by J. L. Doty
“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t obey that order. My place is beside you.”
“You’re a damn fool.”
Rame grinned at him and said nothing.
The shuttle settled into bay four, and the deck crew sealed and began pressurizing the bay. York waited until the green light over the bay’s hatch flashed, then he cycled the lock and stepped into the bay with Rame and the empress behind him just as the shuttle hatch opened.
An AI captain stepped out and a troop of armed AI soldiers fanned out behind him. He walked up to York arrogantly and asked, “I take it you’re Ballin?”
York nodded.
“You’re under arrest by order of the Admiralty Council. You’re charged with high-treason, murder, mutiny, espionage—”
The empress interrupted him. “That’s not right. You can’t do that.”
He nodded to her carefully and looked at her without expression. “My orders have come directly from His Grace, Lord Abraxa, and the Admiralty Council. His Majesty has confirmed those orders by sealed warrant.” He snapped his fingers, and two female AI goons took up positions on either side of the empress. He flashed her a sharp grin. “I have been instructed to take you into protective custody, Your Majesty, so we may insure your safety.”
The empress looked right through the man as if he wasn’t there. “And I’m sure you will.”
The AI captain asked York, “Have you locked and sealed your weapons?”
“Yes, and I’ve instructed my crew to wait in their quarters for further orders. Skeleton crew assignments only.”
The AI captain spun about, walked back to the open shuttle hatch, looked in and said, “It’s safe, Your Lordship.”
Not even York was ready for what came next. Sierka stepped out of the shuttle, a big, toothy smile plastered across his face. He carried a baton about half the length of his arm and he approached York with a swagger. He stopped with his nose only inches from York’s. “Well, Ballin. I told them you would come. I know you better than you realize. And that’s why I’ll always win.”
Sierka stepped back, smacked the baton into the palm of his hand, and York noticed then it had a power grip, and he realized it was a nerve prod. York actually saw the blow coming, but with fifty armed AI goons surrounding him it was better to take it. The nerve prod struck him across the side of his face, though thankfully Sierka hadn’t activated it.
The nerve prod, even without power, was a formidable club. York staggered backward and fell to his knees. Rame stepped forward crying out, “You bastard,” and reaching for Sierka. A shot rang out and Rame dropped to the deck, a small hole in the side of his temple. York struggled to his feet, wanted to do something, wanted to kill Sierka with his bare hands, but the deck reeled beneath him and all he could manage was a stagger.
Sierka grinned again, twisted the handle on the prod. The empress shouted, “Stop that.” Sierka ignored her, jammed the muzzle of the prod into York’s groin.
For York it was as if someone had stuck the bare leads of an electrical conductor in his crotch. Sierka shoved the prod harder into his groin, and all York could do was scream and twitch, clutching the prod as everything from his waist down spasmed with pain. Sierka growled something at him, but York couldn’t really hear the words. He could hear the hum of the nerve prod, felt the pain slowly climbing up into his gut as Sierka turned the intensity up. The pain eventually reached York’s chest, then his arms, and by that time all he could do was lay on the deck and twitch while Sierka turned the intensity to maximum . . .
Tzecharra looked at Abraxa’s image, reminded herself to show no visible trace of the anger she felt. “We lost seventy-four ships, Your Grace.”
“A terrible price,” Abraxa said, “but it bought us needed time.”
You bastard, she wanted to shout. She had positioned the remnants of Third Fleet as if it were ready to engage the Kinathin armada, all in accordance with the plan of delaying the Kinathins with a bluff. It had worked. The Kinathins had pulled up short, paused for a full day to examine the situation and prepare a strategy. Then yesterday they’d moved to engage. And Tzecharra, according to plan, had prepared to withdraw, content with the small delay they’d purchased. But Abraxa had intervened at the last moment, ordered her to engage. She had actually shouted at him, and he had threatened her with court-martial to silence her. In the end he gave the orders and she obeyed them.
