by Nate Duke
The Cassocks were former mercenaries who’d abandoned the European Front. They spoke either German or French, like most of Western Europe had taken as their official languages. The European Coalition had signed peace with the English a few years before, but the mercenaries had enjoyed war too much to stop fighting. They’d offered their services to the Japs, then the Caliph, and now they fought for the new Soviets. They were doing better than the rest of us at propaganda through the terror they inflicted on their enemies, but none of us was going to acknowledge it publicly.
We’d boarded the nearest Cassock frigate through their main hangar. We’d used their own transport shuttles and uniforms, and they’d allowed us in. Their shuttles’ security systems weren’t well-protected, and our engineers had accessed them without much difficulty. I sometimes wonder if engineers in both sides sometimes leave backdoors in case they ever find themselves in my situation. If engineers from all sides leave small holes in their ships’ systems, no engineer will ever be left without a way out. Call it professional courtesy.
Either that, or engineers were getting dumber and dumber.
Out of my crew, only five of us still wore the Coalition’s clothing. We’d told the Cassocks that I was going to surrender the ship, so I’d be taken straight to the bridge to hand my sword to the enemy captain. We were armed to our teeth, but none of the Cassocks expected their own men to let their prisoners carry any weapons. As soon as we got to the bridge, we were going to attack the enemy and sabotage the frigate before they warned anyone.
Easy as pie, right?
Instead of remaining on the outer deck to go to the bridge, two Cassocks joined us and guided us belowdecks. Cassock frigates were mostly made of dark metallic colors, lit by red lighting now that they’d beaten to quarters.
Everyone sings songs about glorious battles, about defeating great enemies against all odds. They’ve never been in a real fight.
My men didn’t dare to breathe in case the enemy discovered our plans.
There’s nothing quieter than the silence before battle. It’s a blood-freezing kind of silence. Everyone remembers and honors their mortality. You need to hide your position like a poker player hides his cards. Being quiet is of little use – it won’t help if you’re caught – but it sort of puts you into the mindset.
You talk about heroism in battle? I’m too busy trying to stay alive.
The Cassocks entered the axial elevators with us. The two Cassocks were square-jawed and with dangerous expressions, genetically enhanced to increase their height and muscles. One of them stared at me from above and sneered. He knew the fate that awaited me.
He didn’t know the fate that awaited him.
As soon as the elevator’s doors opened and the Cassocks walked out, I took out my electric gun and zapped both Cassocks. They dropped onto the floor and shook with the power of my electric gun.
Sneer at me again if you dare.
Flanagan stared at the men by our feet and let out a low, admiring whistle. Didn’t he think I could shoot two unguarded men with their backs turned to me? Engineers are capable of shooting at men’s backs. I’m less capable of facing someone twice my size if I’m unarmed, but I manage quite well against unsuspecting men.
I split my men: Gomez took some to find the brig, my engineers left to place explosives at strategic locations around the frigate, and the rest needed to find the bridge and seize control of it. Flanagan, Kozinski, York and I would take care of the unconscious Cassocks.
I took one of the men’s legs and told Flanagan to help me drag him.
“Aye, sir.” Flanagan nodded and pulled the man’s arms.
We dragged them into an empty storeroom and locked them up. When Kozinski and York took care of the second man, Flanagan looked at me even more confused. He kept his jaw pressed tightly and didn’t speak a word.
Oh, right. Naval hierarchy stops him from speaking.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Well…” Flanagan hesitated, but he finally spoke up. “Shouldn’t we be killing them, sir? They would’ve killed us. Why don’t we return the favor?”
Because we were going to need them as hostages if things didn’t go well. Four other frigates orbited around the North Star with their arsenals ready. Even if we got rid of everyone aboard the ship, there was no way of using our weapons against four other frigates. We lacked the manpower and the defense systems, so we had to resort to a prisoner exchange. The Cassocks were tough, but they wouldn’t want us to kill off their men or to use them as cannon fodder. Besides, we could always coerce some of our prisoners to convince the frigates that they’d captured the North Star. If we killed them off, we lost our leverage.
