by J. J. Green
But it didn’t matter any more. She didn’t want to go to Earth. All she wanted was for her brother to not die.
Cadwallader walked up to the group. “What’s the situation with the little lad?”
“They’re still working on him,” Bryce replied.
“We have the best medics with the best equipment,” Cadwallader said. “If he can be saved, they’ll save him.”
Parthenia started to sniff. “We shouldn’t have been so nice to Castiel. He was pretending all the time, planning on betraying us the first chance he got.”
“I told you we shouldn’t trust him,” said Ferne.
“I certainly won’t trust him again,” Parthenia said.
“You probably won’t get the chance,” said Bryce. “He won’t be getting off Ostillon for a while.”
“Yes he will,” Oriana said. “That corvette will go back for him.”
“Not any day soon,” said Cadwallader. “The corvette is sitting on our tail, just out of range of our cannons.”
“Waiting for a chance to get their leader back?” Bryce asked.
“So it appears.”
“That doesn’t matter,” said Ferne. “Darius can Cast Cloak and…oh.” He looked down.
There was a brief, uncomfortable silence.
“When Darius is better,” Oriana said carefully, “he can Cast Cloak on the Duchess and we can lose the nasty corvette.”
“What have you done with Sable Dirksen?” Carina asked.
“She’s on her way to the brig, of course,” replied Cadwallader. “Where did you think I would put her? She can swap stories with Lomang and his twin.”
Carina marched away from the sick bay.
“Where are you going, Lin?” Cadwallader called out after her.
A pair of mercs guiding an a-grav medi-bed came around the corner. Jace lay on it, finally awake. His hand lifted slightly at the sight of Carina but she didn’t acknowledge him.
She could talk to him later. She had a task to carry out.
“Lin!” came Cadwallader’s shout. “Answer me.”
Carina broke into a run, worried that Cadwallader would find a way to stop her.
She met a second medi-bed carrying Calvaley. He stared at the ceiling passing overhead, deep in thought.
Carina skirted around him and the mercs bringing him to the sick bay.
Years of living aboard the Duchess meant she knew its layout well. That was good. Cadwallader was smart. He would guess her intention.
She turned down a corridor. The new route to the brig would take her longer but she would approach it from the other direction, where she wouldn’t be expected.
She broke into a sweat though she was hardly panting. Everything that had happened was passing through her mind. Scenes she would never forget as long as she lived.
The odd soldier she passed simply stared at her.
Good. Cadwallader hadn’t put out a shipwide comm…yet.
She still had time.
She turned into the final corridor. Ahead lay the brig.
“Hey, Lin,” said the guard, cautiously. “I’m not supposed to let you in. Cadwallader’s orders.”
“That’s okay,” she replied. “I don’t want to go in.”
“I hate to refuse a fellow merc,” said the guard as she reached him. “But order’s orders.” He sounded relieved.
Carina peered over the man’s shoulder. “I know how it is. You don’t need to worry.”
The cell walls in the brig were transparent. In one cell Lomang sat on a bunk in his hateful hat, talking. His enormous brother sat at his feet like a child listening to a story.
In the other cell was Sable Dirksen.
Sable stood facing the transparent wall, looking out. She’d seen Carina. As her eyes met Carina’s, the color drained from her face.
“I don’t need to go in,” Carina explained to the guard .
She sipped elixir from the reservoir in her suit, and closed her eyes.
“Wait,” the man said. “What are you doing?”
As she had done since she was a little girl, more times than she could remember, she wrote a character in her mind. With a feeling of joyful relief she sent it out.
“Stop,” said the guard. “You aren’t supposed to do that.”
Carina opened her eyes and smiled. “And yet, I did.”
She looked at Sable’s cell. It was empty.
Lomang had stopped talking. He was staring at Carina, his mouth a dark hole filled with shiny teeth. His younger brother looked puzzled. He stood up and walked to the wall of their cell, peering into Sable’s.
Sable Dirksen was floating about three meters outside the Duchess’s hull—just three meters, but it would make all the difference. Air was forcing its way out of her lungs, bursting through tissue and bone, sinew and vein, to erupt in a bloody, bubbly fountain. Her skin was freezing. The saliva in her mouth was boiling and evaporating into the void. Within minutes she would be dead.
Carina’s only regret was that it would all be over too quickly.
“Dammit, Lin!” Cadwallader yelled as he came running up. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
He ran to Sable’s cell, looked inside, and then turned back to Carina. “You do not have the right to execute prisoners!”
Carina shrugged and walked away.
“The Dirksens already hated us,” he shouted. “Now they’ll hunt down everyone on this ship. You’ve signed a death warrant for us all!”
Carina continued to walk away.
Cadwallader’s yelling faded. She wandered, not knowing where she was going.
Then something snapped.
She found she couldn’t move any farther.
When Bryce arrived, she was sitting against the corridor wall, staring into the middle distance, unable to think, unable to feel. She had a feeling Bryce might have been comming her for a while but she wasn’t sure.
All she knew was that she had killed Sable Dirksen in cold blood, and that she had enjoyed it.
He squatted down. “Carina, why didn’t you answer me?” he asked gently.
She could only look at him.
“I wanted to tell you the good news. Darius is going to be okay.”
The dam broke.
Carina collapsed into his arms.
She clung to him for a long time. She didn’t know how long. Eventually, she found she could speak again.
“What am I, Bryce? What have I become?”
CARINA’S STORY CONTINUES IN...
ACCURSED SPACE
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Copyright © March 2020 J.J. Green
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the publisher or author. The exception would be in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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