“It only bought us a few hours, Your Grace. I told you those ships weren’t battle ready. Many had no ordinance reserves, were completely out of ammunition within the first minutes of engagement. They massacred us. I think even the Kinathins were surprised.”
“Yes,” Abraxa said insincerely. “A high price, but the time we purchased was invaluable.”
“We didn’t purchase it, Your Grace. Please don’t include yourself among those who paid the price.”
Abraxa frowned. “Don’t be insubordinate, Captain. I hope you’re not going to give me more trouble. You and your ships still have work to do out there.”
She shook her head. “No, Your Grace. I’ll be no more trouble. I’m resigning my commission effective immediately. And so are all of the other officers of command rank here in Third Fleet, at least those who are still alive.” She leaned forward and pressed a switch on her console. “I’m transmitting our resignations en mass as we speak.”
“You can’t do that,” he shouted. “I won’t allow it.”
“It’s done,” she said emotionlessly, then leaned forward and cut the circuit.
CHAPTER 34: MORE ILLUSIONS
York didn’t want to wake up. It was easier to remain comatose, and a lot less painful. But they’d turned the lights up to maximum. And the cold, they’d dropped the temperature of his cell to somewhere between uncomfortable and damn cold.
He opened his eyes—correction, only one eye opened; the other was caked shut with dried blood. He wasn’t even sure if it was the real eye or the steel eye. And he wasn’t sure if the blood had come from his broken nose, or the deep gash on the bridge of his nose, or the cut over his eye, or who knew what else. He tried to get oriented. He was lying on his side on the deck of his cell somewhere in Luna Prime. They’d left him there after the last beating, how many days—hours ago, he didn’t know.
Sierka had certainly had his fun. Time and again he’d shown up at random intervals with a couple of AI thugs, and usually playing some sort of game they beat York senseless. The guards in the cell block had gotten into the act too: heating and cooling his cell to random extremes at random times; changing his gravity, sometimes cutting it off completely, at other times pinning him to the deck, or a wall, or the ceiling, with four or five gees; switching the lights on and off; feeding him food sometimes too cold sometimes too hot, all at random.
Sierka never asked any questions, never made any demands. This wasn’t an effort to extract information, was just a plain and simple death sentence, an execution. York understood that, understood he was going to die, understood they were going to make his death take as long as they could, and he no longer cared. He just wanted them to get it over with, though if the opportunity presented itself, he sure wouldn’t mind taking Sierka with him to hell.
York’s face had stuck in a puddle of dried blood, and when he peeled it off the deck he reopened several gashes. He remembered just in time not to lean on his broken arm, but he forgot about the torn ligaments in his knee and he made the mistake of putting weight on it, which dumped him back on his butt on the deck. He sat there for a while letting the pain recede. Eventually he managed to struggle onto his bunk, though he had to be careful to avoid getting tangled up in the wire-thin plast cables attached to his manacles. He’d lost control of his bladder while comatose and he stank.
He sat there for some indeterminate time, staring at the opposite bulkhead, and then the cables started retracting into the bulkhead behind him, another of the guard’s tricks. The thin plast cables attached to the manacles on his wrists could be retracted into the bulkhead under
control of the guards. And if he wasn’t careful, and let a limb tangle in one of the cables, they’d retract anyway, and those thin cables of plast would cut right through flesh and bone—slice an arm or leg off rather cleanly.
An agony of pain shot through his broken arm as the cables lifted him off his bunk, retracted fully into the bulkhead and left him hanging by his wrists. He tried to take all his weight in his good arm, to relieve some of the pain in the broken arm, but he was too weak, and he just hung there screaming, until, mercifully, he passed out.
“Wake up.”
A loud crack sounded in York’s ear. He hung there for a moment between shock and consciousness, then the crack sounded again and he realized he was hearing the sound of a flattened hand striking his face. He opened his eyes—correction, eye.
“Well, Ballin,” Sierka said, leering at him. “You don’t look so smart now.” He looked at someone and commanded, “Let him down.”