Leverage? Tricking the enemy? I was an officer! Why did I think like a pirate?
I should’ve gone into politics instead of joining the Navy. No, wait. I lacked the powerful contacts to get anywhere in politics. I didn’t have contacts in the Navy either; that’s why I was an engineer and I would never be on track to become a captain. Not that I wanted to, though. Captaining a ship was tiring and full of subterfuges and trickery. Computers were simple and direct: they either did what you wanted them to do, or they didn’t. Mostly the latter, but at least they told you how you were doing.
Once we were done with the men, I put on a cassock so that nobody paid attention to us before we were ready to fight.
I sent York and Kozinski to disable some of the local control panels and intercoms, and Flanagan and I would take care of the rest. We needed to block as many communications systems as possible to blind the enemy once we attacked. The sneakier, the better.
The men lacked the engineering skills and we didn’t have enough time to disable everything manually, so we resorted to convincing the machines to stop working using old-fashioned means. That is, we used a classic version of blunt object diplomacy. Kozinski took a hammer and smashed it against anything that resembled an intercom or a computer. He was a born diplomat.
I took a screwdriver and picked the neater route by unscrewing the intercoms and cutting the cables. My persuasion techniques lacked Kozinski’s effectiveness, but I’d be able to turn everything back on if we captured the frigate instead of destroying her. Flanagan flanked me and guarded my back while we disabled the communications systems.
As if danger somehow revolved around us, my instincts heightened. It’s the feeling of being watched, of something or someone waiting for their chance to hurt you, to hunt you down. Call me paranoid, but I was an outcast at school, and nobody wants to be a loner in modern schools. Rich kids can be very cruel towards middle-class outcasts. A loner’s survival instincts kick in a lot sooner; it’s the only way to dodge electric swords whenever the other kids wear their family’s formal clothing.
I took my gun out and Flanagan mirrored me. He didn’t joke; he didn’t make fun of me for being too prudent. He simply followed after me, unbuttoned his double-breasted jacket’s top button, and got ready for the dangers that awaited us. I looked like a clumsy kid holding a weapon for the first time, but Flanagan looked like a secret agent, holding his gun with both hands and aiming it at the ceiling. If any Cassocks had noticed me, they’d have laughed instead of considering me a threat.
Why didn’t I look more credible? I had a gun too!
Several of the lights were turned off on the deck. Only the red alert lights guided us. Everything remained silent and static. I’d never seen such a dark corridor aboard a starship.
Something drew me to one of the cabins near the axial elevators. The door wasn’t fully closed, and the lights from the inside filtered through the side of the door. Doors aboard a starship rarely remained open; it was a matter of neatness and security.
I walked towards the door slowly, gripping the gun in my hand hard enough to cause me blisters the following morning. Someone could be there. The sensors on the door noticed my stolen ID card in my pants’ back pocket and slid the door open without requiring an auth code. Inside, we only found several empty bunks
.
I finally breathed and walked back out, chuckling. I was officially paranoid. Flanagan breathed too. He’d probably expected me to find a dragon or something.
“Let’s seal the area room by room,” I said. “We don’t want anyone running around while we―”
Someone zapped my back with an electric sword. My whole body shook, sending waves of pain through every inch of my body. I shouted and fell forward, but placed a hand on the wall and stopped myself from hitting the ground. The man hit Flanagan too, and he fell onto the floor and shook uncontrollably.
I turned around to face a man dressed in the classic olive cassock. He’d gone for our defenseless backs, expecting to knock us out without a fight. An honorable approach to warfare in Cassock terms.
The man was almost as tall as Kozinski, with large hands and an angry face partly hidden by a dense red beard.
Our mission wasn’t going to be a walk in the park.
I still held my gun in my hand. He had nothing to do against me with an electric sword, but he didn’t seem to care. His gun hung from his hip, and he didn’t try to take it out.
