Orphans of War

by Cory Travis

  Chapter Three

   

  Even with the upgraded Jupiter Drive – named for the man who invented it, Carl Jupiter – it still took the Spirit of Freedom nearly two full days to reach Arrowhead. The space station, resembling its namesake, loomed large out the window when the Jupiter Drive automatically disengaged. The station, situated atop a massive mined out asteroid, provides a safe haven for those that do not want to be found by the Alliance – that is as long as you pay the crime lords running Arrowhead well enough to be left alone.

  “Are you sure about this, Duncan?” the look on Matt’s face was one of such childhood innocence that Duncan almost changed his mind about Arrowhead. They could run – go to one of the thousand working colonies and just fade away into completely different people as they started over. Because that had worked out so well for Duncan the first time around – no, new identities wouldn’t solve anything this time; Matt needed his family, or what was left of it.

  “This is where your uncle wanted us to meet him,” Duncan answered at last, checking through the list of ships showing up on his scanners, so far the name Finn had given him hadn’t shown up. “I just hope he doesn’t make us wait too long – last thing we need to do right now is stay in one place for too long.”

  “Especially this place,” Matt added with obvious concern.

  The blinking light on the center console was accompanied by the steady beep indicating that they were being contacted by somebody – Arrowhead Security, Duncan concluded, taking a moment to gather his thoughts before hitting the communication button.

  “This is the Spirit of Freedom requesting permission to land,” Duncan answered.

  “What’s your business here?” a gruff voice crackled through the comm.

  “Rendezvous location for a personal matter,” Duncan answered, not seeing any reason to lie since this was a popular destination for various illegal activity requiring quick drops and anonymous dealings. “We’ll be in and out in less than a couple hours,” Duncan added, hoping the gruff sounding individual on the other end of the comm would give them a spot close to the exit for a quick escape if necessary.

  “Set down in docking bay Echo, slot seventeen and prepare for inspection,” the voice crackled back and disconnected.

  “Thank you,” Duncan responded sarcastically to himself.

   

  Piloting the Spirit in to the docking bay wasn’t a difficult task, but the mass of flowing ships coming in and out made the journey slow and tedious. Docking bay Echo was set up to house thirty small to medium craft in two rows of fifteen. Duncan frowned as he noted that slot seventeen was squarely situated in the back of the docking bay, next to last on the starboard side.

  The exit ramp, halfway down the port side of the little ship, lowered as Duncan and Matt emerged, surveying the hanger bay. A large bellied, large bearded man flanked by a much younger man, clean shaven and in good physical condition approached them. The larger man carried a clipboard in his hand and a large money satchel around his waist.

  “Docking fee is two-hundred,” the large man stated with a lack of interest born from seeing so much cash and knowing full well he’d never keep a dime of it.

  “Two-hundred?” Matt exclaimed with disbelief. He didn’t know what a fair amount would be, but he figured that two-hundred was a lot higher than it should be.

  “That’s right,” the bearded man answered with the same lack of enthusiasm, “and I’ll need to see some identification.”

  “What do you say to three-hundred,” Duncan handed the man his credit card, “and we forget the identification check?” Normally the credit card would give away Duncan’s identity anyway, but this one was set-up a long time ago to be completely anonymous.

  The bearded man looked at the card with such a sad longing that Duncan knew something was amiss immediately; even before he started to back away.

  “We take that kind of thing pretty serious mister,” the young man spoke up for the first time, his gun already drawn. “You’ll have to come with me.”

  “Hey, you can’t blame a guy for trying,” Duncan raised his hands in mock defeat, but took a step towards the young man.

  “Uh, Duncan,” the worry in Matt’s voice was enough to pull Duncan’s attention away from the young man just long enough to notice the six other armed guards approaching, four from his left coming from the other row of ships along the far side of the hanger, and two more coming up from behind the Spirit.

  Duncan grabbed the young man’s wrist, twisted and pulled in one swift motion, yanking the gun free and throwing an arm around the young man’s neck as Duncan brought the gun to the young man’s temple.

  “Get behind me,” Duncan ordered Matt as he swung his hostage around, putting his back toward the back wall of the hanger trying to keep an eye on everyone approaching.

  “It would be in your best interest to instruct your friends to lose their weapons,” Duncan hissed into the young man’s ear.

  “Not going to happen,” the young man retorted with a steal resolve.

  “Oh, it’s going to happen alright. We’re getting on our ship and leaving,” Duncan shot back as he forced the young man toward the Spirit.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” a much older man who’s military haircut and athletic body revealed his past. “We let you leave and we answer to Kay – that’s not going to happen.”

  “He’s right,” the young man in Duncan’s hold answered. “A quick death is preferable to what Kay would do to anyone who failed.”

  Duncan’s brain went into overdrive as he attempted to conjure a way to get out of them out of here. Who was Kay? And why was everyone so afraid of him? These were questions that would have to wait for later. Right now he had more important things to worry about as he tried to move for the ship and the guards moved toward him.

