The Pirate from the Stars Book 1- Renegade

by Cheree Alsop

  Gage couldn’t decide if that question was much better. He drained the last of his pint and studied the empty container in his hand. “It’s not a pretty story.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” Sienna said. “You could show me.” At his surprised look, she lifted a shoulder. “Mattie used to do it all the time when we were little. I’m used to pushing, as she called it.”

  Gage turned his gaze to the table. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done it. I don’t know if that’d be a good idea.”

  “Try me,” Sienna urged with a warm smile. She set a hand on his arm. “It’s easier than telling a story, right?”

  Gage didn’t know if it was the way he felt at ease in her presence or the need to tell someone else what had really happened that made him agree, but he finally nodded.

  He turned his hand palm-up on the table. “Mattie’s much better at this than I am. It works better for me if I can touch the person I’m pushing to.”

  She set her small hand on his. Her fingers looked pale and dainty compared to his scarred palm and callused fingers. He glanced around to ensure that nobody was watching them, then closed his eyes and found the memory he wanted.

  Chapter Five

  “Vanessa died in the Battle of the Verde Nebula,” Gage said shortly. He closed one hand into a fist. “We won’t get into that. All you need to know is I was her commanding officer and Donovan blamed her death on me.” He swallowed and pushed on. “After the battle he had me arrested.” He opened his eyes and met Sienna’s. “Let me know if you’ve seen enough.”

  “I will,” she said quietly without removing her hand.

  He watched her for a moment, but she waited without showing any signs of trepidation. He forced himself to close his eyes again and pushed the memory at her.

  ***

  Waking up in the brig of a Coalition Platinum Eagle handcuffed to a chain from the ceiling and bleeding after being used as a punching bag for Donavan’s men wasn’t nearly as pleasant as it sounded.

  “It’s your fault.”

  Gage forced his right eye to open. The left was swollen shut and the ache from it made his head pound.

  He met Donovan’s hate-filled glare and repeated the words he had said more times than he could count, “We were set up. I couldn’t save her.”

  Donovan grabbed the laser wound in Gage’s shoulder and squeezed. Gage let out a yell of pain at the agony that came from the untreated wound.

  “You let her die!” Donovan yelled back, his face inches from his brother’s. “You were her commanding officer. It’s your fault she didn’t make it off that planet alive. I want to hear you say it!” He squeezed harder.

  Gage’s head flew back and he struggled to get away from Donovan’s relentless grip. He knew the strength in his brother’s iron hands better than anyone, but it was the first time Don had ever used his strength against his younger brother.

  Spots danced in Gage’s vision. He closed his eyes, willing himself to escape into unconsciousness.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” Donovan said.

  There was a tone to his voice Gage didn’t recognize. He opened his eyes to see an ugly leer on his brother’s face.

  “There’s something you don’t know about me, little brother,” Donovan said in that same tone. His face drew closer. “You know I’ve always struggled to harness my abilities from the Foundling blood we share. Well, while Mattie may use hers to heal and you have your combat instincts, I have found a different way to make use of pushing.” His eyes gleamed. “I call it holding.”

  The pressure on Gage’s wounded shoulder increased. He could feel blood running down from the injury. The patter of it on the floor made a distant rhythm that sounded out of place in the bright white room. The spots started again, but then something else happened. Where before a haze clouded the edges of Gage’s mind, promising the welcome blanket of nothingness that came from falling unconscious, instead sharp, probing light, white and filled with spikes and agonizing shards, took over.

  Gage stared at Donovan.

  “That’s right,” his brother said with a horrible happiness in his expression, “I can keep you here so that you experience torture beyond that of a normal person. Under natural circumstances, the mind will shut off to protect the sanity of an individual in immense pain, but with my gift, yours will be unable to do so. I will show you new ways to experience pain far beyond anything you or anyone else has felt before.”

