Across Our Stars: Victor

by A. Payne

  The ship had sustained heavy damage during the space battle, but Lopez’s death remained the priority matter. Ethan valued people over property.

  Unfortunately, Saskia didn’t feel the same way.

  “This will not hurt me a bit. I cannot say the same for you.” Nisrine lowered both hands to Saskia’s head and cradled her face with both thumbs against the traitor’s cheekbones. Nisrine anchored her head in place and prohibited any movement.

  They all knew when the real work began once Saskia’s terrified shrieks began to reverberate through the room. She thrashed on the examination table and her pupils dilated as her memories were rifled through.

  The use of telepathic abilities lacked pretty physical effects to mark Nisrine’s progress; she didn’t glow, shimmer, or appear any different while invading Saskia’s mind. Instead, they were treated to the spectacle of the psychic victim convulsing and screaming while Nisrine calmly leaned over her without loosening her grip. “Good. I hope it hurts. I hope it hurts badly,” Nisrine said.

  Victor involuntarily shrank back a step. Saskia’s cries of pain were like nails on a chalkboard, threatening to rupture his eardrums.

  Nearly twenty years ago, as a new candidate for the Naval Academy, he and a dozen other of the Empire’s finest had each spent a half hour with the school’s psychic.

  He didn’t remember her name anymore, but he would always remember her face and the pitying look in her eyes when her hands lowered from his cheeks. He remembered that she had excused herself and taken a tissue to dry her eyes, and that she’d called an end to the psych exams for the day and resumed them the next morning. Like Oshiro, she never reported what she saw to the top brass. There wasn’t a doubt in Victor’s mind that his past would have surely disqualified him from serving as an officer then.

  “Are you able to get anything from her?” Victor asked hesitantly. Psychics weren’t his field of practice, although he picked up occasional tips for providing treatment over the years.

  “Plenty.”

  Ethan dropped his voice low and whispered to Victor, “She isn’t killing her, is she?”

  “I don’t believe so. Though I think there’s always a risk of brain death whenever a psychic goes into an unwilling mind like this,” he replied.

  “She is the one who took Lockhart,” Nisrine reported. “There is a clear memory here of stalking him during his patrol. Attacking. She dropped his body for others to pick up.”

  “That means she’s worked for the enemy at least six years,” Victor said.

  “What about the people directing her movements. Who are they? Who’s responsible for this treachery?” Ethan asked.

  “This woman,” Nisrine spat the word with vehemence, as if she had another description in mind. “She informed Jarvis Crane of patrol routes, allowing him to keep ahead of us.

  Ethan grunted. “That bloody tosser wasn’t even on board. Bastard must have fled prior to the assault, but we do have his second mate’s corpse in the freezer. What else do you see?”

  “She reported to the leader of her cell, Doctor Mathias Campbell, and she killed him when you were too close. She is the one who attempted to gas you on Kantarn.”

  “Shit,” Victor swore under his breath. “I didn’t want to believe he was that high up.”

  Ethan clapped a hand to his shoulder. “Is that it, Nisrine? There has to be someone higher.”

  “Nothing. Her mind is particularly resilient when it comes to identifying her superiors. Either she remains unaware of their identities or she has been conditioned to conceal them. I can continue to delve deeper, but it may kill her this time.” Nisrine’s hardened gaze remained on the woman in her hold.

  “Do it.”

  “Do we want to risk losing her?” Victor spoke up suddenly to his friend. “I want the information as badly as you do, but…”

  “I know. Do no harm,” Ethan muttered.

  “Nisrine is one of the best in her field when it comes to retrieving mental data. If she is unable to do it safely, no other psychic can,” Oshiro said. The man frowned. Like Victor, he didn’t approve of Ethan’s methods. “But the possibility of loss is great. We are not the ASR, Ethan. Please. Let us have a traitor to release to the prison ship when it arrives.”

