Broken & Hunted

by Charissa Dufour

  “We need to report a crime.”

  “Did you report it to the receptionist,” the officer asked, gesturing to the useless machine.

  “Yes, but…”

  “Then we’ll contact you as soon as we can.”

  “Then are you going to do anything about the mob of angry protesters outside your door.”

  “What?” asked the officer, glancing at the door.

  “Well, we can’t exactly leave when it’s not safe out there.”

  “That’s your issue,” sighed the officer as he began to turn away.

  “Help!” cried a voice from the doorway as the group of paramedics tumbled in. “There’s a giant mob out there!”

  “They’re insane,” cried another medic.

  “Arrest them all,” said another as they slammed the doors shut.

  Randal quietly backed away, letting the frightened paramedics work their will on the peace officers. Like Jack, he knew the officers would do a lot more for one of their own than they would for a citizen. They tried to disappear into a corner, letting the paramedics do the talking, but the spokesperson spotted them as the man beside him called in reinforcements.

  “You guys, get out while we deal with this!” the officer ordered.

  Jack and Randal glanced at each other before leading the way toward the door. Through the glass they saw the mob, the bodies of the front runners pressed against the doors until they were contorted into unusual shapes.

  “This isn’t going to be fun,” Calen mumbled, limping behind them.

  “I have an idea,” Randal said.

  “I’m not going to like this, am I?” replied Jack.

  “Not one little bit,” said Randal as he grabbed the door and jerked it open, dumping the nearest protester into the station.

  The next couple of people followed the first man. Soon the entire mob saw the opportunity and began crowding into the small lobby, their painted signs banging against the door frames and bending against their bodies in their rush to enter the facility. The officers tried to push them back as the medics scrambled up the stairs, screaming for more officers to come save them.

  Randal took up the protestor’s chant, riling them up to a fervent pitch. Jack mimicked him as he blocked Calen’s battered body with his own. He glanced back to be certain they hadn’t lost Blaine, while Blaine searched the crowd, no doubt looking for Bit.

  Suddenly the lights of the lobby shifted to a sickening orange color as the station’s security system went into effect.

  “We better get out of here,” Randal said as a fleet of armed officers swarmed the lobby.

  They slipped out of lobby as a rank smell filled the room. Jack glanced back in time to see a protester slam a home-made stink bomb into the face of an officer. The gelatin blob lost shape on impact and sloshed over the man’s skin, turning it a gross shade of green.

  Jack turned back to help Calen down the stairs. Randal took Blaine’s arm, nearly dragging him away from the scene.

  “What about Bit?” the soldier yelled at his commander. “I have to find her!”

  “She’s not in there, Blaine. She’s safe. Trust me. She’s safe!”

  “No, Randal. I have to find her!”

  “I’m telling you, Blaine, she’s not in that mob.”

  “You don’t know that!”

  Randal yanked on his arm again. “But I do!”

  “Okay,” interjected Jack, “Blaine, what if we hang out here for a while and if she comes out we’ll be here. But we can’t wait long.”

  “I need to go in for her.”

  “I can’t let you do that,” Jack said, drawing Blaine’s attention away from Randal who continued to guide him away from the station, “but I can allow us to wait here for a few minutes to see if she follows us. If she is in there she will follow us. Won’t she?”

  “Not if she’s being held captive.”

  “But she not. I know she’s not ‘cause she’s with the other crew members,” Jack said, hedging the truth.

  He suspected Blaine would freak out again if he knew Bit was with Oden.

  Blaine considered his options and finally nodded. “We wait here.”

  “Only for a few minutes.”

  “Only for a few minutes,” Jack had said.

  Calen lowered himself onto one of the decorative benches lining the outside of the Authority Station. Even from outside he could hear the shouts of the small riot taking place. He wasn’t sure hearing the ruckus within was the best thing for Blaine, but he understood his brother’s reasoning for giving Blaine the chance to wait for an imaginary Bit. Besides, he was happy to sit still.