  Donovan waved his free hand, motioning to the white-walled room. “We’re alone here. There are no cameras or guards. Colonel Banks just offered me a Lieutenantship aboard the Poseidon.” His gaze darkened in his merriment and his face drew closer to Gage’s. “I own you, traitor. I’ll make you pay for abandoning Vanessa. You’ll wish you never heard of the Verde Nebula.”

  Gage’s agonizing scream echoed around the room.

  ***

  Sienna’s fingers trembled in Gage’s grasp. He couldn’t stand it anymore. He pulled his hand away, breaking contact with her. Gage let out a shuddering breath and reached for the pint. He lifted it, found it empty, and let it lower back to the table without looking at it.

  “Oh, Gage,” Sienna said.

  He clenched his jaw against the compassion in her tone.

  “You wanted to see,” he said, his voice level past the knot in his throat at memories he had kept shoved far back in the recesses of his mind for the past two years.

  “I just didn’t expect….” Her voice died away.

  “You asked about the Kratos,” he said. “We were almost there.”

  “Gage, you don’t have to—”

  “Do you want to know?” he asked. His gaze was steady, accusing her of bringing up the pain he had kept distant for so long. She had opened the gates. She had asked the questions.

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “I want to know. Hold on.” She rose from the table and walked to the bar along the far wall.

  Gage felt the hatred again, the anger at himself for not doing anything, for letting Vanessa die, for not knowing that they had been set up by the Macsian Invaders. He should have protected his troops. He should have died instead of Vanessa. He should have known they were outnumbered.

  Corporal Ganik should have known, the voice in the back of his mind whispered. Gage had just been following orders. How was he to know that the biggest troop of Macsian Invaders ever recorded had been waiting in the Verde Nebula for just such an attack? How was he to guess they had no qualms about killing a few thousand members of the Unified Military to prove a point to the CUOC and the Coalition that they meant business? He didn’t matter to them; Vanessa didn’t matter to them.

  Sienna set another pint of ale in front of Gage. He glanced at her, then back at the drink.

  “I thought you said drinking was a nasty habit.”

  “It is, but sometimes it’s also necessary,” she replied as she took the seat across from him once more. The compassion in her gaze ate at him when she said quietly, “I think this is one of those times.”

  Gage didn’t want to look at her pity any longer. He picked up the pint, took a deep drink, and set it on the table again. To his surprise, Sienna reached for it, took a much smaller swallow, and set it back down while stifling a gasp at the burning liquid. She held out her hand.

  “Are you sure?” he asked, his tone guarded.

  “Tell me about the Kratos,” she replied.

  This time it was Gage’s fingers that shook when he set them in Sienna’s. It took a moment for his muscles to relax enough that he could clear his mind. He skipped over the details of Donovan’s torture. He had barely survived once. He didn’t need to relive it a second time and he wouldn’t do that to Sienna.

  ***

  “Gage?”

  He opened his good eye, but his vision was distorted. He saw shapes where he knew there were none in the bright white room. Creatures from the darkest reaches of the Macrocosm leered at him from the corners. The ground writhed as if it was made up of millions
of black worms, wriggling beneath his feet that could barely touch the floor with the tension of the chain holding his arms above his head.

  He couldn’t remember when Donovan had finally let go of his mind, releasing the needles that drove through the inside of his skull outward, keeping him awake past the point of sanity until words no longer made sense and Gage couldn’t remember his own name.

  Familiarity pushed against him, telling him that he knew the voice who spoke and the word it said, but he couldn’t make sense of either. His head turned to the right and terror gripped his heart.

  Donovan stood there with the crazed leer on his face, a heat blade in one hand and a syringe of tauritic acid in the other. He had gloated about his brilliance in his choice of torture devices; the heat blade cauterized the wound it made so the victim didn’t bleed out, and the acid ensured that the burning went deep, deep inside so that every nerve ending was frayed and each muscle response brought further agony.

  “No,” Gage mumbled, his tongue numb as he fought to remember how to speak. “No more.”

  “Gage,” the voice repeated. “Gage, look at me!”