I tried to aim the gun at him. He grinned behind his dense beard and zapped my hand. Wham!
Damn him! It stung like mad. My gun dropped onto the floor with a loud clank.
I should’ve fallen onto the floor like Flanagan, but the electric shocks weren’t working on me. The Cassock was confused and lowered his gaze to the sword as if it had stopped working.
It was my chance!
I lunged forward, curled my fists into tight balls, and went straight for the man’s face. He didn’t react on time. I brought my right fist onto his right temple and hit his stomach with my left hand.
Ow! My knuckles!
I shook my hands to try to ease the pain. I must’ve broken something.
The Cassock stumbled back but didn’t fall. His face hardened and he roared something in German, the mercenaries’ official language.
“I guess that you aren’t complimenting my fighting skills,” I said without thinking. Hey, don’t blame me for trying. Redbeard was twice my size, and he was annoyed. I preferred to waste time until I came up with something.
Sneaky, you say? Engineers aren’t sneaky; we base our choices on probabilities. Fighting a man twice your size is stupid unless you skew the odds in your favor. If it’s a fair fight, you have nothing to do. And, honestly, you won’t last long in the Navy if you keep joining fights you can’t win.
The Cassock wasn’t going to let me stop and think, though. He was eager to snap someone’s neck. Flanagan was curling up in pain on the floor and I was standing up. Can you imagine whom the Cassock wanted to kill first?
Flanagan groaned on the floor and tried to stand up, but his muscles failed and he continued shaking even more. His help would’ve come in handy. Curse those electric swords.
The Cassock didn’t relax. Instead, he turned off his electric sword and threw it a few feet away. He rolled up his cassock’s sleeves and stepped dangerously towards me.
“Is it too late to start afresh?” I said. “Or to turn to diplomatic negotiations? I’m better at diplomacy than at fighting. I have the keys to the Star wardroom’s liquor cabinet. No? How about you turn around and count to 10? It’ll make the hunt more fun for you if you give me a head start. Look at my muscles.” I raised an arm in the air and squished my biceps. I wasn’t fat, but I wasn’t lean either. “Look, you’ll crush me in two moves, maybe one. Won’t it make you feel like a bully? No? Then it should; you should be ashamed. Very ashamed.”
The man continued advancing. He didn’t care about what I said. For all I knew, he wasn’t understanding me. I tried using sign language, but either my signs were incomprehensible or he didn’t care.
I raised my fists before my face. I’ve never been a good fighter, but I’d rather cover my brain than the rest of my organs. You can rebuild most organs artificially, but memories can’t be recovered without toying with your brain cells. And besides, brain surgery involves relying on neuroscientists. I’ve seen them work, and they base their science on trial and error; mostly error.
I know; I shouldn’t trail off when my life’s at stake. I keep doing it, don’t I?
The Cassock raised both hands, slowly surrounding my head. I tried to punch his arms away with my hands, but it was useless. He smashed both of my temples at once, blacking out my sight. I gasped for air and tried to react. I punched his stomach, but my knuckles got the worst part.
He didn’t give me time to catch my breath. Instead, he punched me hard on my stomach, then pushed me against a wall and grabbed me by the neck. He casually leaned the other hand on the wall to prove that he wasn’t even trying.
His grip slowly suffocated me.
I gripped his hand instinctively with mine and tried to pull his fingers off my neck. It was useless. He had more strength in one hand than I had in both.
I was back in school again, but he was trying to make me suffer and then kill me. Bullies at school omitted the killing part.
I struggled with him, but he kept the pressure around my neck constant, reducing my oxygen levels. He wasn’t trying to knock me unconscious; he was going to kill me slowly before going for the rest of my men.
Dying of suffocation really sucks. Doesn’t even give you the chance to say your last words properly.
“Thanks for the neck massage,” I said between struggles. “Mind working on another area?”
The corners of Redbeard’s mouth twitched upwards into a fleeting smile. He did understand me; he was simply ignoring whatever I said.
I wasn’t going to die without a struggle.