  As they waited, the clash between the protestors and the peace officers increased. Calen turned on his bench in time to see a protestor barrel through the door, the panel of safety glass shattering around him. An officer dashed out after him, followed by three more protestors. Within seconds, half the mob had shifted back outside, afraid they might miss the action.

  Calen swallowed as a wave of stench followed the masses. Protestors and armor-clad officers had turned green from the slurry innards of their home-made stink bombs. He wondered what they had used to make the bombs, but guessed it had been a mix of ink, stale milk, low-grade motor oil, and urine, baked in a cow patty shell that shattered on impact. The result was a noxious odor that got worse with age.

  Calen pushed himself off the bench. Even his pain was preferred over the smell and noise coming from the riot.

  “I have to go get her,” Blaine was saying as he pulled against Jack and Randal’s grasping hands.

  “She’s not in there,” Randal said, jerking with all his might, nearly taking Blaine off his feet.

  Calen glanced at the mob working its way back out of the A.S. and massing towards them. Suddenly a man near them flung a wad of cow dung at Blaine, smacking him in the side of the head. The dried dung cracked, seeping the slurry from within to run down the side of Blaine’s neck, staining his skin and shirt. Calen glanced back to see who had thrown it, spotting a man turning away at the outskirts of the mob.

  “Is that the guy from the port?” Calen asked, pointing at the back of the man in the blue-green windbreaker.

  Jack followed his outstretched arm, scanning the ever-moving throng until he spotted the man glancing back at them.

  “Uh-oh,” Jack mumbled, understating his concern. “I think we’re in trouble.”

  “Quick, get that crap off him!” Calen said, turning back and grabbing the hem of Blaine’s shirt.

  They yanked it up over his head, struggling against his flailing arms. Using the dry sections of the shirt, they wiped off the worst of the muck. Calen sniffed, expecting to gag.

  “This isn’t the same as what the protestors are using,” he said, surprised at how mild Blaine smelled.

  The stain spread across Blaine’s neck and shoulder smelled of cow dung, but there wasn’t a trace of stale milk or motor oil. Compared to the odor coming from the battle raging behind them, Blaine smelled like daffodils.

  “You think that guy’s been poisoning Blaine?” asked Randal.

  Calen glanced back to where they had last seen the man in the windbreaker. He was still standing there, as though he was watching a sitcom.

  “I don’t know but we’ve got to move,” Calen said, pushing a very confused Blaine into motion.

  They hurried away from the embattled A.S. and made tracks to the nearest train station. Randal dug through one of their packs and found Blaine a clean t-shirt. Jack took Blaine into the station’s bathroom and cleaned him, before helping him into the t-shirt, while Calen and Randal waiting outside. Jack returned with Blaine looked more normal, though a large rash covered the skin that had been touched by the muck.

  To their astonishment, Blaine settled down until they wondered if the muck had been a sedative. The previously aggressive soldier was as passive as a kitten, with a glaze over his blue eyes. They sat in silence, each one fighting their own fears and worries.

  Calen kne
w the stakes of the game had just increased. The problem was, he didn’t know what game they were playing and neither did Jack. Suddenly the man in the windbreaker wasn’t just a harmless stalker, or even a man actively chasing them. He had poisoned Blaine. The change from the Blaine they had known on the ship to the Blaine constantly panicking over Bit to this docile Blaine was too stark not to worry about.

  “We need to connect with the others and find some place safe to hunker down for a few hours. We need to sedate… you know…” said Jack with a shudder as he avoided saying Blaine’s name, “so that we can talk with ease. We need to make a plan.”

  Calen and Randal nodded in agreement. Blaine sat in a stupor, unaware of what was going on around him.

  Fear gripped Calen’s heart. Just as the man who had nearly run from them to save an imaginary Bit wasn’t Blaine, this passive man—more dead than alive—wasn’t his friend either. And now their nurse had run off too.