  “Last chance,” Duncan warned with all the menace he could put into his voice. “Back off!”

  The older guard just smirked at what he knew to be an empty threat – his prey was cornered.

  Duncan let out a groan of pain before his body went limp and he hit the ground, a tranquilizer dart sticking out of his back.

   

  After Duncan hit the deck unconscious, he and Matt were unceremoniously thrown into what one of the guards had referred to as the dungeon - Matt could see why as they were led down steal corridors and placed in a rickety elevator before reaching a hallway with metal cells on each side, it felt like they were in the deepest dungeon of some ancient castle long forgotten. The back wall of the cell was rock, part of the asteroid that Arrowhead was built into, giving it even more of the dungeon feel.

  They hadn’t been in the cell long when a small hatch slid open in the bottom of the metal cell door and a metal tray was slid in with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a kids juice drink – it actually made Matt feel a little better, maybe they weren’t in quite as much trouble as he thought they were.

  Matt was nearly halfway through devouring the sandwich when the door slid open, the light streaming in from the hallway made it difficult for him to see as someone walked in. His hand began to shake as his mind raced from the possibilities of a cutthroat pirate for a cell mate, to child slavery in service of the mysterious Kay.

  The door slid back closed, shutting out the light and allowing Matt to see the strikingly beautiful woman standing in front of him for the first time. Her long black hair braided down her back nearly to her waist matched her all black uniform, which while being nearly skin tight still managed to convey a sense of professionalism. The expression on her dark chocolate colored face was almost motherly as she looked at Matt, but quickly changed and flashed through a flurry of emotions as she took in Duncan; her face went from surprise to worry to anger in the blink of an eye. But the thing that made Matt wince was the way such a beautiful and loving face could morph into pure rage.

  She must of saw the fear in Matt’s eyes as she looked back to him again, almost quizzically, as her face melte
d back to the motherly concern she had shown upon entering.

  “Are you going to kill us?” Matt asked, unable to shake the look of rage from his memory.

  “Kill you? No. No one will hurt you here,” she answered, looking back to Duncan without quite so much anger as curiosity this time.

  “Do you know Duncan?” Matt asked.

  “So it’s Duncan now?” she pondered that for a moment as her eyes focused on some long forgotten memory only she could see. “Well, I guess you could say we are old friends,” she answered with a reassuring smile that was anything but reassuring.

  “Do you always throw your ‘friends’ into the dungeon?” Matt demanded, feeling some of the anger he felt earlier about his parents creeping back – it was making him fearless, even against this dark woman who slightly reminded him of a spider about to devour her prey.

  “What’s your name?” she asked somewhat amused.

  “Matthew; but everybody calls me Matt.”

  “Matthew – a fine name,” she said sincerely. “Well Matthew, as soon as your friend here wakes up we can move you upstairs to my office where it’ll be a little more comfortable. Until then, why don’t you tell me why you two are here?”

  “We are supposed to meet my uncle here,” Matt answered, remembering Duncan’s earlier answer of telling the docking agent they were here for a rendezvous.

  “I see, well we’ll have to see if we can make that happen, assuming Duncan here doesn’t try to pull any more stunts,” She answered with a reassuring smile that seemed less threating and more genuine. “Maybe we could have had a more civil reunion – or maybe not.”

  Matt studied the woman sitting in front of him. He may have been young, but Matt could still read people better than most adults and he could see that she obviously knew Duncan and cared for him a great deal – or at least she had at one time. Something bad had happened in their past, Matt wasn’t sure what, but there seemed to be some bad blood there. There was something else about this woman as well, a certain authority present in the way she spoke and the way she acted.

  “Are you Kay?” Matt asked, certain that he already knew the answer.

  “Karina,” she replied.

  For the next half hour Matt ate his sandwich and drank his juice as he asked questions about the station that Karina happily answered and questions about her and Duncan which she quickly sidestepped.

  Duncan groaned as he rolled from his stomach to his side and pushed himself to a sitting position, rubbing his eyes and shaking his head as he tried to focus.

  “Welcome back Roland,” Karina stated with a smirk of satisfaction. “I mean, Duncan.”

  “Hello Karina,” was the only response Duncan could get out through the haze still fogging his conscience.

  “So, do you want to fill me in on what kind of trouble you’ve gotten yourself into this time? Last time I saw you I thought it was the last. You remember - when you and your buddy Trent blasted your way past those Alliance slugs and left me on my own. Where is Trent anyway? You two were inseparable – I couldn’t even pull you apart.”

  Matt started to weep almost uncontrollably as Karina looked on him with both puzzlement and total helplessness.

  “Trent was his dad,” Duncan answered as he wrapped the boy in his arms trying his best to comfort the poor child who had held the majority of his grief in to the bursting point. “He died two nights ago.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Karina said with true sincerity meant for both of them, as she rubbed Matt’s back and rested her other hand on Duncan’s arm.