The cables began to reel out of the bulkhead, lowering York slowly to his bunk where he collapsed in a heap. He wondered what creative little trick Sierka had come up with this time. One of his favorites was to turn out the lights so York couldn’t see, then wearing night vision helmets he and the guards could have their fun, and York couldn’t even react to the next blow.
A shock of pain ran up his broken leg; he flinched, screamed, realized he’d passed out for a moment. “Stand up.”
York ignored him. It wouldn’t make any difference; whether he obeyed or not, they’d still have their fun.
“You’re nothing, Ballin. A tramp. A drunk. The lowest form of scum in the empire.” Sierka leaned over him. “You’re finally getting what you deserve, getting what you should have gotten long ago . . .” Sierka emphasized the statement with a kick to York’s ribs, then leaned down, working himself into a real tirade, leaned down so far his nose was only inches from York’s. “You and your ilk . . .”
York thought about his ilk: Maggie, Frank, Paris, Olin; all dead. And Maggie, hanging in a tank, not even given a decent burial in space. Sierka started ranting, shouting and kicking, then leaning close and shouting more. By now it was a familiar pattern, but this time York suddenly had an idea. He waited until Sierka leaned close one time, then lunged out and clamped his hands about Sierka’s throat.
Sierka gasped, croaked, “Get him off me.”
The two guards grabbed at York’s arms, tried to pry his fingers loose, and when that didn’t work they started beating him. But York had an advantage: he didn’t care. He focused his entire existence on his hands, on crushing Sierka’s throat, ignoring the pain in his broken arm, ignoring the desperate blows from the guards. Sierka was starting to turn blue, his eyes bulging outward in panic, and then one of the guards shouted, “Retract the manacles,” and the fear left Sierka’s face, was replaced with a grin. But Sierka didn’t realize that was exactly what York wanted.
He kept his grip on Sierka’s throat, let the cables retract until he felt a tug on one manacle, then he suddenly rolled over, let go of Sierka’s throat, quickly looped one of the cables about Sierka’s neck, then resumed his grip. Sierka didn’t realize what he’d done, grinned at him, thinking the cables would pull York off him, would save Sierka and pin York helplessly to the bulkhead. It wasn’t until the cables began lifting them both, and the noose around Sierka’s neck tightened, that he realized the trap York had sprung. “Stop!” Sierka croaked, and York squeezed tighter. “Stop the cables.”
Sierka started to turn blue again as the cables dragged them both up the wall, and only then did the guards realize His Lordship was about to be beheaded. One cable had looped badly around York’s arm. But he didn’t mind losing the arm since Sierka was going to lose his head.
They were almost all the way up now, and the cable was tightening around Sierka’s throat. Sierka thrashed about in blind panic, and while York was close to passing out, he held on to consciousness so he could watch the ass-hole die. He heard a crunch as the cable crushed Sierka’s voice box, then blood ran down his arms as the cable actually began to cut into his throat. All York wanted to see before he died was Sierka’s head rolling across the deck.
And then the cables suddenly stopped, and one of the guards produced a power knife, cut the cables, and both Sierka and York dropped to the deck. The guards pulled them apart just as a medical team arrived, and while the medical team worked on Sierka, the guards beat York into unconsciousness.
“You think you’re clever, don’t you?” Sierka’s voice was a grinding croak, and the scar that circled his neck was a livid pink. Clearly, the medics hadn’t been able to fully repair the damage to his voice box, and York took some satisfaction in that.
Sierka’s boot caught him in the cheek, but he was past caring. He just wanted them to get it over with. But then Sierka had no intention of being that kind.
Someone was dragging York—two someones—dragging him by the cable connecting his leg manacles, dragging him on his back down some corridor. The lights in the deck above flashed by him as if the lights were moving and he was stationary. But then a jolt reminded him of his broken legs, and he tried to forget the splintered bone jutting out through his thigh. He was getting close. Soon he would die no matter how hard they tried to keep him alive, and he prayed he wouldn’t have to wait long for that. He passed out again . . .
