She stared at Boyd. As she came closer, she shook her head.
“They tell me you are a spy,” she said.
“I’m no spy, Enke,” Boyd said. He breathed out heavily. “It’s not true. I am Faction.”
“You see, I told you. Kitzov, please,” she said. She grabbed Kitzov by the arm. A Faction trooper pulled her off.
Kitzov reached out and placed a hand gently on the back of her head. “He’s a spy. He must have had help.” He pulled her to him. “Tell me, Enke. You’ve been with him, alone, for a long time. Has he done anything to make you suspect him, anything at all?”
She looked down at Boyd just as he looked at her. She had walked in on him when he had been in contact with Featherstone. She had made comments, innocent enough but with a hint that she suspected he was not all he said he was. Boyd knew Enke was true Faction.
She turned to Kitzov. “No. Nothing. He can’t be Union.”
“I’ve seen the way you look at him, Enke,” Kitzov said. “I hate to take something away from you that makes you happy. You are like a daughter to me…” He turned on Boyd. “But he is a spy.”
Kitzov reached out and tapped the control panel. The inner hatch sealed shut.
Enke cried out, her voice cut off as the airlock sealed. Boyd was now trapped and alone in the small airlock with the red flashing light flickering around the small space, throwing his shadow across the inner hatch. Through the inner porthole, he saw Enke being held back from the door. He saw Poledri, his face stern, eyes fixed on Boyd. Noland was grinning, looking at Boyd and miming that it was about to get very cold.
Then Kitzov stepped up to the airlock.
Boyd closed his eyes. He had not taken this job thinking it would be easy, and he always knew it could kill him. He didn’t mind so much losing and dying, but he did feel remorse that he had not finished the job, and that he had failed to get revenge for his brother’s death. He wished he had taken the shot and killed Kitzov—disobeying his orders and forgetting his oath to the Blue Star Marines. He could have killed Kitzov, had his revenge, and he’d have been no worse off than he was now.
Kitzov’s hand reached forward toward the inner control panel. Boyd closed his eyes and prepared to die.
The sound of the hatch opening and the slight rus
h of air sent his pulse rate soaring. He felt his heart skip a beat and his body tense up.
Then he heard his executioners. Noland laughing. The troopers walking forward. Boyd relaxed, collapsing. He heard Thresh shouting angrily. He looked up to see her lashing out at Kitzov, a trooper holding her back.
“You bastard,” she said. “Don’t do that to me again.”
Kitzov shrugged her off and leaned down to Boyd. “No, an execution out here would be too hidden. Better to let everyone see. The Faction needs to know what we are up against. The Union will try to tear us apart. But if we are united and stay true to the Faction, we will not be beaten. There will be a trial. Law will prevail, Faction law. You will face the evidence, and then face judgment, and if found guilty, you will die, Boyd. Justice will be the same for you as it is for Faction prisoners at the hands of the Union. You will swing. Take him.”
As Boyd was dragged along the corridor away from the airlock, he heard Noland and Poledri argue with Kitzov.
“He is guilty. Kill him now. That is Faction justice. Make a holo-recording and send it to all Faction captains. They can spread it across the Faction settlements throughout the system.”
“No,” Kitzov said. “We are not pirates and terrorists like they say we are. We are Faction, a legitimate power in this system. We will do things properly and have a proper trial, then all people of the Faction will know what we stand for. And the Union will know we are a proper authority and they will have to deal with us as such, not as a scattered band of criminals. I will make the Faction a legitimate power. That is my one aim for our group.”
Their argument faded as he was taken to a med-bay. The Silence med-bay was identical to the one on his own ship, the Resolute. The Silence was a stolen Union frigate, and Boyd was familiar with the layout.
A medic and a drone were waiting at an open med-pod. Now Boyd knew what his fate had been all along. The execution had only ever been an attempt to break him. A medically-induced coma and transport to some Faction settlement for trial had been Kitzov’s plan all along.
The trooper picked Boyd up and laid him in the pod. His hands and feet were still bound, and he could only offer a token struggle. The strapping in the med-pod was applied and it held him down, straps first across his chest and legs held him, then across his forehead completed the immobilization.
The drone closed the pod and the medic tapped away at the interface. Boyd wondered briefly what would await him when he awoke—a braying Faction mob, a mockery of a courtroom with a complicit Faction judge ready to hand down a conviction and sentence of death by hanging.
The thoughts drifted away like a ship lost in the void as Boyd slipped from consciousness.
9
Kitzov watched the pod containing the sleeping spy from outside the med-bay. The pristine chamber was high-end medical tech, the best the Faction could provide, augmented with stolen Union tech. Poledri stood alongside him, the old pirate seething.
“I don’t know why we don’t just kill the scroat,” Poledri said with venom edging every word. “We can make it a long, painful death. Sometimes airlocking is too good for them.”
“I am not killing him,” Kitzov said firmly, his eyes fixed on the unconscious Boyd. “Not yet, anyway. He’s worth more to us as a Union undercover agent in a big showy trial. We’ll cast it across the Faction. Everyone will see we have legitimate legal authority. No more will those subjugated and oppressed by the Union be seen as or feel like second-class people. We are Faction. We are free, and we will defend our state from the totalitarian Union.”
“Well, I would kill him,” Poledri snorted in fury.
“If you like…” Kitzov turned to Poledri. “I’ll appoint you executioner. We will hang him after the guilty verdict is passed down by our judges.”
Poledri looked at Kitzov and gave a short nod of acceptance.
“Be my honor and my pleasure, sir.”