I curled my hands into tight balls and punched him in the ribs, then again, then again. My knuckles hurt even more, but he didn’t even move. He didn’t try to block my fists.
Curse my three-week officers’ boot camp. Why hadn’t anyone prepared me to fight men twice my size? I’d only learned to march, to salute, and to drink myself to unconsciousness whenever the vets invaded our barracks.
When I was about to lose consciousness, Flanagan stood up, stepped behind the Cassock, put a plasma gun against his forehead, and shot him dead.
I gasped for air and recovered my breath. I still felt the Cassock’s hand around my neck as if he continued strangling me. I coughed and struggled to breathe normally.
I know I should’ve fallen with the electric shocks, but adrenaline had saved me.
Whew. It had been closer than I would’ve liked.
“You okay, sir?” Flanagan stared at me as if expecting me to get a panic attack and lose control.
I couldn’t speak yet; I was too busy getting oxygen back into my lungs. I nodded and gestured at him to wait.
He did. He didn’t smirk or poke fun at me like I’d have expected. He remained alert in case another Cassock noticed us. He wasn’t going to let anyone else catch us by surprise.
Once I’d recovered my senses, my eyes stuck to the Cassock’s lifeless body. Redbeard’s blood gurgled out of his head and his inert eyes stared into emptiness. I gulped, but I couldn’t stop looking at him. I could’ve been in his place if I hadn’t been luckier.
The blood stains unsettled my stomach. Officers aren’t supposed to feel bad when they see blood, but I did.
I’d never killed anyone before, and I hadn’t seen any violent deaths. This had been close to a front-row seat to witness an execution. Some people paid to get those seats in public hangings, but I’d always avoided getting too close to the Reaper in case he wanted to take more than one person at once.
“First blood, eh?” Flanagan broke the rules and smashed a hand against my shoulder to bring me back to reality. “No worries, sir. You’ll get used to it. Couldn’t do much against our old buddy here, other than letting him hit you. Almost believed it myself that you’re used to fighting. And an engineer, no less.” He nodded to himself approvingly. “Taunted the Cassock as if you’d done it all your life.”
I’d earned several points wi
th Flanagan with my actions. Officers rarely cared about earning the crew’s respect, but veterans like Flanagan mark the difference between being followed in battle and being ignored. Small differences define great victories. I was an inexperienced lieutenant, an engineer, and I was going to need all the help I could get.
Flanagan’s heavy hand came down hard onto my shoulder twice more. “Don’t let the lads know that you’re battle green or they won’t listen to you. They’ll do well to listen; you’ve got the fight in you. Just have to let it out.”
Flanagan stared at me with worry. Was he waiting for me to curl up into a fetal position and cry myself to death? The North Star had me and a preteen midshipman as her officers. I had no other choice; nobody wants to rely on kids when weapons and Cassocks are involved. I wasn’t fit for the job, but I had to keep the men alive and rescue the others. The Cassocks weren’t going to kill our men if I could help it.
“Let’s call the others,” I said. “I don’t want anyone relaxing before we’re done.”
Flanagan glanced at me and followed my eyes towards the Cassock. He didn’t believe that I wasn’t faking my strength.
“What is it, Flanagan?” I asked him.
He hesitated and looked at the Cassock. He shook his head and scratched his scruffy grey stubble. “Don’t you need to wash your face, sir? Breathe some air? Sit down for a few minutes? Throw up? You have drops of blood everywhere. More like buckets of blood. Not sure if you’ll want to walk around like that.”
That explained the smell of iron.
Certain ancient cultures used to place their enemies’ blood over their skin and clothes. Blood showed their power and their strength and warned their remaining enemies of the dangers that awaited them. I’d always admired warrior cultures, but I was no warrior. Blood is icky, full of diseases, and it sticks everywhere.
Posh officers were afraid of letting anyone see them with a stained uniform, so they got distracted cleaning their clothes and died too frequently for my taste. I wasn’t going to put more odds against me.