  The Soviets wouldn’t have hesitated to vegetate one of our own, Victor thought bitterly. As much as he despised having to call an end to it, risking Saskia’s life so deliberately would make them no better than their enemies across the galaxy.

  “Fine,” Ethan agreed. He waved a hand. “Get her to the brig in a paper gown only, but take that back once she’s secure. I want two female officers at her cell at all times.”

  Saskia’s history as a highly trained and deadly field operative meant Ethan didn’t plan to leave anything to chance. Victor didn’t blame him. He’d watched Saskia pick a lock with her fingertip once.

  Saskia’s head lolled to the side after Nisrine released her. Hart moved in and guided the quaking psychic away without prompting.

  “Oshiro gave her an injection to destabilize her abilities. She won’t be going camo any time soon either, mate. We colored her arms with medical dye just in case,” Victor said.

  “Brilliant. All right, I have to go write some reports. I hate this bloody part of my job.”

  Victor sympathized. “Can’t believe we also lost Roswell.”

  “Lovely marine. I know. Fastest shot on the bloody ship, too. That’s why she qualified for the boarding party. It’ll be impossible to replace her. The same goes for Lopez, beyond their duties.”

  Losing a member of the crew was never easy and Victor could only imagine the deeper loss Ethan felt as the commanding officer. He clapped his friend on the shoulder.

  “We’ll get who did this, Ethan.”

  “Yes. We will.” Ethan drew in a deep breath. “Go on now and check your bird.”

  “She’s asleep remember? There’s too much work to do, and too many injured.”

  “No, you are going to rest. I need you fresh for this mission, Victor. Check on Raines to ease your worries then hit your rack. That’s an order. I’ll see you in ten hours.”

  He’s right. I did the same thing to my medical team not even an hour ago. “Ten hours. We’ll get our guy back.”

  If they made it in time.

  Chapter 25

  Zoe’s sedation denied Victor the chance to speak with her. By the time she awakened and reported for the mission, the Jemison was less than an hour away from its destination.

  I’ll talk to her after we rescue our marine.

  He returned her uncertain smile and sat beside her on the shuttle during its somber descent. The dense jungle landscape claimed most of the planetary surface and restricted the squad’s options for a landing zone. They chose the facility’s rooftop shuttle pad for its close proximity and practical position.

  Without wasting a second Daniels kicked open the roof access door and the marines spilled into the facility, moving as a cohesive unit once they breached the property. Each member was perfectly in tune with the man or woman beside them. They had a single mission: to safely retrieve their lost comrade. Hamish Lockhart had to be somewhere in the building.

  “Movement on level two,” Trevor reported. He paused in the middle of the corridor and lowered his shotgun to one side. The other arm extended in front of him. “I can feel them… They’re directly beneath us. Six… no, seven.”

  “Do you feel your brother?” Victor asked.

  “No.”

  “They may have protection against psychics on their lower levels. It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen those tactics deployed to protect company secrets,” Daniels said.

  Trevor nodded. The hope remained in his bright green eyes.

  Daniels and Zoe took point. The group rounded a corner in the hallway, coming up on two uniformed security officers.

  “Weapons down and hands up!” Daniels bellowed.

  “Don’t shoot!” The panicked officers threw up their hands. Th
e man and woman each wore a Taser on their left hip.

  “We didn’t do anything,” the woman shouted. “Please don’t shoot.”

  “Holy shit. Royal Navy? What’s going on?” another confused voice shouted from the lobby.

  Five more security officers emerged from a surveillance room. Once they saw the guns leveled at them, they also put up their hands.

  “Any one of you wanna tell us what happened here?” Daniels asked as he stepped forward.

  “We wish that we knew,” one of them spoke up.

  “The scientists packed up in a hurry. First, they put out an alert about some experiment escaping the laboratory. They had us out there in the jungle looking for it, but wouldn’t tell us shit about it,” another guard said.

  Victor and Trevor exchanged looks.

  “Did they reclaim their experiment?” Victor asked.