  What were they going to do? And would it be enough before this poison did unrepairable damage to Blaine?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Reese flew through the air—a perfect moment of clarity.

  What were you thinking?

  Had he been thinking, had he not been trying to save Vance from a minor injury, he wouldn’t have been hit by an unexpected shock wave from his own damn booby trap.

  But he hadn’t. He had run straight for the steward, trying to block him from the incoming threat and been hit by the shock wave. Now he was flying through the entryway of the ship, on a collision course with the railing of the staircase heading up to the bridge.

  You idiot!

  Reese crashed into the railing, flipping over the top. He flailed as a stabbing pain in his back nearly deadened his limbs. His arm banged against the railing and his fingers wrapped around the bar on their own accord. Reese glanced down, assessing the drop back down to the main level. To his amazement, his other hand still gripped his handgun.

  Peeking through the railing, he spotted Vance applying pressure to the small shrapnel wound in his stomach as he pushed himself behind the door to the XO’s quarters, a smear of blood announcing his journey across the dull metal floor.

  Reese let go of the railing and landed on bended knees to ease the pain of the landing. He didn’t stop to give himself a breather, but raced to the opposite side of the central opening. He grabbed the door to the crew’s general quarters and jerked it open, using the door as a make-shift shield.

  The door to the ship slowly swung open as though he hadn’t spent hours with Randal preparing the perfect booby trap to keep any intruder from getting into the ship without their permission. Reese frowned. Then again, why had he been vaulted across the room? It was like they had reversed the pressurized booby trap.

  Was that even possible?

  “Anyone home?” came a voice from within the airlock. “You can shoot at me if you’d like but you risk blowing the airlock and sending us all to meet our Maker.”

  Reese grimaced. Their attacker was right. The airlock was the thinnest part of the ship, the most susceptible to bullets, even their soft flechettes.

  Thankfully, the other men knew to let him shoot first. Had it been a group of Randal-trained fighters, he might have risked it, but his back-up consisted of three engineers and an injured steward. He didn’t trust them not to hit the fragile airlock and send them all to their deaths.

  Then again, there was no telling what sort of weapons his enemy might be carrying. They might be dumb enough to carry regular bullets. Besides the ship, it was likely at least one of the men under his protection would be hurt and their nurse had flown the coop. Reese had no doubt the men attacking his ship were better trained than his engineers and steward.

  Reese cringed. He had counted on his booby trap taking out at least one, if not two, of their men—not wounding one of his own. There was no way he could win against such odds.

  “What do you want?” Reese asked.

  “Give us the embryos and we’ll leave you in peace.”

  “They’re not on the ship.”

  “You really think I’m just going to take your word for it?” asked the other man.

  Reese ground his teeth together. “You let my men go down to the infirmary and then I’ll take you on a tour of the ship. You can search it, but you leave my men in peace in the infirmary.”

  “I’ll need to search the infirmary, too.”

  “After we’ve searched the top two floors, they’ll move into the crew quarters, but your men have to stay in the airlock.”

  “No good. One of my men will watch your men, one in the airlock, and one with me. Oh, and your boys will be leaving their weapons here.”

  Reese let out a long sigh, knowing that was the best offer he was likely to get. “Agreed. Boys, put your weapons down and go to the infirmary and get Vance fixed up.”

  “But…” came Dirk’s angry voice.

  “Obey,” snapped Reese.

  He watched them set their weapons down and make their way down the steps, helping Vance as he slipped out from behind his cover. Reese made a show of gently setting his weapon down as the spokesman stepped out. He motioned for one man to follow the Lenore’s crew down the stairs. Another took up guard duty in the airlock while a third flanked the spokesman.

  “Now, wasn’t that easy?”