  A hand touched his shoulder, but it wasn’t with malice, and the words carried a different tone. They gripped Gage’s heart, holding him when his mind threatened to carry him off again. Gage blinked and his vision focused. Donovan’s face changed to that of his father’s.

  There was pain in Commandant Day’s eyes. “Get him down,” he commanded.

  The chain rattled as it was lowered. A cry of agony came from Gage as his arms were helped from their position above his head.

  “Who did this to you?” his father demanded.

  Gage opened his mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. He shook his head.

  “Was it Donovan?” his father pressed. The light of a parent’s intuition showed in the tears that filled his father’s gaze at his son’s pain, but he refused to let them fall. He cupped Gage’s cheek with a hand used to wielding guns and fighting enemies, but yet could still carry the loving gesture of a father to a child. “I’m going to get you out of here,” he promised.

  Gage remembered only bits and pieces of the next few hours, his thoughts spotty as trusted members of his father’s crew helped him through the depths of the Platinum Eagle without being spotted. He had a memory of Officer Hyrin, the kind Talastan, covering him with sheets in a cart in the laundry facilities in order to get him to the storage bay. They were met by Officer Straham, old, gray, but still one of the strongest men Gage had ever met. The officer had given him a look of sorrow when he ducked under Gage’s arm and assisted him through the strangely empty bay that should have been bustling with activity.

  The faint drone of a warning bell tolled in the background and flashing lights played with Gage’s strained nerves.

  “Your father can only distract them for so long,” the officer said. “My son Rin is waiting for you. He left the Unified Military for reasons he’ll tell you when he is ready. He brought some friends who need to get away from the Coalition as well. They’re a skeleton crew at best, but you should be able to get out of here.” He shook his head. “Your mother is the only other person I’ve seen in as bad a shape as you are. I hope you have her heart.”

  Gage leaned most of his weight on Straham as the officer helped him down the hallway to the holding bay. Amid Coalition ships and ground craft, they met a green-skinned Amphibite with black scales around his face and a young man with Straham’s steady gaze and firm jaw. The Human gave Gage a quick look over before taking his father’s place at Gage’s side.

  “Take care of him, son,” Straham said. There was a shine of pride along with tears in the older man’s eyes. “I’m proud of you.”

  “Thanks, Dad,” Rin replied. “Manax has the ship ready to fly.”

  The Amphibite gave Gage a salute.

  “Ready to board when you are, Captain.”

  Gage lifted his head a bit higher and met the Amphibite’s dark eyes. “Captain?”

  Straham nodded. “The Kratos is yours now, Captain Metis. Your father asks that you take good care of her.”

  Gage’s gaze shifted past them to the ship waiting just beyond in the holding bay. It was an older Iron Falcon, but his father had refused to upgrade, even when Grandfather Metis had designed a new fleet of TDVs for the merchant planet’s defense.

  “She might not look like much, but she’s been fitted with a new AB warp drive and plenty of updated gadgets and controls, Captain,” Rin reassured him.

  The numbness of Gage’s beaten body was wearing off. His head lolled forward. If it hadn’t been for the quick reflexes of Rin and Manax, he would have hit the ground.

  “Get him to the ship,” Straham directed. “Take the Kratos past the Nemian Galaxy into the Fingers Nebula. Stay there for as long as he needs.”

  “How long do you think that will be?” Rin asked.

  “There’s no way of telling,” Straham replied. “Cruelty like this can change a man. Stay there as for as long as it takes.”

  “We will,” Rin promised.

  Gage remembered the sensation of being carried. The memory faded away.

  ***

  “Your father gave you the Kratos to save your life,” Sienna said, breaking the silence that followed. “There were rumors that you had stolen it or taken it from him by force. I guess he had to say that to keep peace with the Coalition. If the Commandant of Corian had let a convicted deserter escape, the treaty of peace between the merchant fleet and the Coalition would have fallen apart entirely.”

