by Nick Webb
He was right. Po realized that they still had a ways to go on planning this rescue. “And? Do you have any ideas?”
Volaski smiled again, this time more jovially than before. He was apparently quite pleased with himself. “I do. I know the frequency domain her remote controller operates on. If we jam that frequency space with a whole lotta white noise, then our collars will be unable to see any signal she sends out. At least until she figures out what we’re up to and changes the signal frequency.”
“You don’t think she’ll have foreseen something like that? If it’s as simple as broadcasting white noise….”
Volaski held up a hand. “First of all, it’ll take a powerful signal. Only your ship could generate something that large—none of mine can. Second, Commander, you don’t realize what it is like to be a slave after so many years. At first, a man will constantly be looking for ways to escape. But after awhile, after seeing so many of your comrades die in the attempt, you become resigned, and after that, complacent. All of her top lieutenants, including me, have become quite complacent over the years. She treats her top people rather well—not like the uranium miners. You’d think we were family. Trust me, she won’t be expecting this.”
Po shuddered at the thought of thinking of your captor as family. Stockholm syndrome? She wondered if some of Velar’s top people suffered from it. Tomaga cleared his throat. “Captain Volaski, what is the situation on the ground? Will the Phoenix’s men be held in buildings on the surface? Or do you expect them to be in the mines?”
“The mines. Velar will want your men as far from the surface as she can manage—that’s where we send all new recruits, as we call them. It makes escape during the first few years far less likely. Later, as a slave proves their loyalty, they can graduate to the upper levels of the mine—maybe even see a little sunshine, you know? The best get transferred to the surface to work up there.”
Jayce grunted. “What weapons have they got?”
“Assault rifles. Plasma RPGs. The usual.”
Jayce spat a brown wad into the corner of the brig’s cell and turned to Po. “Sounds like fun. How many men can I take?”
Po wanted to grin. She liked Logan Jayce, insubordination and chewing tobacco notwithstanding. “How many do you need?”
Jayce glanced at Tomaga. “I’d say at least thirty.”
Po nodded. “Done. Get your men ready. Sergeant Tomaga? Please choose a few of your most capable people.”
“They are all capable.”
“Then choose fifteen of your best,” she replied, more curtly than she intended. She knew this was a big risk—they still had no idea who the saboteur was. For all she knew, it could be Tomaga himself. Though how he would have escaped attention didn’t make sense.
He nodded. “Very well.”
Po continued, “And Jayce, I want no casualties among the slave population. If they’re not holding a gun, you don’t shoot, is that clear?”
He almost looked disappointed. “Clear, sir.”
“I’m sure we’ll be on some camera somewhere, and I don’t want a gruesome aftermath transmitted to every viewscreen in the Thousand Worlds. The Empire’s propaganda machine would eat that up. We need friends now more than we need new enemies.”
Jayce pounded a fist into his palm indicating his readiness. “Got it, sir. Kill the people with guns.”
“I’ll be back on the bridge. Please escort Volaski to the fighter deck when you’ve finished making your plans and preparations.” She turned back to Volaski. “Captain, I’ve decided to trust you. Please don’t misplace that trust. You’ll find that a scorned Earth Resistance officer is far more terrifying than any old Imperial capital ship.”
“Thank you, Commander. Believe me, your trust is well-placed. No one wants to see Velar’s downfall more than me.”
She looked him squarely in the eye before turning back to the door. “You’ve got one day, gentlemen. Let’s make this count.”
The door to the brig slid shut behind her as she let out another sigh. This was risky, and she knew it. Could she trust Volaski? Could she trust Tomaga? Were both of them playing her? If they were, she hoped with a grim smile that at least the betrayals would cancel each other out—that’s how it worked, right? Couldn’t they just kill each other off?
She scolded herself for such thoughts. Definitely not enough sleep.
***
Ben’s heart froze slightly as he heard the door creak open behind him and heavy footsteps approached. These were not the soft footfalls of Velar, but the quick, heavy boots of some larger person—erratic and nervous, by the pace of the steps.
“Oh my,” said the man’s voice. “Velar wasn’t toying with me. You really are something.”
Ben thought back to what Velar said. The man liked resistance. He liked feisty and would pay top coin for it.
And he liked knives.
Ben supposed the only way to spite Velar at this point would be to fetch her the lowest price possible. He closed his eyes and willed himself to say nothing. Give the man no interaction. No pleasure. Nothing.
“I hear you’re a regular old Imperial space jock. Such an—such an—such an … illogical profession. So much danger. It’s a wonder you’re still alive.” The stuttering man came up close behind. “But, mmm, those make the best slaves. Hard to break. So hard to break. Neural pathways strong and resilient. Bodies,” he touched Ben’s back, “usually nice and toned,” he paced around to face Ben, who cracked his eyelids open slightly.
He felt hot breath on his cheek. “Are—are—are … you afraid, slave?”
Ben opened his eyes fully and stared at the sallow face peering into his. Not with defiance, nor with submission. But with the most nonchalant, uncaring gaze he could muster—as if this were just another day for him.