  Reese glared at him before guiding him up to the bridge level. Thirty minutes later they had finished the top two levels of the ship and prepared to shift the Lenore’s crew up to the crew quarters. Forrest and Jeremiah helped Vance up the stairs, followed by Dirk, and their guard. Dirk made sure to give Reese a powerful glare before they were herded into the large room. Vance looked pale but well enough.

  Reese ushered the two intruders down into the galley level and continued his tour. Another hour passed before they were content with their search.

  “Seen enough?” Reese demanded as they arrived back in the main entrance of the ship where the other two men waited.

  “Then where are the embryos?” demanded their ring leader. “I know they’re not in that condo owned by your captain’s mother. My men have already searched there.”

  “I don’t know,” Reese said, stuffing his fear into his stomach where it wouldn’t show on his face.

  “I’m having trouble believing that.”

  Reese shrugged. “Your problem not mine.”

  “Well, it’s about to be your problem too,” the ring leader said as a pair of hands pulled Reese’s arms behind his back.

  Reese jerked, trying to free himself, but he was no match for whichever goon had him. Another man gave him a grin and slugged him across the face. Reese took the blow, rolling with it as much as his captor allowed. He spat out the blood in his mouth and glared at the spokesman.

  “You can hit me all you want, it won’t change the fact I don’t know.”

  The goon hit him again. His head lolled to the side, pain pounding with the pulse of his heart against his skull.

  “Where are the embryos?”

  Another blow.

  And again. He spit out a tooth.

  “Where are they?”

  They hit him. This time in the stomach. Reese groaned and they hit him again.

  “I don’t know. They took the embryos down to the surface Sunday night.”

  “Where are they on the surface?”

  “I don’t know. They don’t tell me when they check.”

  “So they check in? When?”

  Reese shook his head.

  The spokesman made a little flick of his finger and one of his men produced a knife while the other tore open his shirt, revealing his molded chest.

  “You can make this easy for yourself. Just tell us when they check in and we’ll leave you in peace.”

  Reese shook his head, guilt already dulling the pain in his head and stomach. He had said too much. He clamped his jaw shut and focused on his crew mates. He had to hold strong.

  More than that, he had to think of something
to do. If they gave up on him they would go after the others, and they wouldn’t be able to stand up against such treatment. They weren’t trained to deal with this type of torture.

  As he tried to formulate a plan, the man with the knife stepped forward and began making long, shallow cuts across Reese’s biceps. Reese cringed with each cut, focusing more on the anger building inside him. The cuts would scar, marring his good looks.

  To his amazement, their leader seemed to know this was angering him more than hurting him. The ring leader directed his goon to move his knife to Reese’s face, running the dull blade from Reese’s temple down to his cheek. Reese screamed, in part from the increase in pain, but mostly in rage.

  The man repeated the treatment on his other cheek, this time running the blade horizontally across his cheek from his ear to his nose.

  “When do they check in,” demanded the leader.

  Reese jerked from side to side, his rage waring against the fatigue seeping into his muscles. Blood loss was beginning to cloud his judgement.

  “No,” he growled at the ring leader.

  The man shrugged. “Too bad. Now we’ll just have to ramp up the treatment. Cuff him to the stairs.”

  The beast holding his arms dragged him to the stairs and laid him out across them, cuffing one arm to one railing and the other arm to the opposite railing. Reese strained his neck to see them jerk open a nearby paneling in the floor.

  “This should do nicely,” he said as he jerked a pair of wires out.

  One of his hirelings pulled Reese’s legs out toward the panel and pulled off his boot. The wires just reached his foot. Carefully, the leader applied the two wires to the flesh of his sole. A jolt of electricity coursed through Reese. He jerked, banging his back and head against the steps.

  The man counted to twenty before removing the wires. A little puff of smoke rose from the scorched flesh.

  “You know, young man, if you don’t speak soon I’m going to have to get more creative. I’d hate to have to start removing body parts,” the man said, his eyes flicking to Reese’s zipper before he applied the wires again.