  Gage focused on her words, letting them bring him back to the present. He took a drink to chase away the dull metallic taste in his mouth. He was about to set the pint back down, then held it out to Sienna instead.

  She accepted it without hesitation and drank nearly as deep as he had done. He noticed her face was pale and cheeks looked pinched.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I know the effects of a push can be hard on a person.”

  She gave him a weak smile. “I thought I was used to it. I guess it’s been a while.”

  The waitress returned. She gave Gage a glowing smile while ignoring Sienna completely. “Anything else I can get for you, love?”

  “How’s the stew?” Gage asked. It was a ritual within the Gaulded as old as the welded trader stops themselves.

  “If you survive the ale, the stew won’t kill you,” she replied with a wink. She glanced at Sienna, then away. “How many bowls?”

  “Two, please,” Gage replied. He forced his rogue’s smile to his lips when he said, “Any excuse to see your beautiful eyes again.”

  She blushed. “You are too much!” she said before she turned away.

  If Sienna disapproved of his flirting with the waitress, she didn’t show it. Instead, she took another sip of the ale, shuddered, and pushed it back toward him.

  “You’d better finish that,” she said. “I can’t feel my fingers.”

  Gage chuckled and took another drink. “That’s the point,” he replied.

  She was quiet for a moment, then said, “Gage, about what Donovan did….”

  He shook his head to silence whatever she would say next. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “But he was wrong,” she pressed.

  Gage gave her a level look. “I didn’t show you that to turn it into some intense discussion about my past. You asked about the Kratos, now you know. End of story.”

  “Fine,” Sienna conceded. “I won’t talk about it, but if you ever need to….” She let her offer hang in the air.

  “I won’t,” Gage replied.

  Sienna blew out a breath of frustration. The waitress returned and slid two bowls in front of them.

  “Anything else, handsome?” she asked Gage.

  “Can I get some water?” Sienna asked.

  To Gage’s amusement, the waitress didn’t appear to hear her and kept her gaze on him instead. He smiled. “Two glasses of water, please.”

  “Right
away,” she replied.

  As soon as the waitress was gone, Sienna scoffed. “I’ll bet all the ladies are like that around you.”

  Gage shook his head. “Not all of them.” At her look of disbelief, he grinned. “Most of them.”

  She shook her head. “Girls can’t resist a handsome face and those gray eyes you Metis siblings have. I’ll admit I had a crush on you when we were younger.”

  Gage nodded. “Mattie told me.”

  “She did not!” Sienna protested.

  “She did,” Gage replied. “But it was under the strictest orders not to tell anyone, and you know I can’t say no to my sister.”

  Sienna sighed and stirred her stew with her slotted spoon. “Nobody can. That Mattie is something else.” She looked meaningfully around the tavern. “She wouldn’t belong in a place like this.”

  Gage took a bite of his stew, grimaced, and swallowed it. “No, she wouldn’t,” he agreed. “She’s too good for this Macrocosm.”

  “I remember you telling her that,” Sienna told him with a fond smile. A reminiscent light showed in her green eyes. “We were in school and she found that barrow the older boys had killed with sticks.”

  At her mention, the memory came back to Gage. He nodded. “We helped her bury it, you, me, Don, and Vanessa. She was sobbing the entire time.”

  Sienna gave him a wistful smile. “And you told her that she was too sweet for this Macrocosm, that cruel things happened and you wished you could protect her from them.”

  “And she said she would do whatever she could to make sure kindness outweighed the cruelty,” Gage remembered. “She’s done her best to do that.”

  “Yes, she has,” Sienna replied. She took a bite of the stew and gagged. “What is that?” she asked.

  Gage grinned. “The saying goes that Gaulded stew is ‘Solid enough to keep your innards in and put steel on your bones’, although I’ve always tried to keep steel away from my bones, so I’m not sure that’s entirely a good thing.”

  Sienna grabbed her nose with her fingers and took another bite with her free hand. “It’s not so bad if you eat it like this,” she said with her mouth full. She swallowed.