The man—medium sized, slightly cross-eyed, scarred and with a completely shaved head, reached into his pocket for something, and extracted a small electronic device. Leering at Ben, he pressed a button.
Fiery needles pierced into every nerve of Ben’s body, which involuntary thrashed against the chains.
“You like it?” The man excitedly fingered the controls and ramped up the intensity.
Ben thrashed harder. The pain seared itself into his muscles, his stomach, his head, his eyes. Everything erupted in blinding pain. Then, abruptly, it ceased, replaced with a dull, lingering ache.
The man stepped up close to him, standing just an inch away. He whispered into Ben’s ear. “Y—y—you’re going to love our time together.” He smiled a toothy grin. One of his lower teeth was missing. The dental care on Destiny apparently wasn’t the best.
Ben kept his mouth clamped shut. He wouldn’t give the sick monster a thrill of any reply. Not even defiance.
The man whispered again in his ear, “All I want is for you to serve me. This doesn’t have to hurt, you know. N—n—n … not much, anyhow. I have a lot of experience stimulating pain receptors. It seems the synapses are quite susceptible….” He trailed off, reached down to his pad and pressed the button again. Ben felt his body thrash with blinding pain again, pounding up against the man who had not backed away. Still, in spite of the searing pain, he kept his mouth clamped shut.
The man flashed an hungry, greedy smile. “Stoic? Splendid. You’ll do. You’ll do nicely. I’ll be back. D—d—d—don’t go anywhere.”
He stepped away and paced quickly back to the door, much more quickly than he’d entered. Excited, it seemed. Ben could kick himself if he could. It seemed his plan had backfired. The man would probably pay double what Velar had demanded, dammit.
***
Willow slid into the captain’s chair as Po rushed out the door and stared up at the screen, blue with the light filtering through the thick sheet of ice above them. A few fish fluttered past the camera, and she wondered how cold of water the little things could stand. Had they originated there on Destiny?
No, of course not. The most advanced form of life found on any planet outside of Old Ea
rth was the most rudimentary cyanobacteria. In fact, only worlds teeming with cyanobacteria were able to be settled, since otherwise there would be no oxygen. These fish were surely imported from Old Earth. Like the trees. Like the birds.
Like the people.
Every world was the same. Explorers come. They find a planet with gravity similar to Old Earth, temperature similar to Old Earth, cyanobacteria-generated oxygen levels similar to Old Earth, rotation cycle similar to Old Earth, and once those basic necessities were met, the planetary engineers and xenobiologists would arrive to prepare the world for human habitation. The first vegetation was always chosen and engineered very carefully, for it must survive on whatever nutrients the cyanobacteria and the soil could provide. Next came the trees, and bushes, simple plankton. Things that could process the nutrients left by the higher order life.
And so it went. Each level feasting upon the order below it.
Like the people.
The Empire fancied itself as the alpha. The top of the food chain. But it was an imposter. A parasite. A weed. And weeds are uprooted and cast aside to dry upon the rocks, shriveled by the summer sun.
She closed her eyes and smiled. The summer sun on Belen was beautiful. So claimed her grandmother.
Opening her eyes, she grinned up at the fish swimming by, and silently wished them well. In her mind, she told them the secret. So many secrets to tell them, but she told them only one. The secret only the initiated among the clans of Belen were worthy to know.
Secrets were a sin—that much was passed along to her from her ancestors, blessed be their name. But some secrets were worth forgoing celestial nirvana for. Secrets that would ensure the continued life of her people.
Like the existence of her brethren. The Red. Her order. A sacred fighting force. They would fight the Empire until it sat upon its knees, begging for mercy.
And then The Red would dispatch it with no mercy. Staining their own hands red, if need be, that sin above all sins.
But that was not the secret she told the fish.
Glancing down at her console, she monitored the ongoing repairs of the most recent explosion. Good. In spite of the considerable damage, and the lost lives, the hull integrity was holding.
“Science. Can we pump that water out?” She stood and strode back to the science station, leaning over Ensign Szabo’s shoulder.
“I doubt it sir. The pumps were designed to expel water to vacuum. Not to ten atmospheres, which is the pressure at the top of the ship’s hull.”
Willow nodded in disappointment.
“What about … what about pumping it to other decks?”
The Ensign turned, looking incredulously at her. “Sir?”
“Some of the underutilized decks. At least then the flooded sections would become accessible, and we could get crews in there to at least repair the weaponry. If we stumble upon the Caligula up there, we’ll need all the firepower we can get.”
The science officer glanced down and studied the ship schematics, tracing a finger along certain decks and various sections. “Maybe, sir.” She glanced up. “There might be a way. Let me work on it.”
Ayala nodded again at her and started to step away.
“Great idea, sir,” the woman added, “I see why the XO picked you.”
Ayala stepped back to the captain’s chair. “She picked me because she was desperate, Ensign. Just like us all.”
Another secret was that the Belenite High Command was also desperate. Desperate for a suitable replacement world. A civilization simply could not live out among the stars, in orbit around god-forsaken worlds, scrounging for raw materials and water and food.