  One of the guards shook his head. His pale face, along with the fluttering heartbeat Victor picked up on the bioscanner, indicated his words were true. “Not that we know of. They started panicking after three hours. Said the tracking equipment was shot to hell. Apparently, their science project killed a couple of us down in the lower levels. Next thing we know, they’re loading up on the shuttles. Took off without us.”

  “We’re stranded here,” the female security guard said.

  Daniels raised one hand to his communicator. “Daniels to Commodore Bishop. The facility has been abandoned. No sign of Lockhart yet.”

  “We really don’t know anything,” the male guard repeated.

  “Find out if they’re telling us the truth, Chief. Raines and Abernathy, clear the rooms on this floor,” Daniels ordered.

  “Gladly, sir.”

  Trevor confirmed the veracity of their claims in under two minutes. The security officers were too afraid and confused to pose a threat.

  “The back rooms are clear,” Zoe reported, coming back into the hallway. “There’s no one else here.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  Zoe nodded. “Papers. A few tools. If these guys weren’t here to tell us what happened, I’d say the place was ransacked by pirates.”

  “They must have cleared out before our arrival. The laboratory offices are empty,” Abernathy added.

  Daniels deployed the team in pairs to sweep through the remainder of the facility. The security officers who had been left behind voluntarily confined themselves to an empty office and stayed out of the military’s way.

  “If they departed in a rush, then they left DNA evidence. We’ll get a forensics team in to perform a full sweep and try to discern some identities from that,” Victor said.

  “Sirs,” Davis spoke through her commlink. “I found a surgical room in the lower level and two corpses. Looks like a marine’s work.”

  “O’Malley and I found living victims in the adjoining building, Commander,” Williams spoke up through the communication channel. “It looks like Campbell’s clinic. We have a lot of malnourished and scared people.”

  “Do what you can for them until we can secure the building,” Victor replied.

  The marine commanders rendezvoused with Davis in the basement level, where they found her crouched above a corpse with another body sprawled nearby. Both members of security wore cutting-edge armor, and their holsters were fitted to protect specialized guns.

  Daniels whistled. “I know the model that belongs in there. The guys upstairs didn’t have anything like this,” he pointed out. “I’d put money on it that the main level guards are nonessential staff, and these are their loyal security squad members.”

  “Of course. They kept a couple poor sods aware of their illegal studies in the event that something of this nature were to occur. Fat lot of good it’s done them.” Victor shook his head.

  “He killed these two… See the broken neck? Took their pistols after that, I think. Both of them have empty holsters,” Davis pointed out. “There’s a third body in the next room, but it was stripped of everything but his boots. My guess is that our guy took him out first and snagged his uniform, then came up on these two without so much as raising an alarm.”

  “I’ll be damned,” Daniels muttered, impressed.

  “Hamish was always one of the best operatives on any ship. Maybe… I want to try something. If the body hasn’t been dead for long, maybe I can see the last thing to cross this man’s vision,” Trevor said.

  “Go for it, mate,” Victor encouraged him.

  Trevor crouched beside Davis and took in a deep breath. With both hands against the cheeks of the corpse, he turned the security guard’s face toward the ceiling and leaned above him to make direct eye contact. What took seconds for the observing marines must have felt like the passing of hours for Trevor. He took his shaking hands away and dropped heavily back onto his behind.

  “It was Hamish. He’s really alive.”

  “We knew that all along, mate. Come on. Let’s go find him now.” Victor leaned down and pulled Trevor up to his feet again.

  “You don’t get it, Victor. I saw him. Right in front of me…”

  Zoe slipped one arm around their comrade’s shoulders and waited until he re-gathered his wits and recovered from the psychic experience. Afterward, Davis pointed out the trail of carnage for them to follow. It led to a locked door requiring a security clearance.

  Trevor viewed the map briefly. “It’s the only way out of here,” he muttered.

  “Can you hack it?” Zoe asked.

  “Sure I can,” Trevor knelt beside one of the fallen bodies and pulled an identcard from the man’s pocket. “Or I can swipe this and get out faster.”