Both turned as they saw Thresh come along the corridor escorted by a med-drone. Poledri stepped over to her.
“You are looking great, Thresh. Ready to get back on the Fist?”
“She’s not going anywhere,” Kitzov said. He wrapped an arm around Thresh as she was escorted into the med-bay. “She still has injuries from the Battle at Kalis LZ.”
“We’ll take good care of her,” Poledri said.
“I’m sure you would, but a few hours in a high-end med-pod here on the Silence and she’ll be fighting fit again.”
Thresh walked slowly. She looked at Boyd.
“I can’t believe he is a spy,” she said. “He deceived us all.”
Kitzov helped Thresh up into the pod. As she lay back, she again looked at Boyd in the pod next to hers.
“Don’t worry about him,” Kitzov said. “He’s out cold until we wake him. He won’t deceive anyone else ever again.”
The drone activated the pod, and the cover slid over Thresh and sealed shut.
“Do you think she’s—” Poledri asked.
“No.” Kitzov turned on Poledri, fury in his eyes. “She is Faction, more than anyone here. She wouldn’t betray me. I know her better than any of you.” He turned back to Thresh and laid a hand over the top of the pod. “She will be out for an hour, two at most. You don’t have facilities like this on the Fist. Speaking of which…” He turned and faced Poledri.
Poledri nodded, straightening up. “Yes, sir. I’ll get back aboard the Fist right now. Just let me know when I can have my engineer back.”
Kitzov looked down at Thresh. She was motionless now that the induced coma had taken hold. She looked relaxed, calm. He remembered back to the first time he had met her. She had been nervous, a lost child amongst pirates. He had seen a hint of her talent in the way she fixed an aging pulse pistol. She had looked relaxed when absorbed in the work and then fearful when she handed it over to her pirate captor. Kitzov knew he had to take her for his own. A lost child, safe with him.
He had tutored her, allowed her to develop her natural gift with machines, showing her spacecraft power systems, weapon systems. She had absorbed it all. Then he had blooded her and brought her into the Faction, put a gun in her hand and picked out a target—a Union scumbag that would have killed them all.
He remembered how nervous she had been and how upset she had been afterwards. He promised her it would only take a few more kills for her to get used to it, but her pitiful, sorrowful face had touched him, and he never sent her to kill again.
Now she looked at ease.
Whoever her parents had been, they could not have treated her any better than Kitzov had. He was pretty sure they had abandoned her or sold her. He had kept her safe and made her one of the best engineers in the Faction.
A message appeared on his wrist-mounted holo-stage from the Silence’s flight deck. His flight deck crew reported that the ship was ready to get underway.
“Okay,” Kitzov said, looking down at Thresh again. “Detach soft docking tunnel from the Odium Fist. I’ll take the command chair. Hold until I get there.”
Kitzov turned away from the sleeping young woman and stepped out of the brightly lit med-bay into the corridors of the Silence. He walked slowly toward the flight deck. He needed to choose a heading, a location for the trial of the Union spy. It needed to be somewhere hidden enough that the Union could not intervene. It needed to be open enough that the Faction could see everything. With a few corridors to go before he reached the flight deck, a ship-wide alert pulled him from his thoughts. Red lights flashed along the corridor.
“What is it?” he spoke into his holo-stage as he broke into a run.
“Incoming signal. A single ship. Approaching at speed.”
Kitzov ran into the flight deck and saw the image of the incoming ship on the main holo-stage.
“Skarak,” he said.
He climbed up into his command chair and opened a channel to the Fist. “Poledri, we’ve got company.”
“I see it. A Skarak warship. I thought we’d seen the last of them when the Unio
n kicked their scaly hides off of Kalis. I think with our two ships, we can take it down.”
“One thing at a time, Poledri.” Kitzov accessed the navigational systems and looked for a friendly Faction settlement with a sturdy orbital defense.
“Asteroid settlement, Gemini, in the belt,” Kitzov said. “Make that your heading. Send a message to Faction defense at Gemini that we will be approaching at speed.”
Kitzov sent the coordinates to the pilot. This was like the old days, Kitzov managing his flight deck, but this time, he was running from an alien invader and not a Union cruiser or some private hunter. The drive on the Silence activated with only the slightest of background hums. In the old days, on his old ship—a stolen Union corvette he had named the Renegade—the noise of the drive powering up had been dreadful, and the vibration of the deck plates before the hull stability field kicked in had been terrifying and mesmerizing. He remembered the way the deck flexed and heaved only to snap back to perfectly rigid in a second. It had been amazing every time, and he knew that any time the Renegade powered up, it could pull itself apart. What a ship.
The holo-stage showed the Silence move away from the Fist, leaving the battered old raider behind.
“Problems, Poledri?” Kitzov said, watching the Skarak ship close in on the Fist.
Poledri appeared on the Silence holo-stage. The lighting on the Fist’s flight deck was dimming and brightening rapidly.
“No, sir,” Poledri said as he was buffeted about in his command chair. “The Fist is a bit cold. The reactor is a little out of symmetry, but the engineer said it’ll come good any moment.”
And at that moment, the lights on the Fist’s flight deck stabilized. The image of the Fist on the holo-stage showed it accelerate and catch up to the Silence.
The Skarak ship was closing in fast. Kitzov watched the range counter fall rapidly, and he realized he could not escape without a fight.
“Poledri, you got weapons over there?”
“Yes, sir. Hail cannon are active, but not much ammo. Spitz guns charged and standing by.”
Invasion (Blue Star Marines Book 3) Page 7