The Belenites put up a good front. A good show. The entire population of the Thousand Worlds held them in the highest esteem, holding them up as Moral Authorities, since they had suffered so much at the Empire’s hand and yet refused to settle down on the worlds offered to them by their same old persecutor.
But they were a dying people. And the High Command knew it.
And Galba knew it. He’d assured her that he would do everything in his power as a senior senator. He claimed to have the ear of the Emperor, after all.
Unless he was lying, just to get her in bed. She smiled inwardly at herself. No. He was a horny old bastard, but he had a dear heart.
Unless.
She tapped her head.
Unless. Could he have been responsible for those explosions? He was so insistent about getting out of her quarters.
One more mystery to discover. Knowledge to press him for, after she pressed against his flesh ... his glorious flesh.
And eventually, she might even tell him her secret. The secret she just told the fish. She glanced up at the screen. They were gone, fled, replaced by a field of blue water, with white streamers of sunlight filtering through the creamy ice sheet.
Gone, just like the fish on her world. Like the trees.
But the secret was that they had lost something original. Native. Something unique in the galaxy. Not some transplant from Old Earth.
That was the great crime the Empire must answer for. Genocide.
Something Galba could help her with, in her quest to extract expiation from the Empire.
And then the trees could rest in peace at last.
But first the ship needed safety. And she had to eliminate Galba as a suspect, for her own peace of mind, at least.
Turning to the navigation station, she gestured at Ensign Roshenko—the long-haired, calm young woman. Nothing seemed to faze her. She could handle the ship for an hour while she handled Galba. “Roshenko. You’ve got the bridge. I’ll be right back.”
***
Jake, Alessandro, and Avery decided to work in shifts. Two of them would handle their heavy ore extractors while the third marched back and forth down the winding rock passageway, carrying the hunks of raw ore back to the carts. Jake found that the passageway was just a little too short for his liking, as he regularly scraped his head against the jagged ceiling, eliciting a constant stream of carefully counted curses as he hauled his loads.
The work seemed endless. The shift was only six hours long, and he was used to far longer in both the Imperial and Resistance fleets, but somehow, the tedious nature of it all seemed to lengthen the time. Or perhaps it was knowing that Velar could kill them on a whim by activating their collars. Or maybe the knowledge that the boss could inflict horrendous pain on them if they didn’t produce their quota. He never liked working under a deadline.
But really, it was none of those things. His ship was up there, somewhere, in danger. Ben was missing, and probably in mortal danger. He’d endangered everyone with his risky choice to come down to the surface in a vain hope to find more neodymium for the gravitic drive. More people would die because of his decisions, and he hated it. And knowing that he was powerless to do anything seemed to stretch the hours into days, and the days into months.
But he’d had no choice, really. What else could they have done? Hadn’t their long-range shifting capability cut out after that last shift? If they hadn’t have shifted here, to Destiny, and instead shifted somewhere else, some place with absolutely no possibility of finding any neodymium to fix their drive, then their position would have been far more precarious. They’d be stuck in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps orbiting some star somewhere. If they were lucky, maybe they would have been able to use their gravitic thrusters to find their way to some planet in orbit of said star, but the chances that planet would be inhabited were slim.
People had found out long ago that while planets were plentiful, oxygen atmospheres were not. Only about one in 10,000 planets had developed their own cyanobacteria and had had time to break down enough carbon dioxide into oxygen to support human life.
His mind kept wandering as he trekked down the passageway. His feet hurt from all the walking. A dull ache had settled in where the wire was implanted into his skull, and the memory of the two shocks he’d received so far seemed enough to make the rest of his nerves extrem
ely testy.
As he approached Alessandro and Avery, he stumbled over a rock he must have dropped during his last trip and fell against the cold, jagged wall.
“Dammit!”
“Friend! You ok?” Alessandro turned off his extractor and set the hulking piece of equipment down.
“Yeah, fine,” he said. “Just can’t seem to keep my feet under me. You got anything else for me?”
Alessandro grabbed his arm and helped him back to his feet. “I cut smaller pieces. Easier to carry.”
Jake shook his head, mindful of exceeding their word limit—the collars seemed to only allow maybe fifty words per minute, which Alessandro kept getting remind of. “No, too small, won’t make quota.”
The scientist shook his head. “Ten percent decrease in weight, production rate increases fifteen percent.”
“Had time to think?” said Jake with a small grin.
Alessandro tapped his head. “It is what I do.”
“You just think about math all day?” Jake grunted as he sat down next to the wall.
“Math. And pussy. Everyone knows science gets the ladies all hot and horny.”
Jake snorted, and waited a minute before responding, fearing the shock. “Well how about thinking a way out of this, huh? So does that trend continue all the way down? What happens when our loads hit zero? Does our production hit a billion or something?”
Alessandro picked up the omni-scanner and examined the latest rock he’d blasted out of the wall. “Obviously not, friend. I’m sure the production efficiency reaches a maximum, and then plummets precipitously as your body has unrealized capacity.” He continued scanning the rock as Jake rubbed his head. The pain seemed worse.