  A world of jungle flora awaited them on the opposite side. Less than twenty yards from the door, a network of plant life obstructed their path, created from dense vegetation and twisting red leaves.

  “How are we going to find anything in this?” Daniels demanded.

  “Hell if I know. Perhaps if we divide into–”

  “Here!” Davis cried. Her call came from the edge of the growth. “Right here. Someone came through this way barefoot. You can see a heel indent in the soil. The ground is still soft.”

  “Good catch, Davis. Where’d you learn to track?” Daniels eyed her thoughtfully.

  “My dad used to take me hunting before I joined up with the Navy. Showed me a lot of things,” Davis replied. She grinned. “He went this way. No wonder no one found him… It’s thick. To our benefit, though. He crushed a lot of the flora when he ran through. Poor bloke’s probably scratched to bloody hell.”

  “And scared,” Victor remarked for Trevor’s sake. “Let’s try not to draw pistols. He’s armed and we don’t want to offer him any reason to fire at us before he recognizes our colors.”

  Trevor shot him an appreciative look, which he returned with a smile. Their path took the group deeper into the jungle where the ground squished beneath their feet and became boggy from the atmosphere’s excessive rain patterns.

  “There. He tripped over that root and fell down on one knee here. Heavy bastard, isn’t he?” Davis commented. She glanced at Trevor doubtfully before they proceeded forward.

  Without warning, a shot glanced harmlessly off the helmet protecting Victor’s head. As a result, every marine, including the doctor, ducked and moved into defensive positions with their guns raised.

  “Don’t shoot!” Trevor yelled. He jumped forward with his arms out. His firearm landed in the brush as he broke ranks and ran forward.

  “Lockhart, no!” Daniels called after him.

  It was too late. The psychic delved into the thick foliage, pushing forward while calling his brother’s name.

  Sweeping heavy branches out of his path, Victor broke through the thick growth a second later to find Trevor in a standoff with an armed man. With the exception of a few physical details, Trevor and Hamish were similar in every way. The latter no longer had hair, as it had been shaved away, most likely during some recent procedure.

  “How do I know you’re who you claim t
o be?” Hamish demanded.

  The gun shook slightly in Hamish’s hand as he backed away from the approaching marines. Victor held out one hand, begging caution. Despite his cool and calm appearance, his heart hammered inside his chest.

  “No one move. Give him a moment. Put your weapons away,” Victor ordered. “You too, Daniels.”

  “Hamish, I’m your brother. I’d never do anything to hurt you.”

  “Prove this isn’t another test. Tell me something only Trevor would know.”

  “When I was six, you shoved another kid face down in the mud for knocking my ice cream cone out of my hand. Da’ was upset about the trouble it caused, but mum praised us behind his back and said we should always count on each other.”

  Hamish’s hand wavered. As the seconds ticked by, it appeared as if he might drop the weapon. “I can’t trust that. I can’t trust any of you. They’ve been in my head… they know everything. This is all a lie. You only want to drag me back to that room.”

  “Read my thoughts, Hamish. You’ll see the truth.”

  Hamish’s bleak expression was one Victor knew well. His weary features displayed open despair and loss of the deepest kind.

  “I can’t,” Hamish whispered. “They took it from me.”

  Trevor stopped in his tracks, and the placid mask he wore for the sake of his brother finally cracked. “Big brother, let me help you. Please put down the gun.”

  Hamish shook his head again and took another step backward. “They like to play games. You’re not real.”

  “They’re gone,” Victor spoke up gently. He stepped forward slowly with Trevor, only to pause when Hamish’s muscles stiffened. The tension spread down his arm to his trembling hand. “How do you feel about leaving this place, Hamish? Would you like to see the Jemison again?”

  “I’d like to go home. I want to return to the Jemison again,” Hamish admitted. His eyes flicked back and forth, giving him a close resemblance to a trapped animal. He tracked their movements, missing nothing, always watchful and alert.