. . . He came to when they dropped him into a chair and his face slammed painfully down on the table in front of him. He passed out for a time, came to again with someone sounding official saying, “This court will come to order. Mister prosecutor. Read the charges into the log.”
Someone else, also sounding official, read out a long list of crimes. Then the first official asked, “How does the prisoner plead?”
Someone nudged York and growled in his ear, “Stand up and say ‘Not Guilty.’”
Both his arms were broken so he couldn’t lean on them to climb to his feet, and even if he could, both his legs were broken so he couldn’t stand, and even if he could his jaw was broken so he couldn’t speak. He managed to grunt something like, Uzusshuhhbuhh, then someone swatted him in the ribs—broken ribs—and he was too weak to even scream.
“Cut,” someone shouted, a very unofficial voice. “That’s enough. This just isn’t working.”
The voice was so out of place York made an attempt to open his eyes, got one opened, though he left his face resting on one cheek on the table. He was in a military court, very official, very correct, very proper, but this civilian in fashionable, but improper, attire marched right through the middle of it up to the justices, waving his hands. “This isn’t working at all. His Grace wants the empire to see a dangerously mad megalomaniac. And look at him. Whose idea was it to beat the poor fool into something resembling chopped protein cake? All we’re going to get on camera is pathetic, and that’s the last thing . . .”
York saw Alsa standing to one side and their eyes met. There were tears in her eyes. He lifted his face off the table, couldn’t really do more than make a quick scan of the room before his vision blurred; he closed his eyes and lowered his face back to the table.
He replayed the image in the darkness of his mind. Most of his officers were there, those still alive, standing silently in the prisoner’s box. And the empress was there, looking frightened; and the emperor, also frightened; and the d’Hart woman—more horrified and disgusted than frightened—
York felt unconsciousness coming on. He watched it approach and he welcomed it, hoping he wouldn’t have to return to the living.
York slammed awake as a wave of intense hatred washed through him, and he almost vomited. He stood up, stood amazingly on healthy and whole legs, bellowed at the top of his lungs a curse that frightened even him.
There was a face in front of him. He reached out, put his fingers around the throat, fingers that only moments ago had been broken and disfigured and were now whole and strong, and he squeezed with maniacal, vice-like strength. He felt the man’s voice box crush, the neck snap, and he kept s
creaming and squeezing, and everyone around him was screaming also. Then all his strength left him, and so did the anger, and he collapsed back into the chair.
“You’ll have to control him better than that,” that unofficial voice said into the stillness that followed.
York lay there, not paralyzed, but so overcome with a deep lethargy that he couldn’t move. But his eyes were open; he was conscious, and basically alert.
“Sorry,” someone answered. “I’m having trouble getting the signals calibrated. All the speed-healing and regrowth have really screwed up his neurotransmitters.”
Implants, he realized. They were controlling him through his implants and a neural probe. He couldn’t move but he could feel the weight of the small transceiver remote clipped behind his ear where it wouldn’t show on the cameras. Using it they could transmit signals directly into his cerebral cortex. He guessed it was also controlling an injector pack buried somewhere beneath his skin. With the right combination of neural signals and drugs they could control him nicely.
An AI security guard bent down over the fellow whose neck York had just broken, examined him carefully and stood up shaking his head.
“Damn it,” the first voice said. “Good vid-techs are expensive, and the insurance is going to run us way over budget.”
As two guards dragged the body away a woman stepped into view in front of York holding a small control unit in both hands. “Let me try again.” She made a few adjustments to her control unit, glanced at York and hesitated suspiciously, took a cautious step back, then pointed the unit at York and did something.
He was prepared in a way, had a vague idea of what to expect. Anger, hatred, fear, nausea, terror, lust—they all flushed through him. He was up out of the chair and already over the table screaming, “You fucking whooorrreeeeeeee!” reaching for her with only one thought in mind.
